Is Psychology a science Flashcards
Who was Roger Bacon (c. 1214-1292)?
- Medieval Franciscan friar, philosopher and scientist
- “Doctor Mirabilis”
- Broadly Aristotelean in outlook
- Pioneer of scientific method in Medieval Christianity:
- used empirical observation; experiemental approach (controlled experiemnets to test hypothesise rather than just accepting what was said)
- systematic in his record making to record what he had done and how
- used peer review
- naturalistic philosophy = empirical knowledge reveals what the true nature of creation
- religiously mediated - focused on analysis of scholarly texts
what were the 3 different forms of acquiring knowledge according to Roger Bacon?
- Authority - yields belief, but not understanding
- Reasoning - produces understanding, but cannot distinguish between genuine truth, and things that have the appearance of truth
- Experience - a combination of philosophical (sensory) and divine (internal)
what were the threefold aims of science that Roger Bacon argued?
- discovery of truth (Inventio Veritatis) = to investigate the secrets of nature
- Moral and ethical guidance (Rectificatio Morum) = support or refute theoretical claims, in process of attaining doubt free knowledge
- Useful knowledge (Usus) = provide observations or instruments to aid development of other sciences
what did William of Occam (1285-1347) believe?
- Occom’s Razor (The law of Parisony): developed proof for existence of God
- given two theories to explain the same phenomena, the simpler one is more likely to be true
- Fruitless to try and do more what can be done with less: analogy to representativeness heuristic and conjunction fallacy (Kahneman & Tversky, 1972)
who was Iassc Newton?
- Polymath = founded as separate discipline from philosophy
- moved experimentation towards empirical data collection, need a large sample size from a wide range of circmstances
- used induction as a means of scientific validation, generalizing from the particular to general
who was David Humes (1711-1776)?
inspired by Newton, made a number of critiques of induction….
1. Demonstrative arguments produce the wrong kind of conclusion (deductive reasoning, analytic, a priori, relations of ideas)
2. Probable arguments are circular (inductive reasoning, synthetic, a posteriori, matters of fact)
who was Auguste Comte (1798-1857)?
- one of the founders of Positivism, an epistimological perspective which advocates:
1. Realism: The world exists independently of us
2. Empiricism: we have access to this independent reality through observation
3. Deduction: we can build and test hypotheses from these theories, and therefore predict the behaviour of the natural world
4. Induction: We can make generalisations and build theories from our observations
what is the positivism?
- puts science in the place of deriving universal, objective truths.
knowledge is accumulative: standing on the shoulders of other adults
who was Charles Sanders Pierce (1839-1914)?
- American Philosopher - pragmatist
- he reasoned that science advances through induction, deduction and abduction
- abduction = explanatory reasoning where the conclusions do not follow logically from the premises, helps formulate plausible and testable hypotheses that guides subsequent clinical assessments and interventions
what did Popper (1902-1994) do?
proposed a solution to the problem of induction:
- Disconfirmation: If no amount of observation can establish a universal, then one contrary one is sufficient to disconfirm
- Conditionality: we dont discover ‘true’ regularities, but we make statements that are conditionally true-we stick with them until we have reason to believe they’re wrong
- falsification: a deductive process, so we van identify ‘true’ conjectures without falling into the problem of induction
what did Willard Van Orman Quine (1908-2000) do?
- The scientific method assumes facts from experiments can be known independent of the theories, so the data can test the theories
- therefore this is an issue of theoretical construction
- disconfirming data may be a problem of the observations, not the theoretical claim
- good theory could be rejected on bad/loaded evidence
Thomas Kuhn (1922-1996) do?
- physicist
- explored the practice and development of scientific theories
- Emphasised that science consists of ‘paradigms’: i.e. a network of statements rather than single statements
- contrasts Popper
what are Kuhn’s paradigms?
- are underlying scientific theories - an entire world view
- ‘Normal science’ is the development and accumulation of knowledge within a paradigm
- If anomalies accumulate in a theory and cannot be explained, the paradigm enters a crisis stage
- when that reaches a critical point, then the paradigm shifts to another - a ‘scientific revolution’
how are Kuhn and Popper similar?
- both thought a positivist view of science was Naive and unrealistic
- both challened the notion that science progresses through the accumulation of facts
- both recognised that science changes over time
how are Kuhn and Popper dissimilar?
what knowledge claims experiments target
- Popper: they tested core hypotheses
- Kuhn: Experiments were puzzles within scientific world view
What do scientists believe?
- Popper: scientists know their core theories are conjectures and conditional
- Kuhn: Scientists actually believe their core theories
What do scientists do?
- Popper: then try to disprove their theories
-Kuhn: They cling desperately to their theories for as long as possible.
what did Imre Lakatos (1922-1974) do?
- expanded upon Popper and Kuhn proposing a falsification account within research programmes
- explicitly divided knowledge claims into hard core (basic assumptions) and auxiliary (secondary) hypothesis
- Hard core: a world view, the set of basic integral assumptions that are in of themselves irrefutable
- Auxiliary hypotheses: generated by the assumptions of the hard core, can be falsified
what is refutation?
the collection of evidence against your assumptions of science
what is rejection?
when you finally abandon the hard core
what is the positive heuristic in refutation and rejection?
