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Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann, THE PUBLIC AS PROPHET: FINDINGS FROM CONTINUOUS SURVEY RESEARCH AND THEIR IMPORTANCE FOR EARLY DIAGNOSIS OF ECONOMIC GROWTH, International Journal of Public Opinion Research, Volume 1, Issue 2, SUMMER 1989, Pages 136–150, https://doi.org/10.1093/ijpor/1.2.136
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Abstract
Ever since Descartes, the scientific process has been portrayed as including an initial hypothesis, followed by a study of the hypothesis and, finally, by confirmation or refutation of the hypothesis. The following essay illustrates a different scholarly process, familiar especially to natural scientists but now also gaining ground in the social sciences, as the data available to empirical social research grows: initially, there is a puzzle, an observation which cannot be explained by familiar scientific rules. This triggers a search for explanations, which, when they are successful, result in new knowledge and new theories. The case reported here involves the as yet inexplicable connection between the new year's mood of the German population, as measured at the end of the old year, and the real growth of the gross national product in the following year.
