zfleebin

There is a debate that began over in the members forum about the reliability of psychological tests. The emphasis was on replication cross-culturally. So, I was thinking that we can turn this into a larger debate and then work our way into the nitty gritties. To start the debate I ask you guys/girls
1. Do you consider psychology a science? why
2. Is Psychology more or less of a science in comparison to other fields such as physics, biology? why
3. What are the strengths and weaknesses of psychology?
Feel free to expand on or single out any questions.

KnifeMissile

I don't consider Psychology a science becuase it doesn't (often, for good reasons) employ the scientific method.

If you're not willing to use a definition as rigourous as mine (there are plenty who don't), then I'll say it's definitely less of a science as physics or chemistry, if for no other reason than the fact that they both employ the scientific method.

I really couldn't tell you the merits of psychology...

zfleebin

I guess I shouldnt have left it so broad. I think its valid to say some psychologists do not choose to employ the scientific method. Still, I guess for this discussion we should define psychology using the number one entry in the Merriam-Webster dictionary for psychology which is: The science of mind and behavior.

zfleebin

Now that we are past that I have to disagree with you when you say that psychology doesnt often use the scientific method. As stated before some psychologists choose to ignore the scientific method. Still, many of the subfields in psychology are completely centered around science. Examples of these subfields are psych testing, neuro-psychology, experimental psychology, psychological social psychology, cognitive psychology etc...
I am often amazed by the way psychology is presented in the media as a kind of poppy science with real open boundaries when it comes to science but I assure you no psychologists at present get through their studies without a reasonable understanding of the scientif method.

cataklysm

Psychology is definitely a science, although it is one of the "newer" sciences (about 100-150 years old).

It employs the scientific method just like physics or biology, and to be a psychiatrist, you need a medical degree.

KnifeMissile

Not to be pedantic but psychiatry is different from psychology...

John Henry

True, but that doesn't lessen the fact that psychology is still a science and uses scientific method.

If you read popular scientific journals such as New Scientist or Scientific American, you will regularly see reports of psychological research where proper hypotheses have been formed tested and revised using statistically significant samples, control groups, quantitative measurements, the whole shebang.

Obviusly there is some 'bad science' in psychology, but that is true of any science.

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doncalypso

I hardly know anything about psychology so I'm in no position to make judgments.

However, I would have to say that the branch(es) of psychology dealing with the study of the brain are definitely a science as far as I'm concerned because neurological research involves a lot of controlled experiments.

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cataklysm

lpj8

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.

filtherton

I've read that psychology as a science is comparable to physics before darwin and chemistry before atomic theory- nothing really holding it together, just a multitude of competing theories and ideas.

Slavakion

1) Psychology is definitely a science. I don't know about you, KnifeMissile, but the first day of my psych class, we went over the Sci Method. All (good) experiments are carried out like any other scientific experiment, with a hypothesis, identified variables, data gathering, etc. Where have you seen that the SM hasn't been used?
I think a lot of people still don't accept it as a "hard" science yet because we still know so friggin' little about the human mind (both physically and um, superphysically).

2) It's no more or less a science than bio, chem or physics as far as merit goes. As far as advancement, it's a bit behind.

3) Strengths? It (possibly) explains why people do things and can help cure/prevent disease/disorders.
Weaknesses? Hard to do some experiments when there's the possibility of extreme permanent brain damage.

Cryptic

The way I see it, and of course, we all have our own opinions, but psychology is absolutely a science and maybe even one of the more important of the sciences.
My reasoning for this is that the mind is pretty impressive and if you can operate on it, I'm going to label it a science.

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zen_tom

Webster's Dictionary Definition of Psychology:

Despite the fact that it says science twice, here is the definition of Science:

I'd say that pretty much wraps it up then. Of course it is true that Psychology tells us less precise things about its chosen field of study than say physics (which itself has its own limits and uncertainties), but rather than being a failing, I'd suggest it was more to do with the complexity of the subject.

sapiens

I wouldn't use Webster's Dictionary as an authority on much of anything. "The science of the human soul"? Sounds contradictory. Science and soul do not go well together.

That said, psychology is most definitely a science, though some psychologists are more rigorous than others.

fckm

As an applied physics major, I consider psychology to be a soft science. It lacks good quantatitive laws.

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joeshoe

Psychology can be a science, when it is studied rigorously. If you look at the study of animal psychology, you'll see that experiments play a significant role. It's just that many psychologists write anecdotal nonsense. Like fckm said, psychology is at most a soft science.

ARTelevision

To the extent that it utilizes the scientific method, yes.