- scientists direct attention to a chain of knowledge of known anomalies
- Scientists build models to approximate these anomalies
- Scientists build auxiliary hypotheses to address them
- This serves to organise the development of a research programme
- The research programme grows scientific knowledge by acquiring novel results
these auxiliary theories from a ‘protective belt’ around the hard core
what is the negative heuristic in refutation and rejection?
- disconfirmatory evidence is acquired
- The hard core is retained as auxiliary hypotheses are modified to accommodate new information
- prevents of falsification of core tenets of a theory
what constitutes to science?
- the combination of the core and auxiliary hypotheses
- programmes can be progressive or degenerating as auxiliary hypotheses shift
what must happen for programmes to be progressive?
- Theoretical progression: The science predicts empirical content over and above the previous theory, and must predict novel, hitherto unexpected facts
- Empirically progression: those facts are corroborated
what is post-positivism?
- rejects the positivist approach that a researcher can be an independent observer of the social world
- social, cultural, historical, political factors all influence the conduct of ‘scientific business’
- academics should be aware of their role in the production of scientific knowledge
when should a theory be abandoned?
if the new theory is neither progressive nor degenerates
what does reconstructive knowledge mean?
- new pieces of knowledge can be used to reinterpret, as well as adds, to old knowledge
what does temporarily situated knowledge mean?
- what is ‘known’ can subsequently turn out to be wrong
- flat earth, heliocentrism Lamarackian inheritence, phrenology
what are the Kuhnian values of science?
- order phenomena: Without the theory, data would be isolated and confused
- Be internally consistent and consistent with other accepted theories
- Agree with current evidence. Findings and results should align with what we know/expect, and extend beyond particular observations, laws or sub-theories it was designed to explain
- produce new research
what are Robert K. Merton’s 4 scientific values?
- Originality: science should tell us something
- Universalism: there should be a single set of objective criteria used by all to judge scientific ideas
- Communalism: Knowledge is a shared resource, freely available to everyone within the scientific community
- Disinterestedness: Scientists should be aloof from science
- (added latter hence 4 values) Organised Scepticism: scientists should doubt everything at fist blush
Does Psychology present itself as a science?
- Modern psychology generally speaking ascribes to modern empiricist account of science
- it observes and measures behaviour
- from which it generalises into theories (with questionable reliability and validity)
- it enables predictions and hypotheses about our minds and behaviour
Is psychology a Popperian science?
- yes
- most published research follows a ‘confirmatory’ approach
- the logic test of NHST (Null Hypothesis Significance Testing) Popperian (we aim to testify the null hypothesis)
- some have problems raised with this ( evidence against the null hypothesis doesn’t necessarily evidence in favour of a theory
Is Psychology a Kuhnian science?
- The Behaviourists (1910s) and cognitive(1950s) revolutions both concord closely with the idea of a kuhnian paradim shift (in America)
- but… did cognitive psychology really supplant behvaiourism?
- Did introspection ever really go away?
- Or did psychology fragment into sub disciplines with different assumptions and approaches
- Psychology is closer to a Lakatonian research approach OR a series of overlapping research programmes
- Kuhn’s opinion of paradigm shifts is unstable (makes sense as he was a Physicist not a psychologist- holds a negative view of psychology as a science despite drawing upon it to explain how science works overall)
what are natural kinds?
external to us and exist independently of our knowledge of them. e.g. a rock is a rock no matter what you call it
what are human kinds?
the actions of human beings, and people ascribe meaning to their actions, which are integral to how and why they act
what do natural kinds do?
- are ongoing independent and epistemically useful
- they follow regularities and predictable
- their behaviour is continuous
- Thus, we can derive natural laws about them
what do human kinds do?
- are contingent on interpretation and understanding
- are thus subjective
- actors could have done otherwise
what do natural sciences do?
- single hermeneutic: we try to understand (e.g.) rocks. Rocks do not try to understand us
what do social sciences do?
- double hermeneutic: we try and understand you and you try and understand us e.g. demand characteristics might arise because of this
what is constructivism?
- learning the process of constructing meaning (how individuals make sense of the world)
- meanings of actions are temporarily and spatially situated - relative to time and location in which the action was performed
- social objects only make sense relative to the meaning we assign to them
- knowledge os viewed as constructed rather than externally real
- mind mirrors reality
how does social constructivism view science?
- meanings are collaboratively constructed through interaction with others
- meanings of actions are temporarily and spatially situated- relative to tome and location in which the action was performed
- social objects only make sense relative to meaning we (collectively assign to them
- Knowledge is viewed as collaboratively co-constructed rather than externally real
- it’s interested in everyday interactions between people and know how they use language to construct theor reality
- cannot know ‘objective’ reality
how does Interpretivism view science?
an epistemology of the social sciences which believes that:
- human behaviour is more complex than just reactions to external forces- individuals are intricate and complex
- different people can experience the same reality in different ways and have different reasons for their actions
- subjective experience and understanding is paramount of importance
- doesn’t reject physical reality, but focuses on reality of human kind
- aims to understand the meaning of human actions
- recognise themselves in social scientists’ accounts of their actions
how does feminist approach view science?
- acknowledges the inherent production of knowledge
- seeks to give a voice to those who have been left behind and misrepresented in social research
- knowledge producers are bit passive recipients, they actively construct meaning and knowledge (social constructivism)
- knowledge is spatially and temporally continguent - ot comes from somewhere (situated)
- ethical and political values shape the creation and interpretation of knowledge (subjectivity)
- mainly concerned with tackling oppression in our society and discusses issues such as gender, class, culture and ethnicity
