Science studies overt behavior because overt behavior is objectively observable and can be measured, allowing different psychologists to record behavior and agree on what has been observed. This means that evidence can be collected to test a theory about people.
Scientific laws are generalizable, but psychological explanations are often restricted to specific times and places. Because psychology studies mostly people, it studies indirectly the effects of social and cultural changes on behavior. Psychology does not go on in a social vacuum. These factors, and individual differences, make research findings reliable for a limited time only.
Are traditional scientific methods appropriate for studying human behavior? When psychologists operationalize their IV, it is highly likely that this is reductionist, mechanistic, subjective, or just wrong. Experiments are keen to establish that X causes Y, but taking this deterministic view means that we ignore extraneous variables, and the fact that at a different time, in a different place, we probably would not be influenced by X.
There are so many variables that influence human behavior that it is impossible to control them effectively. The issue of ecological validity ties in really nicely here. Objectivity is impossible. It is a huge problem in psychology, as it involves humans studying humans, and it is very difficult to study the behavior of people in an unbiased fashion. Moreover, in terms of a general philosophy of science, we find it hard to be objective because we are influenced by a theoretical standpoint Freud is a good example of this.
The observer and the observed are members of the same species are this creates problems of reflectivity. A behaviorist would never examine a phobia and think in terms of unconscious conflict as a cause, just like Freud would never explain it as a behavior acquired through operant conditioning. This particular viewpoint that a scientist has is called a paradigm Kuhn, Kuhn argues that most scientific disciplines have one predominant paradigm that the vast majority of scientists subscribe to.
Anything with several paradigms e. With a myriad of paradigms within psychology, it is not the case that we have any universal laws of human behavior, and Kuhn would most definitely argue that psychology is not a science. Verification i. It could be disproved at any moment. The main driving force behind this particular grumble is Karl Popper, the famous philosopher of science and advocator of falsificationism. Take the famous Popperian example hypothesis: "All swans are white".
How do we know for sure that we will not see a black, green or hot pink swan in the future? So even if there has never been a sighting of a non-white swan, we still haven't really proven our hypothesis.
Popper argues that the best hypotheses are those which we can falsify - disprove. If we know something is not true, then we know something for sure. Testability: much of the subject matter in psychology is unobservable e. The fact that there are so many variables that influence human behavior that it is impossible to control the variables effectively.
So, are we any closer to understanding a what science is, and b if psychology is a science? There is no definitive philosophy of science, and no flawless scientific methodology. When people use the term "Scientific" we all have a general schema of what they mean, but when we break it down in the way that we just have done, the picture is less certain. What is science? It depends on your philosophy.
Is psychology a science? It depends on your definition. So - why bother, and how do we conclude all this? If we abandon our search for unified methods, we'll lose a sense of what psychology is if we knew in the first place. McLeod, S. Is behavior caused by biological factors present in the human body nature , or is it caused by interactions between the individual and his or her environment nurture?
Strict adherents of the nature philosophy often use genetic code as support for their theory. Psychologists today generally believe that human behavior is affected by a combination of both biological and environmental factors.
Many of the current debates in psychology can be seen in the recent changes to the DSM Autism is a neurological disorder that has become increasingly prevalent in recent years, affecting about 20 per 1, children in the United States in Disorders within the autism spectrum are characterized by impaired social interaction, impaired verbal and nonverbal communication, and restricted or repetitive behavior.
For years, researchers have tried to find the cause of autism, and everything from vaccines to maternal depression have been cited but never proven. While the general treatment for autism is applied behavior analysis ABA , or other behavioral therapies, many people look for alternative treatments such as diet or supplements.
Controversies surrounding the diagnosis and its treatment include the relevance of rating the severity of the disorder, and whether or not to include children with varying severity of ASD in the general-education population. In this treatment, child-specific reinforcers e. Reports of autism are on the rise : Reports of autism cases per 1, children increased dramatically in the US from to At the same time, transgender people seeking surgical or hormonal treatment have historically been forced to rely on the diagnosis of gender identity disorder in order to access the appropriate treatment, however stigmatizing the diagnosis may be.
