Is Psychology a Science? Essay

There is much debate as to whether Psychology can be regarded as a ‘science’. According to the Oxford Dictionary of Psychology (Coleman, 2009) Psychology can be defined as the ‘scientific study of human behaviour and cognitive processes.’ Science is generally defined as the ‘systematic way or method of obtaining knowledge’ (Merriam-Webster, 2008). When we think of science, we think of Biology, Chemistry and Physics. Psychology is often thought of as just ‘common sense’, however many of the perspectives in Psychology such as Biological, Behaviourist and Cognitive assert that they are scientific. There are other perspectives in Psychology such as Psychodynamic theory and Humanist which are considered to be non-scientific.

Psychology can be presented by the media in forms such as magazine or newspaper articles, and the most popular today is through commercials watched on TV. Psychology is presented in a form of science today compared to what it was viewed as in the late 1800s and onto the 1900s. It is more of a science nature because viewers have to think about the meaning of the article or commercial to understand the message that is being presented. Then, psychology was viewed as a form or common sense. Psychology was never really looked at as a science but rather as philosophy in the 1980s. The public was often confused with the subject of psychology because it was always

There has been an ongoing debate on whether psychology is indeed scientific, although recent, psychology is now considered a science. This is because it uses scientific methodology in researching, devising treatments and measuring the outcomes. These methods include collecting and analysing data and concluding their findings in order to identify whether the research or treatment adequality solves the problem. Scientific studies must be replicable, this means the if repeated exactly the same, the results should produce an identical outcome. Replicability can be increased by ruling out any alternatives that may not have originally been thought of. Objectivity in science is the idea that scientist, in an attempt to get the best results, must first

In this essay I am looking at where Psychology as a discipline has come from and what affects these early ideas have had on psychology today, Psychology as a whole has stemmed from a number of different areas of study from Physics to Biology,

In Kim’s 1992 publication he argued that is mental properties are multiply realized then they essentially cannot be casual properties and therefore, they cannot be scientific. From this notion, he cannot allow there to be psychological laws nor can there be any kind of psychological theory either. Kim think that we can anticipate that there are many distinct and local psych theories. There will be several psychologies, one for human, one for aliens, one for elephants and so on. He concludes that it is impossible to have one psychological theory that reins over all species. Kim substantiates that only laws of physics can be universally applied to everything. He also states that economics, biology, chemistry and sociology will fall prey to the same faults as psychology does. It seems that to respond to Kim we must consider a multitude of scientific and philosophical issues.

This essay examines the advantages and disadvantages of using a method primarily for gathering research on human subjects that can be examined for later use. It will give a basic outline of the methods of investigation, their uses and their suitability. I will also look at the scientific method as a whole and examine the criticisms of this method using the writings of Hume and Popper.

Psychology is a science that is normally subjected to an argument. There is also criticism of psychology has not been around long enough to develop a standard, or had established a system of ideas that has been accepted by most specialists in the public, and also lacks the important characteristics of a science. Psychology has roots in other fields including the non-scientific disciplines such as philosophy, which makes it even harder to classify it with the traditional science such as biology and chemistry.

Psychology is the scientific “study of the mind” (Gross, 2015) and behaviour, which includes the study of humans and animals. There are various approaches in modern psychology. A theoretical approach is a perspective which is someone’s view about human behaviour, there can be many different theories within an approach, however they all piece together the same assumptions. (McLeod, 2007). A theory is an attempt by theorists to try to explain behaviour. Theories are not facts but can be verified by testing. Theories can then be evaluated which I aim to achieve through this essay, where I will briefly explain the theoretical approaches in psychology and aim to focus on an analysis of each perspective which consists of the psychodynamic,

Early on, the social science, including psychology cannot be consider scientific, with an argument that it is social. This was proven wrong, as Jared Diamond (1987) poses the disparity of soft science, including the domain of social science, and hard science, including the domain of natural sciences. To sum up, the two uses varying level of operationalization – thus making the field of social science scientific.

Many centuries have passed and a majority of the public still rejects the belief that psychology is not a science, however, there are many points made in How to Think Straight about Psychology that supports the idea that psychology is, in fact, a science. It first begins with the problem that Freud created; ultimately making theories with no science-based evidence which I think made the science and subject of psychology begin with a bad start. Stanovich explains in this chapter that, because there are multiple fields of psychology, it doesn’t make much sense to put them all in the same category. The public was not clearly seeing one important characteristic of psychology that made it a science: “the main search for psychologists was to completely understand human behavior by using the methods of science.” (p. 2) I am convinced that, because psychologists were

The excerpt from “How to Think Straight about Psychology” by Keith E. Stanovich discusses many things about misconceptions and ideas that people have about psychology. One of the major points Stanovich made in this excerpt was the fact that psychology is such a broad subject that it's hard to find a common ground between all the different kinds of psychology. The one thing that does bring them all together is the fact that they all use the “scientific method to understand behavior.” (p 18) In this excerpt Stanovich refutes some folk wisdom's that have been associated with psychology. An example of some would be “opposites always attract” and “children bring happiness to their parents.” He speaks of the importance of replication for the scientific process and about how many people are drawn to psychology because of how it refutes things people once thought were “common sense.”

Jaegwon Kim thinks that multiple realizability of mental properties would bring about the conclusion that psychology is most likely not a science. Several functionalists, specially, Fodor, take up the opposing stance to Kim, supporting that the multiple realizability of mental states is one of the reasons why psychology is an autonomous and justifiable science. Essentially, Kim think that in order for mental states to be multiply realizable then psychology must be fundamentally broken; with human psychology encompassing properties realized for humans and alien psychology encompassing those mental states realized in the alien way etc. I will demonstrate that even if one supports and allows the principles behind Kim’s argument they do not result in his final conclusion of psychology failing to be a science. By attacking his principle of Casual Individuation of Kinds I will show that Kim has failed to find the correct conclusion. Furthermore, I will consider a possible objection that Kim might have to my stance and give a short rebuttle. I will conclude by explicating Jerry Fodor’s account of what is Kim’s essential problem is. By showing that Kim’s conclusion fails it will entail that Fodor’s conclusion is more viable in reality.

Authored by Keith E. Stanovich, How to Think Straight About Psychology is a known work of the psychology world which was published in 1986. Beginning courses in psychology use his text frequently. Stanovich primary purpose for writing the text is to bring attention to his observation that the public’s understanding of psychology is different from psychology as a modern science. Psychology as a modern science explains the underlying functions that shape human attitudes and behavior. To the people who misunderstand this, the field of psychology is not a real science, but a pseudo-science instead. How to Think Straight About Psychology describes people’s several false impressions of psychology and it gives its readers a factual understanding of the field as a modern and scientific psychology while explaining how this science works.

But the basis for psychology is predominantly objective and mimic natural sciences. Descartes attempted to keep his methods purely scientific, which has only strengthened the argument that purely quantitative, empirical methods are the best way to discover information. This is damaging to psychology and other social sciences, as some things are better understood and represented with other methods. Psychology is still stuck within this dogma, something that can be traced back to Descartes’ dualism.

Is psychology a science? How does it differ from the traditional sciences? How is it similar?