Debates in psychology Is psychology a science?

What you need to know: Describe the debate over what science is, including how far psychology fits the definition Evaluate whether psychology should be called a science, including where ethnocentrism and cultural relativity fit.

Psychology and scientific subject matter Consider the following questions Are the subjects of psychology scientific? Are the methods scientific?

Term explanation example Hypothesis writing Drawing an idea from something and making a statement about what is then expected from it Noticing lots of white swans ,hypothesis: all swans are white Empirical testing Testing the idea against reality Looking at lots of swans and checking that they are white falsification Trying to prove a hypothesis is false You can only prove that they are not all white not that they are all white reductionism Reducing complex issues to small parts The actions of a drug are focused on a small part of the brain controls Reducing bias by controlling variables Biases include experimenter effects, situational and participant variables and wider issues eg ethnocentrism.

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To be scientific Research needs to be Objective Falsifiable Replicable

Psychology and science Falsifiability – inferential stats indicate the extent to which our results are due to chance and not a real difference/relationship Paradigms -there should be a single paradigm if psychology is truly a science. Psychology has a number of different paradigms so is thought to be pre science. Discourses -lab situations don’t go very far in understanding discourse Falsifiability – inferential stats show how much data is due to chance and not a real diffrence/relationship. Paradigms – there should be a single paraigm if pschology is truly a science. Psyhology has a number of different paradigms so is thought to be pre science. Psychologys paraigm could be ‘science’ Discourses – lab situations don’t go very far in undersatnding discourse.

Maybe there are reasons for not ‘doing science’ Holism – the whole is more than the sum of the parts, maybe we should break everything done to its constituent parts! Humanism – we are more than just specimins Although scientific method is reliable it is not always valid Social constructionism – we should study constructs which will tell us more about real life.

How scientific are the 5 as approaches? The social approach The cognitive approach The psychodynamic approach The biological approach The learning approach Social approach – not very but agency theory has an evolutionary angle The methodology is scientific – ie milgram/tajfel – experimental method, sherif, field expt. There are hypotheses and empirical testing Cognitive approach – neuroscience considered also lab expts and brain scanning etc. Also hypotheses and empirical testing The psychodynamic approach – the unconscious is not empirically measurable. Energy and instincts are biological aspects of a person. Focuses on case studies – not scientific qualitative data, no controls, no hypotheses tested empirically. Doesn’t make the conclusions wrong just because it can’t be tested scientifically The biological approach – subject matter and methods are scientific – egs – learly operationalised variables. The learning approach – measurable, observalbe behaviours – reductionist – stimulus/response. Lab expts – soc learning theory moved away from science but still had carefully planned experiments

examzone With reference to one approach in psychology describe ways in which it is scientific Explain why you think psychology is not scientific. You have 45 minutes in the LRC to produce a PowerPoint presentation answering these 2 questions. You will present this in the next session. Please also produce a handout for the other members of the class to fill in as they listen to your presentation.