Ideal Types

In the study of history Weber stated social actions could be typed into average categories of behaviors. These are called ideal types or typical behavior of people. Scholars to understand what is happening use ideal types. The problems are both individual behavior deviates from the norm, but more importantly ideal types assume rational decision making by the people involved. Because of faulty information and we are not truly rational we make serious errors in judgment. There will always emerge unforeseen consequences that we are forced to react too. Thus, the corrupting elements are temporally put to one side to set up our model. This model is then compared to empirical reality with all its corrupting elements. The strength of the model is how close the ideal type matches our findings.  How far we miss the mark demands continual readjustment of the model, thus a sociologist job is never done.