2020/05/06 by Christoph Becker, Becker, Christoph
Business, Management and Accounting · Computer Science · Decision Sciences · Psychology · #Behavioral economics #Cognition #Construction Project Management and Performance #Descriptive research #Economics #Epistemology #Fallacy #Innovation and Knowledge Management #Normative #Open Source Software Innovations #Philosophy #Positive economics #Psychology #Social psychology #Social science #Sociology #cs.SE
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2005.03084
published in arXiv (Cornell University) (Cornell University) · Preprint under review with IEEE Software
arxiv created 2020/05/06 · openalex publication_date 2020/05/06 · arxiv updated 2020/05/08 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Behavioral research can provide important insights for SE practices. But in performing it, many studies of SE are committing a normative fallacy - they misappropriate normative and prescriptive theories for descriptive purposes. The evidence from reviews of empirical studies of decision making in SE suggests that the normative fallacy may is common. This article draws on cognitive psychology and behavioral economics to explains this fallacy. Because data collection is framed by narrow and empirically invalid theories, flawed assumptions baked into those theories lead to misleading interpretations of observed behaviors and ultimately, to invalid conclusions and flawed recommendations. Researchers should be careful not to rely solely on engineering methods to explain what people do when they do engineering. Instead, insist that descriptive research be based on validated descriptive theories, listen carefully to skilled practitioners, and only rely on validated findings to prescribe what they should do.