Psychology as a science

Question 1

Define Reductionism (1)

Answer 1

• an approach to breaking down complex concepts into simple component parts.
• Isolating variables and investigating them in controlled settings.

Question 2

Define Holism (1)

Answer 2

• the idea that human behaviour should be viewed as whole integrated experience, and not as separate parts.

Question 3

Define Falsification (1)

Answer 3

• the idea that we cannot prove anything ‘true’ we can only show something that is not true

Question 4

Define Empiricism (1)

Answer 4

• the idea that knowledge can only come through our senses.
• Obtaining knowledge through direct evidence.

Question 5

Define Hypothesis Testing (1)

Answer 5

• conducting research to test an operationalised prediction.

Question 6

Define Credibility (1)

Answer 6

• the reliability, correctness and believability of content.
• Consider issues such as objectivity, bias control

Question 7

What is generalisability?

Answer 7

→ Generalisabilility - psychologists who adopt the nomothetic approach are mainly concerned with studying what we share with others. The nonmothetic approach involves establishing laws of generalisations that apply to all people. Sampling bias limits our ability to generalise to other poulations and psychology cannot be a science if it fails to take notice of this

Question 8

What is objectivity?

Answer 8

→ Objectivity - researcher bias is seen to be an issue with objectivity. This may be subconscious and is an issue with recording and interpretation of data, A method to therefore make this more scientific is the double-blind procedure, where both the participant and researcher does not know the aim of the study.

Question 9

What is the use of animals?

Answer 9

animals are easier to study, they have a shorter gestation and life spans making them easier to study that humans. There are obvious ethical issues to discuss. Psychology is accussed of anthropomorphism (generalising animal experiements to humans and the attritubution of human characteristics or behaviours to animals). → Paradigm - A paradigm is an agreed subject matter and set of procedures. Science tends to go through these shifts therefore psychology is not a science as it has no agreed paradigm. There are many conflicting approaches and key assumptions

Question 10

What is validity?

Answer 10

Accurately measuring what is sought to be measured with research.

Question 11

What is replication?

Answer 11

The ability to accurately reproduce something correctly, such as the procedure of a study in order to compare to test for consistency

Question 12

Evidence that psychology is a science - SOCIAL

Answer 12

→ lab experiments (e.g. Milgram 1963) have high control for cause and effect. → Abstraction concepts such as prejudice can be operationalised to become reductionist and measurable like frienship levels (Sherif 1954) → Questionaires and surveys can be replicated easily and use quantitative objective. → 2 researchers can agree on themes for thematic anaylysis

Question 13

Evidence that psychology is not a science - SOCIAL

Answer 13

→ Field experiements - have low control over extraneous variables so cannot establish cause and effect (e.g. Sherif 1954) → Questionaires are open to bias from social desirability, acquiesence bias and researcher bias from interpreting open questions. → Humans studying humans can never be objective

Question 14

Evidence that psychology is a science - COGNITIVE

Answer 14

→ Lab experiemnts (e.g. Baddeley 1966) used standardised procedures with word lists. → Memory is universal and so have a unified paradigm. → Brain scans for memory impairments being due to brain impairments. → Evidence for hypothetic- deductive model in Baddeley 1966 who adapted his experiement to separate the STM and LTM encoding.

Question 15

Evidence that psychology is a not science - COGNITIVE

Answer 15

→ There is not a unified paradigm due to no definitive test for memory. → Case studies (e.g. KF suffered memory impairment from motocyle accident and had imapired verbal recall as opposed to visual). → Bartlett’s research created his theory which is not a hypothetic deductive model.

Question 16

Evidence that psychology is a science - BIOLOGICAL

Answer 16

→ Brain scans (e.g. Raine 1997 using a PET scan) are scientific. → Can genersalise animal studies on the CNS of rats, etch to humans (Wagner 1979 with castrated rats) → lab experiments have high control for cause and effect and standardised procedures for replication. → Reductionist when looking at areas of the brain being responsible for certain behaviours.

Question 17

Evidence that psychology is not a science - BIOLOGICAL

Answer 17

→ Correlations have no control over variables and cannot establish cause and effect. → Case studies (e.g. Charles Whitman) have complex procedures involving different methods. → No unified paradigm as there are multiple explanations for aggression. → Twin studies never have 100% concordance rate. → Evolutionary dictiontinuity means can’t generalise animal research on aggression as different social environments.

Question 18

Evidence that psychology is a science - LEARNING

Answer 18

→ Lab experiments (e.g. Watson and Rayner 1920) have standardised procedures to allow high replication. → Unified paradigm on seeking to find how behaviors are learnt with different theories. → High predictions from learning theories for the development of things like anorexia. → Animal research on behaviour (e.g. Thorndike 1898 and his cats) → Inter - rate reliability methods like observations (e.g. Bandura 1961)

Question 19

Evidence that psychology is not a science - LEARNING

Answer 19

→ Observations (e.g. Bandura 1961) can be subjective when interpreting behaviour as human studying can never be objective. → Field studies have low control over extraneous variables meaning lower validity with cause and effect of measuring what is sought to be measured. → Animal studies on behaviour are not fully generalisable due to qualitative differences in the brain as a result of evolutionary disontinuity. → Behaviours can be hard to operationalise.

Question 20

Evidence that psychology is a science - CRIMINAL

Answer 20

→ Uses biological explanations to explain criminal behaviour which uses scientific methods such as brain scans (e.g. brain structure) → Lab experiments have high control (e.g. Loftus and Palmer to test EWT) and are standardised. → Social explanations for criminality are reductionists (e.g. labelling theory and SFP - so easily measurable)

Question 21

Evidence that psychology is not a science - CRIMINAL

Answer 21

→ Case studies (e.g. psychological case formulations) have complex procedures that are harder to replicate. → Case studies about unique criminals are harder to generalise to other people due to their uniqueness. → Field experiments in EWT have lower control over variables that can affect what is being measured. → CBT is more holistic in its approach by combining biological and social factors for behaviour and so less scientific.

Question 22

Evidence that psychology is a science - CLINICAL

Answer 22

→ DSM and ICD are objective with standardised manuals to follow when diagnosing. → Brain scans are used to compared the brains of patients with mental illnesses. → Animal research is often done to test the effects of drugs on rats with symptoms of mental disorders which can be genersalised to humans. → Explanations for disorders are reductionists. → Accurate predictions can be made from learning theories, etc on the development of a disorder (e.g. Nasser 1986 cairo vs London for Egyptian)

Question 23

Evidence that psychology is not a science - CLINICAL

Answer 23

→ Diagnostic interviews are unstructured and gain qualitative which is harder to replicate and measure → Subjective interpretations of symptoms → Interviewer bias on what predictions disclose → Case studies (e.g. Luk and Agoha) are harder to replicate due to their unique and complex nature with a more holistic apprroach. → Correlational data does not establish cause and effect (e.g. social causation hypothesis)