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I think it's the fact that psychology isn't always true for every case and can change very easily in different areas or upbringings or whatever, even down to how much oxygen one breathes in or whatever. I think this sometimes makes people think that psychology is somewhat of a soft science because it doesn't seem as concrete.
However, every single science is based on assumption within mathematics or something similar, and basically any theory changes given a little bit of a different situation or atmosphere. In a science like physics, the change is sometimes easier to explain than in psychology, which could also lead to people seeing psychology as more of a soft science.
In my opinion, since a lot of psychology is based on trail and error and actual tests, rather than mathematical formulas that are basically true or false, it's more 'real' than anything else. Every scientist knows that a mathematical formula might be wrong in some way, because of the big or the small, but until it's proven wrong, it's used and accepted. Once it is proven wrong, it's disregarded and the new proof is put in place.
In other words, the more 'hard' sciences are sometimes either true or false, depending on if you have proven if they are false or not, but the 'soft' science of psychology is the way it is because of testing, and works that much, because of trials. If that isn't hard science, i don't know what is.
I think psychology gets kind of a bad rep in the science world.
Also, psychology does have a lot of exceptions, but so does every other science in the world. We just have to figure out what the true theories or formulas are so we have no exceptions.
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