Psychology as a Science- Lecture 1,2 &3 Flashcards
What is Psychology?
Psychology is the scientific study of the mind, and how it dictates and influences our behaviour, from communication and memory to thought and emotion.
How old is Psychology?
The “birth” of psychology may not have started until around 1879, with Wilhelm Wundt’s laboratory in Leipzig.
Plato’s tripartite theory
That we need to balance reason with emotion and desire.
Aristotle later wrote a whole book based on the mind (De Anima).
The “libido” is the force governing all life including humans, animals, and plants.
What are the four temperaments? Hippocrates, then Galen was involved here. Mood regulated by physical composition, excess fluids (humors).
- Phlegmatic (phlegm)
- Melancholic (black bile)
- Sanguine (Blood)
- Choleric (yellow bile)
Thomas Aquinas- Italian priest and very influential philosopher.
Argued that body and soul are inseparable. The soul is part of the body, but it is non-materialistic and survives death.
John Locke believed…..
Mind was the product of experience. “Tabula Rasa” refers to a blank state. All reason and knowledge are the results of experience. This approach is known as empiricism, which refers to the senses and experience.
Radical empiricism
Objective study is difficult when humans are the subject.
Social Learning theory
The idea that children learn from observing models. Bandura in the 1960s focused on aggression with the Bobo Doll.
What do we mean by “Science?”
“Knowledge ascertained by observation and experiment, critically tested, systematised and brought under general principals especially in relation to the physical world”
The scientific method from Gross.:
- Definable subject matter.
- Theory construction: To account for observed phenomena.
- Hypothesis Testing: Making predictions and carrying out appropriate tests.
- Empirical Methods: Need to collect data to provide evidence for theory/hypothesis.
How is Psychology not scientific?
How is Psychology not scientific?
1. Failure to adequately define subject matter.
- Theories that do not actually work. What does a theory need for it to be explained?
- Theories that cannot be tested or are difficult to measure.
- Methods are insufficiently objective.
A Paradigm:
A pattern or model.
Stages in the development of science.
- Prescience: Several paradigms compete for dominance.
- Normal science Part 1: Single dominant paradigm constrains subject matter, methods, and vocabulary.
- Revolution: Dominant paradigm gradually overturned as counterevidence becomes overwhelming.
- Normal science Part 2: As before, but with a different single, dominant paradigm.
The Objectivity problem in Psychology.
Most sciences have an external object of inquiry, Psychology is “the human activity of studying human activity.”
This makes true objectivity difficult, or even impossible.
