Lazarsfeld demanded introspection plus scientific rigor from social researchers

Evidence

Only a researcher who is so close to the problem in his own life that he only needs to practise introspection to be able to produce a conceptual and methodological apparatus, and who in spite of this personal involvement possesses the scientific brutality to translate this experience into data and formulae which can be checked, or at least into statements on suspected connections which are in principle accessible to that kind of presentationonly a researcher such as this can help to make the problems of the various forms of adolescence noticeably less opaque than they are at present. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 678