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lpj8

This is definately true. In psychology there is "drift" between research and practice. However, this parallels every applied science. There are certainly medical doctors who are completely unorthodox.

theusername

Science is public, repeatable, and measurable. So is Psychology. Psychology's theories in the past have sometimes been far off and have been used to discredit the science of Psychology. However, we use to think the earth was flat and that it was the center of the universe, and science told us that. The fact is Psychology is just a much younger science and much less established.

Just my opinion

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flstf

IMHO as a layman:

1. Do you consider psychology a science? why

Yes, because it attempts to use scientific methods (as I understand them) to quantify it's findings.

2. Is Psychology more or less of a science in comparison to other fields such as physics, biology? why

I think it is just as much a science as the other fields. The subject matter may be a bit more ambiguous and hard to tie down though. I know it may be considered soft when compared to something like physics but physics has it's share of unknown (or weird) phenomina as well. I think I read that on the quantum level they are up to something like 11 dimensions in order to make the formulas work.

3. What are the strengths and weaknesses of psychology?

One of it's strengths is that it is the human mind trying to understand it's own (and others like it) activities and behavior so the psychologist has the benefit of his/her own behavior to compare with. (this could also be considered a weakness by some)

One of it's weaknesses is that theories of behavior are hard to quantify by formula and/or experimentation. Human behavior is not as simple as Pavlov's dogs, LOL.

ergdork

Just thought I'd post another way that psychology can be thought of as a science. I took an entry level "evolutionary psychology" class in college. The premise was that psychology can be studied as it relates to the evolutionary benefits. In other words, it is studying psychology from a biological, ecological, and evolutionary standpoint. Very interesting class. We studied how abstract concepts like emotions are functional tools of a developed brain. Been a long time since I've studied it though!

superiorrain

Psychology is the best science there is - maybe that's not true but still i consider it a science. I have only looked at it out of pure interest and have little formal education in it but coming from doing a business degree i see it being applied in so many aspects. From human resource management to marketing. Marketing being to the more interesting part in my opinion. Trying to persaude people into a comfortable position that they are willing to buy is all about the psycology of the buyer and products. I really is rather interesting and being used constently and its brillance is that we don't even know we are being manipulated.

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RoboBlaster

Quantitative laws? I am not sure what you mean. In science, there are no true laws. There are theories, and within these theories there are tenants which could be called laws, but in reality, science never makes definite statements. In fact "prove" is a very very dirty word and should never be uttered as a result of a scientific study. The reason is that in an experiment, you are basically trying to disprove (disprove isn't such a dirty word) your hypothesis. You compare your data to the data that would show if there was no effect of the independent variable. If the observed effect is close to the null effect, you are given evidence that your hypothesis is wrong. If, however, you see that they are far enough apart, you have evidence that your hypothesis is correct. Because you always test against the null hypothesis, you are never totally 100% sure if the results are because of a true effect or random chance. You can repeat the experiment over and over again to improve the chances that the results are true effects, but you will never 100% prove anything in the scientific method.

As for the quantitative part, quantitative variables are no more or less important than qualitative ones. For instance, gender is a qualitative variable yet it has tremendous import in scientific studies. In the field of physics, there are 4 fundamental forces that are studied. These are qualitative entities. You cannot assign a value to electromagnetism or gravity (sure, they have differeing strengths, but they are independent from each other [at least we think so for now - who knows what the UFT will bring]). Just because a science studies qualitative variables more often doesn't make it "soft." Besides, psychology deals with many wuantitative variables anyway (such as depression scales, age, drug use, IQ, response times, etc.). I can tell you that being a clinical psychology grad student, our stats and research design classes are anything but soft.

Drayab

I also consider psychology to be a 'soft' science, but a science nonetheless.

What I mean by 'soft' is that there is less mathematical rigor in psychology. To be fair, I only took a couple psychology classes as an undergrad, but that was the impression I got. One of them was a class on personality and intelligence. When considering evidence in favor of a theory, like nurture vs nature in developmental psychology, we would learn about 'case studies' that looked at correlations in how different groups (like identical twins vs strangers) in the study would respond to questions or some task given to them. The idea was to find statisticly significant correlations among the groups and then draw your conclusions based on that. If you design your experiment properly and do your statistics carefully then it's good science.


Now contrast that with quantum mechanics which provides a rigorous mathematical machinery that lets you make very precise predictions of how stuff interacts with other stuff on the atomic level. You want to understand the solar neutrio flux? Learn some math and then learn some quantum mechanics and you can do it. You can calculate the solar neutrino flux and then go measure it. You still have to do statistics, but now the trick is to show that the fluctuations are insignificant. That's hard science.

