Debate to what extent psychology meets the criterion for a science?

by ritabranco2hotmailcom (student)

It is common knowledge that psychology involves the scientific study of human mental processes, motivations and behaviours (Heffernan., 2015); however, just a few people understand the scope of modern psychology or even understand what psychologists do. There is also more awareness of the roles that psychologists have in a clinical, mental, school or even workplace settings, contrasting with psychologists as laboratory scientists. In fact, modern psychology became entirely different from its humble beginnings in Wundt's lab in 1879, where a scientific approach to the study of the human mind and behaviour was taken for the first time. Consequently, establishing psychology as a science separate and distinct from the fields of philosophy and biology (Benjamin, 2000). When people think about psychology, they partly think about Freud’s psychoanalysis, and therefore, understandably argue that it is not a science since it does not follow the scientific method. Even to the eyes of people that work in the ‘harder’ sciences, it is perhaps hard to understand the scientific aspects of psychology. Accordingly, this essay aims to assess to what extent does psychology meets the criterion for science.

In order to tackle this issue, we must start by defining science; very broadly speaking science consists of systematically observing natural events, developing laws and principles, which later on are tested according to the scientific method. This method consists of observing, for instance, phenomena, constructing a hypothesis accordingly; creating an experiment in order to test the hypothesis; analysing the data and consequently reaching a conclusion(Gauch, 2012). It is vital to understand that these are basic guidelines and can change according to the different fields of science, which can operate differently one from another. However, just like any science psychology involves and requires a scientific methodology for its investigation. Psychological research involves similar steps, starting with the identification of a problem from old research or perhaps observations; develop hypothesis related to the problem; design a study; and analyse and evaluate the results (Coolican, 2014). Therefore, psychology relies on the scientific approach to analyse its finds, just like any other science and aims to be as objective as possible, to be falsifiable and the findings replicable.

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Karl Popper believed that what makes something scientific is not what is true but what in principle can be falsifiable (Popper, 2005), as an example instead of claiming that all swans are white because it is all you have seen. Popper believes that we should go out of the way to find evidence to refute a theory, so in this example, we should go out and look for black swans, only when failing to do so, the hypothesis can be confirmed and consequently considered scientific. Popper used Einstein's theory of gravitation as a great example of a theory that follows the falsifiability criteria and contrarily claimed that Freud's psychoanalysis theory was an example of a theory that is non-testable and irrefutable (Johnson, Wiersema & Kuntsi, 2009). Modern psychology research follows the same principle; in order to prove if a theory is correct, it is necessary to find significant results that can reject the null hypothesis, which leads us to confirm the experimental hypothesis. Accordingly, most psychological theories give testable predictions, which can often be rejected every time new information comes along. However, as Popper once said, by constantly rejecting theories, for another theory that gives us a complete picture is the core of scientific spirit (Mukunda, 1997).

Objectivity is as essential in psychology as it is in science; psychologists aim to carry out experiments in an objective way, by separating personal opinions, feelings, values, beliefs and prejudices. Every time that a researcher is leading an experiment/study should always aim to be unbiased and value-free; therefore, the striving towards science affirms that facts should speak for themselves even when they present a different outcome to what the researcher initially expected (Coolican, 2014). Nevertheless, since psychology entails humans studying other humans, objectivity can become a problem; it is hard to remain unbiased when studying human behaviour. Moreover, the reason why it is so hard to remain objective is connected to the fact that theoretical standpoints influence us. For instance, when studying a phobia a behaviourist would not consider it in terms of an unconscious conflict as a cause, the same way that Freud would not describe it as a behaviour which is attained via operant conditioning like Watson did with the little Albert experiment (1920), which leads us to what Kuhn (1970) referred to as paradigms (e.g. models, theories).

Kuhn claimed that the majority of scientific disciplines only have one dominant paradigm which the bulk of scientists will support, therefore, according to Kuhn anything with more than one paradigm, fails to be considered science and instead becomes a pre-science until can be unified (Orman, 2016). When considering this point of view, with an array of paradigms within psychology, it is not possible to have a unified theory for human behaviour, mostly because the human mind and behaviour is quite complex. It involves an intricate relation between an evolutionary, behaviourist and social perspective, and therefore it is not possible to link a specific behaviour to just one theory. In regards to which kind of approaches fall into the category of ‘science', we can observe that the majority do, since their finds can be quantified. The biological approach is a clear example of a scientific approach since it focuses on the nervous system and the importance of genetics on behaviour. While on the other hand, we have the psychodynamic approach which is not considered a scientific approach mainly because empirical measures cannot be applied, it is also, hard to operationalise, since it is hard to test if unconscious exists.