Within the depressive disorders of the DSM-5, bereavement exclusion no longer exists; this means that people who are in severe depressive states due to grief can be diagnosed with clinical depression.
Under the new guidelines, certain responses to grief could be labeled as pathological disorders, instead of being recognized as normal human experiences. Electroconvulsive therapy ECT is a controversial approach to the treatment of severe mental illness that involves inducing minor seizures within the brain through electrical impulses.
ECT has been dramatically improved over time and is generally used as a treatment of last resort for severe disorders—such as major depression, schizophrenia, or bipolar mania—that do not respond to other forms of treatment. About 70 percent of patients are women.
Controversy continues to surround ECT due to its side effects on memory and general cognition after treatment, as well as its debated level of effectiveness. While some studies have shown ECT to drastically improve symptoms with perhaps fewer side effects than some medications, other studies point to high rates of relapse.
It is unknown why the treatment is effective in many cases of severe mental disorders. Privacy Policy. Skip to main content. Introduction to Psychology. Search for:. Introduction to the Field of Psychology. Defining Psychology Psychology is the scientific study of human mental processes and behavior.
Learning Objectives Identify the major branches of the field of psychology. Key Takeaways Key Points Psychology is an academic and applied discipline that seeks to understand the behavior, mental functions, and emotional processes of human beings.
Psychologists explore how mental and emotional factors influence individual development and behavior, and how these factors themselves can be influenced by physiological and biological processes.
Clinical psychologists focus on the diagnosis and treatment of mental illness; they usually work directly with clients using various forms of therapeutic treatment. Research psychologists use scientific methods to explore a wide range of topics related to mental health and behavior.
Key Terms psychosocial : Having both psychological and social elements. Early Roots of Psychology The field of psychology emerged as a scientific discipline in the 19th century, but its roots go back to ancient philosophy. Learning Objectives Describe the philosophical roots of what would later become the field of psychology. Key Takeaways Key Points Early Greek philosophers such as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle explored topics such as pleasure, pain, knowledge, motivation, rationality, and mental illness—topics often discussed in psychology today.
This concept came to be known as dualism. English philosophers Thomas Hobbes and John Locke disagreed with the concept of dualism, arguing instead that sensations, images, thoughts, and feelings are physical processes that occur within the brain.
Surely, psychology would not be possible without these early philosophical musings. Descartes, after all, did make the soul into something much more physical than it had ever been before, with room for cause and effect, source and manifestation specifically, he posited that the soul acted on the body at a particular organ in the brain, the pineal gland. Of course, all of those beginnings are, in a way, silly.
They take the concept of origins one step too far. What we really mean when we talk about the start of psychology, it seems to me, is the birth of psychology as actual science. That point beyond theory and reflection though, to be sure, those were essential , when a rudimentary methodology was put into place to put those theories and reflections to the empirical test—and to do so over and over and over again.
But even with that narrowed scope, we still come up against the same problem: can we really call Wundt the point of origin? Fechner might easily be called the father of psychophysics, which is today one of the most rigorous areas of psychological research. Between and , Fechner developed three methods for finding the difference between two separate sensations: just noticeable differences, right and wrong cases, and average error.
Is this achievement—the demonstration that it was indeed possible to measure mental events, and to do so in physically understandable terms—not worthy of foundational status? Was this not early psychology—and a much more neuroscientific and biological one than much of what would follow? And he in turn owes a debt to fellow Russian I. Sechenov, who wrote the monograph Reflexes of the Brain and argued that even the most complex-seeming behaviors could be understood as a reflex.
Watson, B. Skinner, and the lot. He, too, has been credited with having established the first experimental psychology laboratory: according to some sources, his was operational as early as or 5. And what of his monumental text, The Principles of Psychology? When Wundt established his laboratory, he was hoping, most specifically, to find a way to measure the speed of mental processes in order to discover the elements that made up thought.
A typical experiment: have people complete two reaction time tasks, one more complex than the other. Subtract the simpler from the more complex. End up with the extra mental effort, in units of time, that the more complicated task requires.
Wundt, he wrote , was going about it all wrong—much as the person who analyzes the content of bricks in order to understand the nature of a house. But that, said James, tells you nothing at all about the house; not really.
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