Where does triangulation collide?

In social research, triangulation is the strategy of combining multiple methods, data sources, theories, or investigators to study one phenomenon, on the logic that findings converging from independent approaches are more trustworthy than any single one. Denzin's The Research Act named and systematised these types of triangulation (data, investigator, theory, and methodological). The referent is a validation strategy in inquiry (a metaphor borrowed from surveying), not an actual net of measured angles or a family's emotional pattern.[1]

Unit

The convergence (or divergence) of findings across independent methods or sources

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Assessed by comparing results obtained through different methods, data sources, investigators, or theories

In Bowen family systems theory, triangulation is the process by which a tense two-person relationship draws in a third person to absorb or stabilise the anxiety, forming a triangle that eases the immediate strain while entrenching the underlying conflict. Bowen's Family Therapy in Clinical Practice develops the triangle as the basic building block of an emotional system. The referent is a relational pattern among people, unrelated to a geodetic angle net or a research design beyond the shared geometric image.[2]

Unit

A three-person emotional configuration that redistributes tension

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Identified clinically by tracking how anxiety in a dyad recruits and shifts onto a third party

In surveying and geodesy, triangulation fixes the horizontal positions of points by measuring the angles of a connected network of triangles anchored to one precisely measured baseline, so that every other side can be computed trigonometrically and coordinates propagated across a region. Torge's Geodesy describes the classical triangulation networks that framed national surveys. The referent is a geometric positioning method on the Earth (historically the original meaning, from which the research-methods and family-systems uses were metaphorically borrowed), measured in coordinates rather than converging findings or family triangles.[3]

Unit

Computed horizontal positions of network points, in coordinates (metres)

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Observed by measuring the angles of triangles from a known baseline and solving the network, typically by least squares

In urban design, triangulation refers to an external stimulus, such as a performer or sculpture, that gives strangers in a public space a reason to talk. This meaning comes from Whyte (1980) in The social life of small urban spaces.[4]

Unit

Recovery means

Measured by