RoboBlaster

When you get down to the basics of quantum mechanics, it looks a lot like psychological research. With QM, you are looking at an electron and probability statements. You just never know where or when that sucker is. All we have to go by, because of the uncertainty principle, is statistical probability. It is much the same way with psychology. We can't make a 100% accurate prediction, we just take a "guess," guided by our research.

Anyway, it seems that the point at which hard and soft science diverges according to you guys is whether or not mathematical models are used after the experimental research. For instance, both physics and psychology would test theories in the same way (comparing null and alternative hypotheses). This is what makes them science. Pshysics is then a hard science because the theoretical models allow a mathematical formula to be employed in oprder to make the prediction. f=ma is used because the principles behind it were shown to have validity. In psychology, we don't really have any tidy formulas that allow us to make clear predictions. Rather, at least in clinical psychology, we have to use probability judgements and try to acknowledge other variables. This is a very messy process and I would say it is much harder to work with than the hard science formulas (okay, I am being tongue in cheek at that last line. my roommate in college was a physics major and that junk looked damn hard).

Drayab

I talked to an old friend of mine tonight, and now I think I'm ready to rescind what I said earlier about psychology being a 'soft' science. I think the lack of mathematical rigor in psychology stems from the fact that psychology is such a new science and also because it's tough to remove all the 'noise' from the system without being sued by said system.

She seemed to think that given enough time, psychology will start to show the same kind of maturity as physics.

A good psychologist follows all the same general guidelines for experiment design and data analysis as any scientist doing 'hard' science. From talking to my friend, it sounds like she knows more statistics than I do, and I have studied a lot of math in my days.

So there you have it: psychology is a science.

Suave

Psychology is not replicable cross-culturally because the mind is formed through cultural internalization combined with (in my opinion) a very small amount of biology.

I consider psychology a science, because to my knowledge it DOES employ the scientific method. Any psychology that doesn't is not very relevant to the field. I'm in sociology, which is dead-set on using the scientific method, and if sociology does, I'd be very surprised if the vast majority of psychology didn't.

Your second query depends on how one defines a "science". If a science is just defined by use of the scientific method, then yes, psychology is equally a science to the natural and other social sciences. If it is based on the scientific "facts" being more solid and correct without exception, then mathematics and physics are by far the most "scientific, followed by chemistry and then biology. Psychology would be one of the least scientific of the sciences. It is also less straight-forward than the natural sciences in general, and while very open to interpretation, it can be argued (and I hold this opinion) that even the "hard" natural sciences are still very much open to and influenced by interpretation and bias, no matter the possible egotism of their communities in thinking that it's all objective.

Psychology's weakness is the trend toward neurology which is a biologically deterministic view of the mind. Behaviourally, it also fails to take into account the larger social context, and is a very incomplete science without the integration of sociology. It is also weak in that it is biased toward using the medical model to diagnose and treat "mental illness" despite many inconsistancies between the criteria of the medical model and those that the "illnesses" fit. I suppose in strength, psychology is a relatively easy science in which to perform experiments, as well as helping people, whether it uses the best way or not, who feel that they are mentally unbalanced. There are many other strengths and weaknesses, but I don't want to write a 5000 word dissertation on it, so I'll just leave it at this.

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RoboBlaster

Psychology absolutely takes into account the greater social context. Though in clinical psychology, we work with mainly individuals, we would be terrible practitioners if we didn't recognize and work with the macro level interactions of social forces. In my undergrad years, I took a few sociology courses (I was only a couple courses short of a minor) and I feel they compliment my current studies in psychology quite well.

As for the medical model, it doesn't specifically detail the exact symptomology of every peroson with mental illness. Then again, it isn't supposed to. The diagnostic model is a way for researchers and practitioners to have a common language so that communication between other professionals is made a bit easier. Though the individuals differ, there are commonalities, and identifying these helps in research and treatment. No, the system isn't perfect, but that's why research and revisions are always underway to make improvements, just like in any science.

munchen

NO!!! although they have a commitment to the scientific method it is not a science. my university agrees with this and labels it accordingly. the problem with psyc is there is almost no concrete eveidence. you can't make definite predictions or diagnoses based on pyscological theories. there is alot of "if this happens it's probably this" or " this might happen in this circumstance" but there is nothing solid. They can get lucky and find things that do work like pavlov's bell. but psycology can't explain definitivly why it happens or get to the root of what is happining.

