British Journal of Social Psychology (2013) © 2013 The British Psychological Society www.wileyonlinelibrary.com Transitivity analysis: A framework for the study of social values in the context of points of view Stavroula Tsirogianni 1* and Gordon Sammut 2 1 Methodology Department, London School of Economics, London, UK 2 Department of Psychology, Faculty of Education, University of Malta, Malta Since its inception, psychology has struggled with issues of conceptualization and operationalization of social-psychological phenomena. The study of social values and points of view has been prone to such difficulties, despite a predominant concern of qualitative distinctions in the variability of both of these phenomena across different individuals and social groups. And while interest in both traces a common origin in Rokeach’s studies of narrow mindedness, the study of both phenomena has since proceeded apace. In this study, we posit a renewed reconciliation between the two that is best served through a social-psychological model of points of view in terms of the values that inspire them. We draw on critical linguistics to propose a theoretical and methodological framework that can aid a systematic study of value structures as they take different forms and meanings through particular types of points of view. In five stages of qualitative analysis, the model deconstructs utterances into distinct terms that reveal a predominant perspective-taking style that can be utilized towards the categorization of different points of view, in terms of values that imbue them and that serve to provide them with a coherent angle of constructing a particular narrative. Methodological procedures provide psychology with its scientific pedigree and enable it to make claims to knowledge (Jovchelovitch, 2007). Methodological principles, however, have been subject to extensive debate among scholars over the years. Few have proven more contentious than the conceptualization and operationalization of mental phenom- ena. These two processes provide the bedrock for much inductive research that has come to dominate the psychological sciences. This method of doing psychology, however, is not without its problems (see Toomela & Valsiner, 2010). In particular, the translation of a concept into an operationalized variable is prone to a phenomenological error where the observed measure no longer effectively represents the original phenomenon of inquiry, such that the ensuing variable may either emerge as a measurement artefact or a different phenomenon altogether. There is perhaps no better example of this in psychology than the measurement of closed (or narrow) mindedness. In this study, we advance an analytical framework that aims at overcoming some of the issues associated with this construct. To start, we recognize qualitative differences between different points of view. We argue that differences in points of view preclude the unilinear measurement of mental states on a single quantitative continuum that has come to dominate the study of closed/open mindedness. *Correspondence should be addressed to Stavroula Tsirogianni, Methodology Department, London School of Economics, Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE, UK (e-mail: s.tsirogianni@lse.ac.uk). Both authors contributed equally to the paper. DOI:10.1111/bjso.12047 1