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Pitfalls of appropriating prestigious theories to frame conceptual arguments

Researchers are often encouraged to shape an existing theoretical framework around their arguments to make them more convincing to readers. This can improve the coherence of their narratives and better ground them in existing literature. However, overarching theoretical frameworks can in many cases serve to insulate the author’s unique and presumably novel arguments from criticism concerning omitted variables and ambiguous causal direction. After discussing reasons authors appropriate external theoretical frameworks into their papers I suggest that relying on a small number of prestigious overarching theories as explanatory, rather than simply organizational frameworks may have subtle and pernicious influences on inquiry by (a) restricting the boundaries of the phenomena that are considered relevant, (b) introducing barriers to changing or supplanting theories, (c) biasing estimation of relationships due to omitted variables, (d) encouraging authors to exclude contradictory evidence and insights from their narratives, and (e) limiting how scholars evaluate theoretical contributions.