Features of science 👽 Flashcards
What is meant by the term ‘features of science’ in psychology?
An ongoing debate in the field of psychology is whether psychology can be considered a science. It is important to look at the different aspects of what makes a science and how, if at all, psychology fulfills these expectations.
What is objectivity and empirical method?
A key feature of science is the ability for researcher to remain objective, meaning that they must not let their personal opinions, judgements or biases interfere with the data.
— Laboratory experiments are the most objective method within the psychology discipline because of the high level of control that is exerted over the variables.
— On the other hand, a natural experiment, by its very nature, cannot exert contol over the manipulation of independent variables and is often viewed as less objective.
Similarly, the observational and content analysis methods can fall victim to objectivity issues since the behavioural categories assigned are at the personal discretion of the investigator.
Empirical methods refer to the idea that knowledge is gained from direct experiences in an objective, systematic and controlled manner to produce quantitative data.
+ It suggests that we cannot create knowledge based on belief alone, and therefore any theory will need to be empirically tested and verified in order to be considered scientific.
+ Adopting an empirical approach reduces the opportunity for researchers to make unfounded claims about phenomena based on subjective opinion.
What is replicability and falsifiability?
Replicability is a key feature of a science, and refers to the ability to conduct research again and again achieve consistent results. If the findings can be truly generalised, and thus be truly valid, psychologists would expect that any replication of a study using the same standardised procedures would produce similar finings and reach the same conclusions.
For research to be considered scientific it should be falsifiable.
> Popper (1934)
— Falsifiability refers to the idea that a research hypothesis could be proved wrong.
— Scientific research can never be ‘proven’ true, only subjected to research attempts to be proven then as false.
— For this reason, all investigations have a null hypothesis which suggests that any difference or relationship found is due to chance.
An example within psychology which causes conflict in the scientific community for its lack of falsifiability is the Freudian psychodynamic approach.
> Popper
— Argued that if falsification cannot be achieved, the theory cannot have derived from a true scientific discipline, which should instead by regarded as a pseudoscience.
— Therefore, the psychodynamic approach casts doubt on the scientific rigour of psychology when considered as a whole.
What is meant by theory testing and hypothesis testing? 😮💨
A theory is a set of principles that intended to explain certain behaviours or events. However, to construct a theory, evidence to support this notion needs to be collected first, since the empirical method does not allow knowledge to be based solely on beliefs.
+ If a researcher suspects something to be true, the need to devise an experiment that will allow them to examine their ideas, if they start to discover patterns or trends in their research then a theory can be constructed.
— This is called the inductive process (sometimes referred to as the ‘bottom-up’ approach)
+ Thereafter, researcher can make predictions about what they expect to happen - a hypothesis !!
When designing a hypothesis, it must be objective and measurable so that at the end of the investigation a clear decision can be made as to whether results have supported or refuted the hypothesis.
— If findings support the hypothesis, then the theory will have been strengthened, if it is refuted, then it is likely that alternation will be made to the theory accordingly.
Conversely, there is the deductive process of theory construction which works from the more general ideas to the more specific ideas and is informally referred to as ‘top-down’ approach. Here, the psychologists may being with a theory relating to a topic of interest. This will then be narrowed down into a more specific hypothesis which can be tested empirically.
— Any data gathered from testing the hypothesis in this way will then be used to adjust the predictions.
What is a paradigm and paradigm shifts?
A paradigm is a set of shared assumptions and methods within a particular discipline.
> Kuhn (1962)
— Suggested that it was this that separated a scientific discipline from non-scientific disciplines.
— Under this assumption, he suggested that psychology was perhaps best seen as a pre-science, separate from the likes of physics or biology.
— He suggested that psychology had too much disagreement at its core between the various approaches (eg. behaviourist vs cognitive psychologists), and was unable to agree on one unifying approach to consider itself a science.
The way in which a field moves forward is through a scientific revolution. It can start with a handful of scientists questioning an existing, accepted paradigm. Over time, this idea becomes popular with other scientifically also beginning to challenge it, adding more research to contradict the existing assumptions.
+ When this happens, it is called a PARADIGM SHIFT.
A classic example of a paradigm shift is how scientist is historically believed the world to be flat when now it is widely accepted that the earth is, in fact, round.
— In psychology there have been numerous paradigm shifts over the decades.
— From introspection to the psychoanalytic theories and roles of the unconscious mind to thereafter in 1960s the cognitive approach was derived from the development of the electronic computer and now there is a mixture of behaviourist cognitive and scientific explanations which combine to form therapies such as CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy), REBT (rational emotive behavioural therapy) and RMDR (rapid eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing).
