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Old 11-19-2004, 06:10 PM   #10 (permalink)
lpj8
Crazy
 
Location: U.S.A
I'm currently in grad school for psychology so I may be biased,

Psychology has become much more "scientifically-based" in the past 20 years. All the buzz words in psychology now are "scientifically/evidence-based practices". Science really comes down to experimental control, and experimental repetition. Scientific control is neccessary in order to determine if something is causing something else. Repetition is neccessary to determine if the effects are constant. Psychological research has become much better in terms of the scientific method. When I and my colleagues conduct research, we strive for experimental control, random sampling, and accurate assessment. For example, if a psychologist research wanted to study the effects of alcohol consumtion on depression, he/she would randomly sample alcoholics and nonalcoholics, nonalcoholics would serve as a "control" group, and the alcoholics would serve as the group of interest. The researcher then could develop or utilize an existing measure of depression, and then use a statistical test to determine if alcoholics are more/less depressed than nonalcoholics. The results of the statistical test would not imply that alcohol consumption directly causes depression, but that being an alcoholic explains some of the variance in the depression scores.

Granted, some theories in psychology are almost impossible to study scientifically because it is hard to operationally define the concepts (e.g., Psychodynamic, Rogerian). Behaviorism and social cognitivism are much better suited for psychological research.

So when I'm asked, is Psychology a science?
I usually respond that its more of a soft science and we have a long way to go.
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