Scientific Status Controversy

Question 1

Scientific Status Intro + 4

Answer 1

Science / pseudoscience
- science = must meet criteria: e.g. valid / reliable / objective
- psych meets in some way = benefit of psych being science
BENEFITS TO SOCIETY & ECONOMY / CHANGING NATURE OF SCIENCE / COSTS OF BEING A SCIENCE / METHODOLOGIES USED BY VARIOUS APPROACHES

Question 2

Scientific Status - Benefits of being a science to society & economy

Answer 2

Determinism - know how to treat behaviour better if it’s predetermined & understand causes better (help treatment) - e.g. drug therapy
Claims Testing - Society demands evidence-based data to support behavioural claims
Ethics - Would be unethical to use treatment without being certain that they’re effective
Economically - Saves money: drugs > therapy (McCrone - psychoactive drugs save £22b annually in England)

Question 3

Scientific status - changing nature of science

Answer 3

Empirical Evidence - Greeks = scientific evidence should be empirical; developments = improve v & r

Pathology vs Flourish - researchers think psych should focus on pathology & mental illness but others shifted focus on what makes ppl flourish & thrive

Methodology of psych - NOMOTHETIC: beh = quantified for stat analysis which allowed behaviour based generalisations for groups of ppl / IDIOGRAPHIC: becoming more popular bc it emphasises uniqueness & qual data (popularity in 19th = Freud, paved way for qual methods eg Skinner’s rats)
Triangulation - use of qual & quant to determine extent of all findings point in similar direction (eg. shift work on sleep disruption = self report interviews / observation sleep lab / experiments on function)

Question 4

Scientific status - costs of being a science

Answer 4

Determinism - undermines free will / aims to establish cause & effect - misleading & not always the case
Mindfulness - some therapies are less useful on their own despite roots in science (eg. both SIT & mindfulness = more useful when paired with CBT)
Dream analysis - Some therapies = subjective & falsifiable w/ no scientific evidence they work (DA = based on subjective opinions & one interpretation)
Human Testing - for psych to have ss, exp must be conducted: some on human ppts = cause harm & unethical

Question 5

Scientific status - Methodologies used by various approaches

Answer 5

“Psychology can never have a scientific status due to methodologies used by various approaches”
A: Bowlby (self report / subjective / case study) / L&P (lacks ecological validity video>real) / Myers & Diener (self report / subjective / non-generalisable)

D: Raine et al. (scientific lab exp) / L&P (ev & cvs = controlled) / W&R (replicable / falsifiable / objective)

Question 6

Scientific status controversy - Mnemonic

Answer 6

Bdeec+m / Cepmt / Cdmdh / M? A-blm - D-rlw