Comparison immediate world would show that people and events are connected in a network of relationships. These relationships may be close or emotionally bound as in a family, or as the network expands in the course of our daily lives, professional or impersonal.
These relationships or Inter connectedness, however, may show a regularity, a pattern or a daily-ness, and may also themselves be regulated by norms and rules e.g. the daily route of the bus, its departure and arrival timings etc.
The idea here is to show that whereas each individual might be seen as having a specific daily routine, there is at the same time a cumulative or aggregate effect, where a number of such individuals may be seen as following a similar routine.
The lives of these individuals, we can say, has a pattern of regularity, which is comparable in terms of their similarity. Now, when the similarities can be clubbed together, irregularities or dissimilarities can also be easily picked out.
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Explanations for both similarities and dissimilarities can also be made after exploring the commonalities and variations in the conditions of their lives. In order to illustrate this let us imagine a residential colony.
The majorities of the male residents leave for work by a chartered bus at in the morning and return at in the evening. Some residents, however, leave at in the morning, in their respective cars, and return at in the evening.
The residents of the colony thus form roughly two groups displaying two kinds of patterns of behavior. Explanations for both Similarities within each group and dissimilarities between the two groups can be found by comparing individual situations or conditions in each group. While explanations for Similarities can be seen the commonalities in the conditions, explanations of irregularity or dissimilarities between groups can be explained in terms of absence of conditions which permit the similarity in one group e.g., it may be found that those who travel by bus have a lot of things in common besides going to their offices in the chartered bus such as same office, absence of personal vehicles, more or less similar position status in the office, location of offices on the same route .
Those who travel by their cars, would likewise exhibit similarities of conditions within their group. The explanation for the different patterns between the groups can be seen in terms of the absence of conditions which permit similarities in the two groups e.g., the car group residents may be going to different offices which do not fall on the same bus route; they may be the only ones owning cars; their status in their offices may be higher etc. The explanations could be numerous and based also on numerous other variables like caste, gender, political beliefs etc.
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On the- basis of this observation of similarities and dissimilarities, propositions can thus be made in terms of a causal-relationship e.g. men/women who drive to work do so because there are no chartered buses to their place of work or men/women who own private vehicles are more likely to drive to work than those who do not own vehicles or upper class women are more likely to drive to work etc.