Chapter 10 Flashcards
Methodolatry
Or methodologism, is the tendency to see methodological rigor as the only requirement for scientific research, at the expense of theory formation
Pseudoscience
Branch of knowledge that pretends to be scientific but that violates the scientific method on essential aspects, such as lack of openness to testing by others and reliance on confirmation rather than falsification.
Hermeneutics
Approach in psychology according to which the task of the psychologist is to interpret and understand persons on the basis of their personal and socio-cultural history.
Humanistic psychology
Psychological movement promoted by Rogers and Maslow as a reaction against psychoanalysis and behaviorism; stressed that people are human, inherently positive, endowed with free will and living within a socio-cultural context.
Feminist psychology
Movement in psychology aimed at understanding women; is particularly concerned with the way in which women are treated in mainstream psychology.
Postcolonial psychology
Movement in psychology addressing the issues of racism and the ways in which dominant groups treat other groups.
Critical psychology
Movement in psychology that criticizes mainstream psychology for failing to understand that knowledge does not refer to an outside reality (idealism), that scientific knowledge is not cumulative but consists of social constructions, and that psychological theories and claims have an impact on the world in which people live.
Unconscious plagiarism
Term used by Bornstein to indicate how the scientific and hermeneutic approach in psychology have influenced each other without the proponents being aware of it.
Old history
- Old history is internalist: doesn’t focus on context, only on the details within a discipline.
- Old history tends to be presentist: an elicit attempt is often made to interpret past work in light of present knowledge.
- A whig conception of history: psychology only progresses and gets better with time.
- Old history often takes a particular angle in which one movement must be right, and thus other movements must be wrong.
Reasons why psychology is seen as a science
- The founders have defined psychology as the study of the human mind with the scientific method.
- They further argued that whether or not a discipline is a science depends on the research methods used and not on the topic investigated: psychology used the scientific method and, therefore, was a science.
- The scientific method has proven to be a fruitful approach and is fully integrated within mainstream psychological research.
- Psychological research is fully integrated within other scientific research. It is one of the seven major areas with strong links to two other major areas. It forms a hub for a series of less central sciences related to human functioning
Reasons why psychology is not seen as a science
- The stereotypical view people have of a psychologist is that of a clinical psychologist treating patients. This view does not overlap with the stereotypical view people have of a scientist as a loner who is obsessed with his work and which he studies in an uncreative way, making use of instruments.
- Professional psychologists largely outnumber psychology researchers, and they are users of scientific knowledge rather than creators of such knowledge. There is even evidence that many practitioners return to their intuition once they have finished their studies.
- People are convinced that they have as much knowledge about psychological issues as psychologists, or at least that they can keep up with psychologists as long as they pay attention to the psychological research that is described in the media.
- Next to the mainstream scientific tradition in academic psychology, there is a hermeneutic approach that is more in agreement with the public’s view of psychology as non-scientific.
Why is psychoanalysis considered as hermeneutic?
Because it tried to understand the content of the human mind through interpretation on the basis of the psychoanalytic theories.
Why are psychologists still using the scientific method?
- Systematicity and cumulativeness of knowledge
- The use of well-defined methods.
- Clarity
- Prediction
- Knowledge is revisable
Why does psychology belong to the Geisteswissenschaften (mental sciences) according to Dilthey?
Because:
- it deals with the content of the human mind,
– it describes the human experience in its totality (including cognition, emotion and volition),
– it sees a person’s life within its context,
– only the method of understanding can study the full human experience (different levels of understanding).
