Notes under subheadings of the four key components for this debate - benefits of being a science, changing nature of science, costs of being a science, methodologies used by various approaches
Psychology is the science of behaviour and experience
Science is knowledge based on systematic, objective and replicable
methods of data collection
Science aims to discover natural laws to understand, predict and
control the world
Benefits of being a science:
One benefit of being a science is objectivity
Researchers should collect scientific data in an objective way to ensure
that they do not display bias or prejudice
Carefully controlled psychological experiments have enabled
researchers to be objective e.g. Raine used PET scans to make
observations about the differences in brain structure between non-
murderers and murderers who pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity
He discovered, through the use of highly scientific and objective brain
scans, that difference did exist e.g. reduced activity in brain areas of
the NGRI participants such as the prefrontal cortex
Such research suggests that objectivity is a benefit for psychology
because researchers do not form conclusions based on their own
subjectivity, but base them on scientific facts
Another benefit of being a science is Paradigm
This is the set of assumptions, ways of thinking, methods and
terminology shared by a group about what should be studied and how
Philosopher Kuhn quoted “A field of study can be properly considered a
science if a majority of its workers subscribe to a common global
theory of perspective”
Psychology started with Wundt’s Introspectionism and later moved
onto behaviourism and cognitive psychology, so it could be argued
that if the approaches are taken in their own right, psychology does
have its own paradigm
For example, Valentine concluded that behaviourism must be classed
as a science because it has one set paradigm, which is that all
behavior is learnt from external forces and is not innate
Behaviourism is scientific, because it only studies what can be
observed and objectively measured. Therefore, each approach to
psychology having its own set paradigm that does not change, is a
benefit of being a science
, A final benefit of psychology being a science is replicability
If a piece of research can be carried out time and time again, and the
same or similar results are achieved each time, it can be said to be
reliable. Reliability is how consistent something is
Laboratory experimentation is the only method in psychology that is
truly replicable because of the high levels of control that they allow for
An example is research into eyewitness testimony from Loftus and
Palmer which would be easy to replicate given the fact that a video of
a car accident was used along with five specific verbs
Such replicability in psychology is a benefit because if research can be
replicated and proven to be reliable, it heightens the status of research
findings and the reputation of the field of psychology in general
The changing nature of science:
Over time the definition of what constitutes a ‘science’ has changed
and this has had an impact on psychology
The beginnings of psychology can be traced back to early Greeks, who
believed that the mind and body were two things that interact to form
the human experience
The early philosophers used only observation and logic but the
psychologists of today use scientific methodologies to draw their
conclusions about human thought and behaviour
Many issues in psychology still debated today such as nature vs
nurture are rooted in early philosophy
Physiology also contributed to psychology’s eventual emergence as a
scientific discipline
Early physiological research on the brain and behavior had a dramatic
impact on psychology, ultimately contributing to applying scientific
methodologies to the study of human thought and behavior
During the mid 1800s, physiologist Wundt was using scientific methods
to investigate reaction times and published his book “Principles of
physiological psychology”
He also opened the first psychology lab in 1879 and this event was the
start of considering psychology as a separate, distinct scientific
discipline
While his use of a process known as introspection is seen as unreliable
and unscientific today, his early work in psychology helped prepare for
future experimental methods
Titchener, one of Wundts students, introduced structuralism which has
a notable emphasis for its scientific research at the time but was
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