With continuous variables, logical OR equals the maximum observed value

Evidence

How would the analyst differentiate negative cases from irrelevant cases in this kind of design? Drawing on Ragin’s (2000) work on fuzzyset analysis, we can formulate a general rule. If one is testing to determine whether a series of variables coded from zero to one are jointly sufficient for an outcome, then one should apply the AND-to-OR replacement rule. In fuzzy-set analysis, OR is implemented by taking the maximum value of the independent variables. For example, if the variable scores for a given case are .17, .33, .33, and .67, then the case receives an overall score of .67, since this is the highest value of the independent variables. In short, there is no problem in applying the AND-to-OR rule with continuous variables: OR is defined as the maximum. — Gary Goertz, Social Science Concepts, 1189

Categorization

• DEFINE: Explains how to operationalize the OR operator for continuous fuzzy-set data.
• XREF: Connects to fuzzy-set QCA and Ragin’s work on set-theoretic analysis.