Comparing QoL and Social Quality Across Cultures: A Diagrammatic Approach

The main objective of the chapter is a plea for the utilization of diagrams as medium for comparative, intertheoretical, and intercultural research on quality of life (QoL) and addiction. Diagrams not only illustrate research results for a broader audience, but they are a powerful instrument for the reduction of complex data in graphs and tables creating “epistemic things” representing reality. However, they are also a medium and instrument of theoretical thinking, of “sensemaking” and “externalizing thought”, and of communicating and collaborating with other researchers. Diagrams, in the sense considered here, can be hands-on tools in the here and now of comparative research bridging between diverse research fields like QoL and addiction. The present chapter introduces first steps toward a Comparative Diagrammatic Framework (CoDiF) providing a common ground and demonstrating some basic concepts (Sect. 4.2). The framework employs the semiotics of Charles S. Peirce, social phenomenology, network theory, and systems theory as underlying theoretical background. The diagrammatic approach is then applied to models of QoL (Sect. 4.3) and expanded to social quality (SocQ) and strategies of intervention (Sect. 4.4). The framework is further developed in an application to addiction research (Sect. 4.5) offering a basic approach to the classification of addictions.