Typology

Typology is a system for grouping phenomena into types according to selected shared features. It makes complex cases easier to compare while depending on which features are chosen.

Classification: The process of organizing entities into groups according to shared properties. Typology is a form of classification that organizes cases into named types.
Typological method: An approach that compares cases by assigning them to analytically defined types. It turns typology into a practical method for organizing and comparing evidence.
Personality typology: A system that groups people into personality types based on selected psychological traits. It applies type-based grouping to recurring patterns in personality.
Nominal classification: A system that assigns observations to named categories without implying an order among them. It highlights typologies that sort cases without ranking their types.
Type: A category defined by features shared by its members. Each typology consists of types distinguished by selected features.
Multidimensional scaling: A family of methods that represents similarities among objects as distances in a low-dimensional space. It can reveal patterns of similarity that inform the boundaries between types.
Linguistic typology: The comparative study of languages through recurring structural features. It groups languages by grammatical patterns, such as word order.
Continuum: A range of values in which differences vary gradually rather than forming discrete categories. A continuum challenges typologies when cases fall between apparently distinct types.
Taxonomy: A structured classification system that organizes entities into ranked or nested groups. Unlike many typologies, taxonomies commonly arrange categories in a hierarchy.
Cluster analysis: A set of methods for grouping observations by similarity across measured features. It offers a data-driven way to discover groups that a typology might name.

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