Psychology as Science

Question 1

Is psychology a specific kind of science?

Answer 1

• In some ways, yes
• Focus on humans mind and behaviour
  Complex and broad
  Understanding, explain and describe

Question 2

Psychology as science

Answer 2

• Humans are
  material
  living organism
  a person

Question 3

Connection to natural science

Answer 3

• It explains how human mind and behavior works, to a degree
  Chemical processes
  Biological Processes
  Evolution
• Are all humans the same?
  Individuality and differences only from context?

Question 4

Language

Answer 4

• Very important
  Expressions, logic, construct complex societies
• Its subjective
• Psychology closer to everyday thinking than natural sciences
  Understanding and intention

Question 5

Causal explanation

Answer 5

• To create laws
  Applicable for everyone
• From positivism
• A situation always gets followed by a specific situation afterwards
  Important for science

Question 6

Criticism to causal explanation

Answer 6

• Maybe it should be more about probability?
• What about intention?
• Do we always need causal explanations (pretty dogmatic view)
  Do we have to generalise everything?
• We often lack knowledge on why these laws happens
• What do we want psychology to correspond to?

Question 7

How does psychology relate to other sciences?

Answer 7

• Science often sees physics as ideal science
  Far away from psychology
• Fair to compare the two then?
• Everything got a psychological dimension
  We can describe and explain a lot of different things
• Its an impactful field of study for society

Question 8

Questioning science

Answer 8

• Can we explain everything?

Question 9

What does knowledge mean?

Answer 9

• Knowledge is often power
• Gives value to research
  Knowledge as in ideas
• Is all good knowledge? For whom?
• What kind of knowledge do we want?

Question 10

Empirism

Answer 10

• Heavily influences by it
  Developing methods
  Data collection
• Seen as objective, neutral and universal
  But is it? Humans create theories.
• Big focus on quantitative method no matter research question
• Does theories always explain or describe?
  Personality traits, isnt it based on assumptions?

Question 11

Nomothetic approach

Answer 11

• To unify science
• Methods, theories and concepts are dependant on culture
• Should we study groups or individuals?
  We only get the average of something
  Why separate?
  Is it same for all groups?

Question 12

What hidden norms or biases do you think underpin science?

Answer 12

• Power
• Conformation bias
  Leading to conformity
• Lack of culture
  WEIRD problem
• How we feel like we need to justify the need of psychologist to only understand mental illnesses

Question 13

Paradigms

Answer 13

• Quantitative method seen as positivistic
  Its objective
• Cant be combined with qualitative method
  Two separate paradigms
• Qualitative method gives in-depth perspective
  Harder to publish and more prone for research biases

Question 14

W.E.I.R.D

Answer 14

• The population in experiments
• Heavily focused on USA
  Most data from there, as well as authors and editors
  Subjects mostly being psychology undergrad students
• Gate keepers
• Western got more resources
• Can we apply our knowledge to every culture?
• Creates a bias

Question 15

Replication Crisis

Answer 15

• Due to nomothetic approach
• Can we replicate studies?
  Social processes
  Human changes
• Is it really surprising?
• Exact vs conceptual replication
• Methods
  Variations
  Statistical power
• Falsifying results