....... lots of books were written "proving " Piaget was correct. lots of psychologists doing lots of experiments on french kids. but it was all total crap. the kids said whatever the adults wanted to hear ..........
Lots of books have been written "proving" scientific things that have later turned out to be wrong. That's...kind of how science works, iteratively.
If psychology wasn't science, we'd never have found out Piaget was "wrong". (Though he studied many things and had various stages to his theories, so I'm not sure what precisely you're dismissing!)
Edit: Of course he wasn't very scientific sometimes But the people who disproved some of his stuff were...
Have we mentioned the falsification principle? That is one measure of scientific method that I doubt psychology adheres to rigorously.
Doesn't mean it doesn't work - it's just that new theories are likely to be adopted because they work better than the old ones, not because the old theories have been falsified.
I thought that was what we were discussing? It's going to be a short thread if we assume it's a science to begin with... oh well, never mind.
It's a very silly thread when people assume it isn't scientific yet don't know what they're talking about - whether that's psychology, science, or both.
Have we mentioned the falsification principle? That is one measure of scientific method that I doubt psychology adheres to rigorously.
Doesn't mean it doesn't work - it's just that new theories are likely to be adopted because they work better than the old ones, not because the old theories have been falsified.
Collective unconscious, psyche etc.
I think you are right in that theory statements about say, even depression, are not really falsifiable at this time, because we don't know for certain what depression is. We can describe subjective behaviors that appear to be depression, and treat them as best we can.
In part it depends which approach to psychology is used.
I would class it as a 'social science' - I graduated from university with a BSc, from the School of Psychology which was part of the Social Sciences.
It attempts to use scientific methods to study human behaviour (empirical evidence, data collection, hypotheses developed from theories and controlled experiments and observations used to test hypotheses, statistical methods used to interpret results). It aims to predict behaviour, and to use scientifically valid and replicable studies.
It's more subjective than many of the sciences though. Although researchers should remain objective and do try to, there are many factors influencing human emotion, behaviour, etc, different factors interact, there's not always easy right/wrong answers, and different approaches favour different explanations. Biological Psychology, Cognitive Psychology etc are more clearly 'science' than Psychodynamic approaches and Social Psychology, although they do attempt to use scientific methods (social psychology at least...I don't know about psychodynamic theories, they're really not an approach I like).
In part it depends which approach to psychology is used.
I would class it as a 'social science' - I graduated from university with a BSc, from the School of Psychology which was part of the Social Sciences.
It attempts to use scientific methods to study human behaviour (empirical evidence, data collection, hypotheses developed from theories and controlled experiments and observations used to test hypotheses, statistical methods used to interpret results). It aims to predict behaviour, and to use scientifically valid and replicable studies.
It's more subjective than many of the sciences though. Although researchers should remain objective and do try to, there are many factors influencing human emotion, behaviour, etc, different factors interact, there's not always easy right/wrong answers, and different approaches favour different explanations. Biological Psychology, Cognitive Psychology etc are more clearly 'science' than Psychodynamic approaches and Social Psychology, although they do attempt to use scientific methods (social psychology at least...I don't know about psychodynamic theories, they're really not an approach I like).
This is a good sum-up. Some who practice psycho-dynamic therapy say it has more long term evidence. CBT is good but I don't know how well it has been studied long term.
If science is defined as 'The intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural'
There is a lot of academic snobbery surrounding "science" from those who want "science" to remain solely for the definition of chemistry and physics and who will take any opportunity to defend themselves against what they see as an outside attack and potential watering down of their academically superior subjects.
There is a lot of academic snobbery surrounding "science" from those who want "science" to remain solely for the definition of chemistry and physics and who will take any opportunity to defend themselves against what they see as an outside attack and potential watering down of their academically superior subjects.
Isn't it one of the Mickey Mouse degrees along with Meeja Studies, Drama, and History of Art? :rolleyes:
No, people who study these things rarely use them, especially the last two however many people with psychology degrees use them in their career. People become clinical, forensic, educational and developmental psychologists, neuropsychologists etc or they go into other things like advertising and business, . Some become teachers, psychology is a very important subject and is used by a lot of other careers. Businesses use some aspects of psychology to learn different management styles and how to work with different clients, police and healthcare workers need to learn these skills too and how to work with certain people and spot signs that someone may be mentally ill so they can be referred for help.
Yes I think it is a science, although some areas are more scientific than others, e.g.biological psych, neuropsychology and neuroscience, cognitive, developmental but even other areas use scientific methods, eg forensic and social. If you take the time to read a psychology paper published in a journal, you will see it is very scientific, with a clear hypothesis, method and results as well as intro and discussions to explain the reasons why the experiment was carried out and what the results may mean.the journals tend to be peer reviewed to ensure it is a decent scientific study and to make sure the author includes enough detail so the study can be replicated, and large sample sizes are often used where possible to ensure it wasn't just a fluke or not and statistics are used to see whether the result is statistically significant.
Well the thing is I know that psychology is the study of mental behaviour and functions. And for the most part mental behaviours and functions are extremely hard to measure, predict, reproduce and test. Which is kind of essential in science.
