WHAT IS A MODEL?

One way of thinking about a model is that it is and does a number of useful things:

1. It is a representation of a complex phenomenon, whether in the natural world, in intellectual constructs, in social life, in individual behavior, or in another context.
2. It reduces a complex phenomenon in a way that makes it is easier to understand, discuss, and compare to others.
3. It identifies the most salient parts of the phenomenon in question.
4. It describes the important relationships among these salient parts.
5. The great strength of a model, its reduction of complexity, is also its greatest weakness - keep in mind that models are reductionist by definition.
6. Do not reify the model. The model, in one sense, is not real; rather it describes what is real.

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