Initiated by the late Louis E. Guttman, Facet Theory (FT) has been developed as a comprehensive research strategy for the social and behavioral sciences. FT integrates formal design of empirical observations, with intrinsic data analysis procedures, such as the Guttman Scale, Multiple Scaling by Partial-Order Scalogram Analysis, Smallest Space Analysis/Multidimensional Scaling, and Unfolding, for the discovery of lawfulness in complex systems.

For complex behavioral systems, characterized by multitudes of interacting variables, FT offers unique procedures to meet major challenges of the behavioral sciences such as how to sample a balanced set of observational variables from a content universe under study that comprises innumerable variables; and how to infer the structure of the content universe from multivariate but finite empirical data.

Facet theory has been successfully applied in many disciplines such as psychology, education, sociology, political science, criminology, social work, business administration and the life sciences. It has contributed to theory construction in research domains such as marketing, information systems, the study of values, system and team dynamics, network studies, distributive justice and many more. Discoveries in areas of application have, in turn, contributed to FT as a meta-theory for behavioral cumulative science.