Therefore, I have come to the conclusion that although many areas of psychology are scientific, as a whole it is based on the study of areas (e.g emotions), which cannot be (at present time) accurately and reliably measured, reproduced or tested, so it is not a pure science in the way physics, for example, is.
For example, what is happiness? How do you measure happiness? How do you detect happiness? How do you produce happiness? How much happiness do we need? How much happiness can we feel? Can we feel too much happiness?
Now if you asked me the same questions about haemoglobin I could tell you every single answer, and they would be proven facts.
I agree its difficult to define happiness but you can measure happiness by asking the person to say on a scale from 1-10 how happy they are, you can induce different moods on people by showing happy/sad video, play happy or sad music, ask the person to recall a happy or sad event etc and then test them using the method above and then see how their mood affects behaviour, performance in a task etc, the how much happiness do we need is a stupid question tbh as everybody needs different amounts, just like different people require different dosages of drugs, different amounts of food etc.
In part it depends which approach to psychology is used.
I would class it as a 'social science' - I graduated from university with a BSc, from the School of Psychology which was part of the Social Sciences.
It attempts to use scientific methods to study human behaviour (empirical evidence, data collection, hypotheses developed from theories and controlled experiments and observations used to test hypotheses, statistical methods used to interpret results). It aims to predict behaviour, and to use scientifically valid and replicable studies.
It's more subjective than many of the sciences though. Although researchers should remain objective and do try to, there are many factors influencing human emotion, behaviour, etc, different factors interact, there's not always easy right/wrong answers, and different approaches favour different explanations. Biological Psychology, Cognitive Psychology etc are more clearly 'science' than Psychodynamic approaches and Social Psychology, although they do attempt to use scientific methods (social psychology at least...I don't know about psychodynamic theories, they're really not an approach I like).
A very good summary of the facts, I would say. I too have a BSc in psychology and I agree very much with this post.
Comments
If psychology wasn't science, we'd never have found out Piaget was "wrong". (Though he studied many things and had various stages to his theories, so I'm not sure what precisely you're dismissing!)
Edit: Of course he wasn't very scientific sometimes
Doesn't mean it doesn't work - it's just that new theories are likely to be adopted because they work better than the old ones, not because the old theories have been falsified.
Collective unconscious, psyche etc.
Of course it adheres to it - otherwise it wouldn't be science!
I thought that was what we were discussing? It's going to be a short thread if we assume it's a science to begin with... oh well, never mind.
It's a very silly thread when people assume it isn't scientific yet don't know what they're talking about - whether that's psychology, science, or both.
I think you are right in that theory statements about say, even depression, are not really falsifiable at this time, because we don't know for certain what depression is. We can describe subjective behaviors that appear to be depression, and treat them as best we can.
I would class it as a 'social science' - I graduated from university with a BSc, from the School of Psychology which was part of the Social Sciences.
It attempts to use scientific methods to study human behaviour (empirical evidence, data collection, hypotheses developed from theories and controlled experiments and observations used to test hypotheses, statistical methods used to interpret results). It aims to predict behaviour, and to use scientifically valid and replicable studies.
It's more subjective than many of the sciences though. Although researchers should remain objective and do try to, there are many factors influencing human emotion, behaviour, etc, different factors interact, there's not always easy right/wrong answers, and different approaches favour different explanations. Biological Psychology, Cognitive Psychology etc are more clearly 'science' than Psychodynamic approaches and Social Psychology, although they do attempt to use scientific methods (social psychology at least...I don't know about psychodynamic theories, they're really not an approach I like).
This is a good sum-up. Some who practice psycho-dynamic therapy say it has more long term evidence. CBT is good but I don't know how well it has been studied long term.
If science is defined as 'The intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural'
There is a lot of academic snobbery surrounding "science" from those who want "science" to remain solely for the definition of chemistry and physics and who will take any opportunity to defend themselves against what they see as an outside attack and potential watering down of their academically superior subjects.
It's like when they reclassified BEds as BAs or BScs. No one is convinced it has the academic clout.
Hah
Not if you want to be a psychologist.
No, people who study these things rarely use them, especially the last two however many people with psychology degrees use them in their career. People become clinical, forensic, educational and developmental psychologists, neuropsychologists etc or they go into other things like advertising and business, . Some become teachers, psychology is a very important subject and is used by a lot of other careers. Businesses use some aspects of psychology to learn different management styles and how to work with different clients, police and healthcare workers need to learn these skills too and how to work with certain people and spot signs that someone may be mentally ill so they can be referred for help.
I agree its difficult to define happiness but you can measure happiness by asking the person to say on a scale from 1-10 how happy they are, you can induce different moods on people by showing happy/sad video, play happy or sad music, ask the person to recall a happy or sad event etc and then test them using the method above and then see how their mood affects behaviour, performance in a task etc, the how much happiness do we need is a stupid question tbh as everybody needs different amounts, just like different people require different dosages of drugs, different amounts of food etc.
A very good summary of the facts, I would say. I too have a BSc in psychology and I agree very much with this post.