L1+2 PSS Introduction

Question 1

What is the replication crisis?

Answer 1

An ongoing methodological crisis primarily affections social and life sciences in which scholars have found that the results of many scientific studies are difficult or impossible to replicate or reproduce on a subsequent investigation.

Question 2

What does a critical study (critical perspective) to the study of the discipline of Psychology mean?

Answer 2

Involves questioning taken-for-granted knowledge in the discipline.

It evaluated or analyses the mainstream position.

Question 3

What is the standard/mainstream view of Psychology?

Answer 3

Psychology is a science conducted by objective scientists.

The scientists seek to find the truth about human nature and behaviour through experimentation and research.

Question 4

What is Ian Parker’s 3 ways in which we should criticise mainstream Psychology?

1999 Critical Psychology: Critical links

Answer 4

Psychology operates ideologically and in the service of power.

All varieties of psychology are culturally and historically constructed.

Look at forms of surveillance and self-regulation in everyday life. Psychological culture operates beyond the boundaries of academic and professional practice.

(Psychologists on TV shows, in articles, pushing agendas etc.)

Question 5

What method do Psychologists use in research?

Answer 5

The Scientific Method.

Question 6

What is the current mainstream model clinical psychologists use?

What does the model involve?

Answer 6

The Scientist-Practitioner Model.

It involves a constant effort to increase the component of psychological practice that is based firmly on scientific principles and evidence and to decrease the component that is based on unsubstantiated speculation, unanalysed experience, intuition or art.

Question 7

What is a criticism of the Scientist-Practitioner Model?

Answer 7

Clinical Psychologists understand that science progresses by a fusion of cognitive processes, not just solely objective science.

i.e. hypothesis generation relies on intuition and creative speculation which can be followed by experimentation, but you need creativity first.

Question 8

How many Psychological findings could Brian Nosek replicate?

Answer 8

Only 36% of studies could be replicated or reproduced

Question 9

1. What did critical psychologist Ken Gergen focus on?
2. What was his key idea?

Answer 9

1. Focused on the importance of looking at Psychology historically.
2. We shouldn’t see psychology as a story where ‘science triumphs over ignorance, where facts replace mere opinion’

Question 10

What is the Philosophy of Science?

Answer 10

The study of the nature of science itself.

• I.e. What is science?*
• What sort of methods and theories are used by producers of knowledge claims who call themselves scientists?*

Question 11

What is Epistemology?

Answer 11

The study of theories of knowledge.

• The study of how we know what we know.*
• Concerned with providing a philosophical grounding for deciding what kinds of knowledge are possible, and how we can ensure that this knowledge is legitimate*

Question 12

What is Ontology?

Answer 12

Refers to what kinds of things there are to know about.

How we distinguish between the various kinds of things that exist.

Question 13

How does epistemology and ontology relate to psychology?

Answer 13

Every theoretical perspective in psychology (or any field) embodies a certain way of understanding what is (ontology) as well as what it means to know (epistemology)

Question 14

What are the three types of knowledge that Philosophers of Science distinguish between?

Answer 14

Science

Non-Science (religion, philosophy)

Pseudo-Science (false predictive knowledge claims - voodoo, astrology, consulting a medium, phrenology)

Question 15

Who were the four ‘founding fathers’ of science and what century were they in?

Answer 15

16th and early 17th century.

Copernicus

Galileo

Kepler

Newton

Question 16

What is Natural Philosophy?

Answer 16

The philosophical study of nature and the physical universe using reason, logic and arguments rather than evidence.

• Considered the precursor to natural (empirical) science, ancient Greek philosophers used this.*
• Concerned with questions of ontology and mathematics (measurement)*
• You formulate ideas that make sense then look to evidence to prove them, rather than testing in the real world.*

Question 17

Who was Sir Francis Bacon - what is he credited with creating?

Answer 17

He was a philosopher and statesman.

He is credited with developing the scientific method.

(Born 1561 died 1626)

Question 18

What was Francis Bacon’s knowledge claim?

Answer 18

What defined science, and separated it from other forms of knowledge, was its method.