I am currently at the begining of my behavioural neuroscience degree and i can tell you it is all concrete science. we can make definite predictions and diagnoses and all our proofs are universally applicable and accurate. i think this is the definitive cognitive science. but who doesn't prefer their own field?. i have found that the majority of psycology students dont even take neurobiology! how can you make predictions on the behaviour of a brain when you dont even know what's in it! or how it works! the problem with neuroscience right now is its very new and we still have along way to go to explain all of human behaviour. This is where psycology comes in. since psycology is top down research it can attack problems science can't explain yet or explain fully.

Although i hate psycology(parts of it, most parts) with a passion i will say it has its merits. its has been and still is a very important field to help understand and improve the human condition. it is a noble field of study.

If psycology is a science, is Dr. Phil a scientist?

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zen_tom

Is quantum physics a science?

Stompy

In general, I believe it's a science. For example, an emotionally disturbed person will benefit from seeing a therapist.

I do believe we think we know more than we actually do. For example, you walk directly to the italian bread in your grocery store. Some brave psychologist could analyze your every move - It's a phallic object, therefore you have some type of sexual issue to work out. You bent your knee at a 30 degree angle, therefore you were beaten as a child, etc. (ok, an exaggeration, but you get my point).

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RoboBlaster

I wonder if you took the time to read the entire thread as a lot of your points were addressed, such as science not conclusively proving anything. Also you claim that because psychology uses research, it tackles problems science cannot explain, when research is a scientific tool. Oh, and it might help to actually spell psychology correctly.

Slavakion

Let me ask you this -- Have you ever taken a psych class? I never considered psychology to be a true science until I took a class (this year actually!).
If my car starts smoking, I know something bad is about to happen. Do I know how a car works? Something to do with internal combustion... You can learn from experience and make new decisions based on that. I think that's how every discipline works. I do agree that if you're going to major in psych you should take some neurobiology classes. It goes with the field.
And psychologists can't? Here's a scenario. You're living in a controlled environment, and every Tuesday and Friday you get to eat your favorite food (let's say pizza). This goes on for a couple of weeks. Then Dr. Jones puts a little ipecac or old cheese on your pizza. You get ill soon after eating the pizza. For a long time you can't face pizza without feeling nauseous. It's called taste aversion. Psychologists can predict and explain it much better than I did.

I think what it all comes down to is this -- You guys deal with the interactions between the brain and various neurochemicals which produce thought processes. Psychologists deal with the interactions of the thought processes with each other and the chemicals. You're both awesome, peace.

munchen

okay this is alot of response but i will try my best. i'm not sure how to quote properly. i hope this works.



you're right in a sense here. quantum physics is a "maybe" thoery that tests well. the difference is in the theory.if quantum physics is correct it will predict the behaviour in all situations regardless. ex. if an electron behaves in this manner all electrons will act like this in this circumstance without deviaton.It will predict the excat behaviour of all electrons. PsycHology can illistrate something like taste aversion but the theories on it dont predict difference in reactions to this experiment on an individual level, like the resistance to conditioning or the amount of time before it wears off ect. it doesnt account for individual differences. it just shows that it can happen, it doesnt fully explain the event.

I have. i think i may have just had worse prof's than you because my opinion of psyc droped after these classes. i didnt delve to far into it though. It was the stuff like Jung and Piaget that drove me away.

you can learn from that expreimce but if you dont know how it works how you can you explain what happened,why it happened, predict its occurence, or prevent it from happening again? A car somking does not mean anything in itself, some people cook with their cars.



im not doubting the usefullness of psychology, i think it is neccessary part of society and very helpful to alot of people and helpful to understanding human behaviour. As for therapy there is a HUGE discrepancy between therapists and their methods, alot of it depends on the opinion of the therapist. it is helpful but its not a very scientific process.

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RoboBlaster

There needs to be a distinction in this discussion between the science and the application of that science. Psychotherapy is an application and psychological research is the science. When I am conducting therapy, I am not utilizing the scientific method, but when I am doing research, I am. Also, there are a lot more subtypes of psychology other than clinical pschology. But no matter what field of psychology you talk about, scientific research is at the foundation.

Also, munchen, you speak of how psychology has difficulties in making 100% accurate predictions. I won't argue with you there. But, it is not the products that make something a science, it is the methods. As I said before, however, science is not out to make 100% accurate proofs and never has.

munchen

No this is wrong. science is always striving to understand the natural world. 100% of this world. that has always been and will always be the goal of the true scientist. not all scientific theories have been 100% correct but they have always set out to explain the world with 100% accuracy. thats what a scientific theory is, an true fundemental explanation of the world. if it doesn't explain something completly it is not a scientific theory. whether it is actually correct or not is besides the point.