Operationalisation is used in psychology at times where the concept that is being observed cannot be directly measured (e.g. anger, happiness). Instead, psychologists measure a quantifiable object that reflects unobserved behaviour. In order to understand if the results of certain phenomena are affected by different operationalisations, they can be repeated multiple times (Coolican, 2014). We can then conclude that the use of operationalisation allows psychologists to measure something that can be hard to observe directly scientifically. It is essential that the methodologies of all psychological studies are clear and concise, in order for the study to be replicated, and reviewed by peers.

Replication is essential for psychology, mostly because when other researchers successfully replicate the findings of previous studies, it grants validity to the findings, and more likely the results can be generalised to a larger population (Francis, 2012).

There are a few more limitations that subject psychology not to be considered a science; firstly, behaviour can be influenced and therefore change over time, and even according to a different situation, which makes research findings reliable for a limited period. For instance, the social factors that have been found to play a role in interpersonal attraction, in the future might have to adapt according to social and technological advances. Furthermore, when trying to operationalise something we are at risk of removing the human experience from what it is being analysed, and the same can occur in casuality. Moreover, when researchers aim to identify that X causes Y, they can potentially ignore other variables that can influence human behaviour. Lastly, there are some implications when psychology is perhaps perceived as a ‘soft' subject, which can have many implications, especially for young adults that are thinking about psychology. Moreover, potentially be told in school and at home that if they can not do maths or even biology, perhaps they can do psychology. The public idea of psychology as science can also be influenced by those who do not have the training but instead rely on common sense and beliefs, belittling the subject and the way that is perceived.

Psychology has been strongly criticised throughout the years, from the popular claims that it lacks rigour, to the exponential numbers of self-help books written by self-claimed psychologists. However, it is not fair to kill the message for the lack of a suitable messenger. There has been the same criticism around other social sciences, such as sociology and economics, however, perhaps not with the same harmful intent. When reflecting on the claims that somethings in psychology cannot be quantified (e.g. anger), or even objective, I must agree that it is true, but the same happens in different scientific fields (e.g.chemistry and drug discovery) when try to define a "druglike" molecule, nonetheless there is no doubt that chemistry is a science. When using the claim that psychology is less rigorous and scientific, is, in fact, more of an accusation, than a quantifiable truth. What matters is that we can acquire definitions that can be at least semi-quantifiable in order to make testable predictions. Therefore, psychological research is useful when it can explain human behaviour and mind and not by what is or not entirely quantifiable. Furthermore, psychology relies heavily on statistics in order to understand if the variability found in some experiments happens by chance or not, the same can be observed in physics, where the Higgs boson could not be directly observed and was only visible through complex tests of statistical significance. And yet there is no doubt in anyone's mind that physics is a science. Psychology should be considered a science because it does rely on the scientific method in order to test and predict something if this did not happen then psychology should still be considered a branch of philosophy.

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References:

Benjamin, L. (2000). The psychology laboratory at the turn of the 20th century. American Psychologist, 55(3), 318-321.

Coolican, H. (2014). Research methods and statistics in psychology (6th ed., pp. 1-44). London: Psychology Press.

Francis, G. (2012). The Psychology of Replication and Replication in Psychology. Perspectives On Psychological Science, 7(6), 585-594.

Gauch, H. (2012). Scientific method in brief (pp. 21-33). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Heffernan. (2015). A Student's Guide to Studying Psychology (4th ed., pp. 1-3). Abingdon: Taylor & Francis Group.

Johnson, K., Wiersema, J., & Kuntsi, J. (2009). What would Karl Popper say? Are current psychological theories of ADHD falsifiable?. Behavioral And Brain Functions, 5(1), 15.

Mukunda, K. (1997). Is psychology a science?. Resonance, 2(11), 59-66.

Orman, T. F. (2016). Paradigm” as a Central Concept in Thomas Kuhn’s Thought. International Journal of Humanities and Social Science, 6(10), 47-52.

Popper, K. (2005). Logic of scientific discovery (pp. 3-74). London: Routledge.

Watson, J., & Rayner, R. (1920). Conditioned emotional reactions. Journal Of Experimental Psychology, 3(1), 1-14.