Thats the problem with pyschology as a science, it's not based on scientific theories, theories that explain something 100%. i think this is where science and psychology seperate. psycology has theories based on the scientific method but it does have not scientific theories. there is difference.

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RoboBlaster

Good call. Science does attempt to make 100% accurate predictions. However, it also realizes that it cannot. That is why in research, scientists test the null hypothesis. Because the only thing we can do with 100% accuracy is prove ourselves wrong.

Once a good theory is set in place, mathematical formulas representing the framework of the theory can be used. But these formulas are a product of science, not science itself. f=ma is not science in of itself, it is a mathematical/physical formula. It is, however, a product of science.

No field of science has come up with a theory that explains 100% of the world, yet that goal is always striven for. Again, I stress that what makes something a science is not result, but methodology. You may want to argue that psychology is not a very good science (though that would hurt my feelings -wink wink- ) but I still don't see why it wouldn't be a science.

munchen

I dont want to hurt your feelings

First of all math is a tool used by science not a product of it.

This i agree with. not of the world, but a theory wiil explain all of what the theory is meant to encompass

I agree with you here. If you follow the scientific method and find something that doesn'y work you are still conducting science. WHen your done your experiment however, you are not done with the scientific method, you must properly, scientificaly analyse your results. If your results don't explain things to the proper 100% cut off, they must be revised or thrown out. You can still learn from the study but the results are not yet sound enough to be applied in the real world. i think psychology discontinues its usage of the scientific method at this stage and that's why it lands on messy unscientific principles. it's results are not sound enough to be classified as a science

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shakran

1. Do you consider psychology a science? why

Yes. It DOES employ the scientific method. Research psychologists/psychiatrists notice a fact, come up with ideas as to why that fact is so, come up with tests to see if their ideas are correct.

For example (simplified, eliminating credit for all the years of research it took), psychologists saw people who were alternately depressed and very excitable (manic-depressive, aka bipolar).

They hypothesized that it was caused by a chemical imbalance.

They devised tests to see if there was a chemical that could eliminate the symptoms.

They found that lithium did.

Using the scientific method, they figured out how to control the symptoms of manic depression.


Of course, there are other areas where a modified version of the scientific method is used - i.e. they don't have a fact and are hypothesizing as to what the outcome of certain interactions will be. i.e. "What will happen if instead of giving the rat food when it presses a button, we give it a shock instead. I think the rat will stop pressing the button. I'll design an experiment in which I hook a zapper up to the button and then send the rat in."




2. Is Psychology more or less of a science in comparison to other fields such as physics, biology? why

No. The difference is that it's a NEWER science. People tend to think of psychology as a non-science because its track record of being right is not overly positive right now. Pretty much everything Freud ever said is crap, for example. It's been wrong a lot.

But let's not forget that other sciences were the same way in their infancy. Early chemists spent tons of time trying to make gold out of lead. Early astrophysicists thought the sun revolved around the earth, and so did the universe. Early medical science believed disease was caused by witchcraft or an imbalance of bodily humors for which bleeding was prescribed.

Frankly when you hold psychology up against the early stages of other sciences, it's doing pretty damn well



3. What are the strengths and weaknesses of psychology?

The main strength is that, especially lately, it treats mental illness as what it is - an illness. We don't lock people away from society and consider them freaks because they have the flu, yet in very recent years we did that because they had an anxiety disorder.

The weakness is that there are still lots of different theories floating around out there, and it can be hard to know what is right.

Another weakness is that you do not have to be licensed to be a therapist. Any one of you can hang a shingle out right now and call yourself a therapist and charge people to "help" them with their problems, even if you don't know anything about psychology. That's lead to a lot of charlatans running around pretending to know what they're talking about, and the public doesn't know the difference. Then when patients aren't helped because their "therapist" is full of crap, they blame psychology as a field rather than the shyster they've been going to.

A third weakness is that psychiatrists are allowed to practice in the field. Most people don't realize it, but psychiatrists know much less about psychology than psychologists do. Psychiatrists are medical doctors. They go to med school. They become a psychiatrist by doing their internship with a psychiatric unit.

People go to psychiatrists thinking they'll get a good psychological treatment, but really all the psychiatrist is gonna do is throw drugs at them, and that's the main weakness in the field. As with other medical fields, there's too much of a tendency to use drugs to solve everything.

Got "social anxiety disorder?" (btw, most diagnoses of this are BS) No problem, Paxil to the rescue. Got a kid with ADHD? (btw, most diagnoses of THIS are also crap) Throw ritalin at him. Drugs should be the last option, and in many cases they're the first.