Is psychology really a science

[Cloud]

Well, is it ?

 

I read this article 2 months ago (I'm sure someone has read it here):

http://www.arachnoid.com/psychology/index.html

 

If not then I'll go over the main point the author tries to make:

 

He says that psychology ISN'T a science because it isn't a strict discipline as all the other sciences such as Biology, Chemistry and Physics. He goes on to say that different types of mental illnesses are being 'founded' by the hundreds every year and this number is expotentially growing and so soon

"no behaviour will be normal."

 

He says that there is ethical restrictions on experimenting on humans (because there is) preventing proper analysis of psychology/psychological methods.

 

Even if we could cut up humans and their brains, we don't even fully understand the brain so we wouldn't even know what were're looking for.

There is no way of quantifying this. There is just too much variability (aka. 50:50) and not enough science (100%). He actually relates psychology to religion as a belief system.

 

I think its quite a good article. I'm still pretty confused on the area.

What do you all think?

 

Discuss.

[Genecks]

Psychology is a social science.

 

However, I believe it has more to do with science than the other social sciences. One could argue sociology is more of a science, but I disagree. Sociology comprises of people bitching about morals and society and how they think it works and why it works.

 

I consider psychology part of neuroscience; neuroscience is part of science; therefore, psychology is more of a REAL science than history or other social sciences.

 

It may not be a strict discipline, but at least it is a discipline that has the ability to be on a microscale and observable.

 

I don't have a time machine right now; therefore, I can't go back into the past. I can't view the world's population; therefore, sociology seems somewhat futile and mutable. Psychology relates to neuroscience which is an actual science; since it has a tie to a real science, it has the ability to have science exported and imported.

 

For the rest of my college career, I'm going to take psychology courses unless forced to do otherwise. All the other social sciences are crap and unrealistic in my opinion. Much of history was written by aristrocrats, which can alter the the true view of how the past really was. Much of sociology and other social sciences are biased. Psychology tries not to be biased at all, and psychology does not want to be biased unless things are left to interpretation. Some people in sociology avoid bias; however, bias is very reoccuring in sociology when it comes to social issues.

 

I don't care about social issues. I call it all artificial and natural selection and say screw sociologists.

 

Normal never existed anyway. There was, however, always a constant.

 

Psychology is a subpart of neuroscience, which is part of science.

[xDiViNiTix]

i believe psyc is definitely a science...considering you run tests, form hypotheses, observe and analyze results from experiments, and everything else that a normal "science" comprises of...actually...pretty much anything can be a science...it all depends on how u look at it...

[bluesmudge]

but what defines a science exactly?

[badchad]

A lot of people discount psychology because it deals with a lot of subjective topics: consciousness, "thinking" etc.

 

Nowadays however a lot of psychology research follows the scientific method. In addition a lot of psychologists perform experiments using objective data (e.g. quantitative changes in neurotransmitter levels etc.). Thus, IMO psychology is definetly a science.

[Genecks]

In addition a lot of psychologists perform experiments using objective data (e.g. quantitative changes in neurotransmitter levels etc.). Thus, IMO psychology is definetly a science.

 

Exactly.

 

Psychology could be seen as the qualitative part of neuroscience.

[silkworm]

How does this make you feel?

 

Psychology is not a natural science simply because it is based in what we interpret as behavior positive or negative behavior. It is WAY TOO objective to be considered a natural science, which is what neuroscience is. Most of it's data is equivocated and most of its conclusions are only philosophical. That is very different than a natural science such as, chemistry, physics, biology, astronomy.

 

Neuroscience deals with how the brain works, psychology deals with behavior. There's a lot of chemistry and biology in neuroscience. There's a lot of open ended questions in psychology. It judges mental processing versus mainstream brainwashing. Who cares?

 

I habitually must deal with a psychology PhD who wouldn't know science if it made him borderline, but he does well enough in his field.

 

I'm not calling it worthless. Developmental psychology has a lot of merit, but I would never call psychology a natural science.

[Genecks]

Psychology is the study of behavior.

 

If a person were to change the neurobiology/neurochemistry of an individual, then the behavior of the individual would change.

 

Thus, a person would study the qualitative result from the quantified making.

 

I suppose if I were to make a drug to change an individuals behavior, I would want a psychologist viewing the patient. To use a neuroscientist would probably be useful in brainscans, but not observable behavior among people.

[scicop]

Psychology is definately a science. And in the clinic it is an extremely important tool for improving patient respones. Psychology the study of human behavior, and in the clinical setting, pyschologist have various tools at their disposal to measure human behavior and make the correct assessment and determine if patients are resonding to therapy.

 

As briefly mentioned in a post above, human behavior is hard to measure/quantify since humans are individuals! Everyone has a different response to certain stimuli (stress, work, family, ...experimental paradigms), and therefore much of the quantification of human behavior in psychology is done through established scales.

 

For example, in measuring depression, there is the HAM-D scale, as well as guidelines from certain authorities, such as the APA, or the DSM-IV. So in a sense a psycologist has a way of measuring patient behavior by the use of scales that allow for a diagnosis/assessment/ data point gathering.

 

So, for example, psychology is especially important in clinical trials. So staying with the depression idea, if you want to assess the effectiveness of an anti-depression drug or a therapy (Cognitive Behvioral, CBT, let say), you turn to the field of psychology, and use their scales to measure patient outcomes. Of course, now its extremely important to mention statistics.

 

Statistics is an extremely important tool for psychology. This way they can differentiate between patients who are in different experimental groups as well as assess if drug effect (or CBT) is significant to lets say a placebo group (or another form of therapy...i.e. quick-inteventions). So this is one way psychology, is a science and is of clinical relevance.

 

One other way psychology is important is through pyschosocial interventions that increase patient compliance to treatment therapy. Among the top reasons for patient non-responsiveness to drugs is patient non-adherence to treatment protocol (the don't take their medication). Today, more and more, drugs for mental disorders (depression, anxiety, alcohol dependence, bipolar etc) are being approved by the FDA under the condition that there is psychosocial therapy program that given concurrently and following drug adminstration, to ensure patients are adherent to pharmacotherapy (see the recently approved drugs for alcohol dependence). Few clinical trials are published today without psychosocial programs, or board certified pyschologist..yes..psychologist....AND psychiatrist...at the clinical trial site(s).

 

So, in summary, psychology is a science, and is clinically relavant, and its attempt to understand and quantify human behavior is a necessary componant of not only drug-development/therapy, but also ensuring patient outcomes through improving patient adherence to medication.

 

There are other ways psychology is a science, but I'll let others put in their two cents.

 

One more thing: Even though a psychologist may not know biochemistry, or neuropharmcology at the molecular level as a natural scientist would, it doesn't mean they don't know science! They know the science of their field! They practice their science and probably have more mathematical skill sets and abilities (statistics) than most laboratory scientist (I'm a former PhD lab scientist..and worked with a PhD pyschologist..everyone went to that pyschologist for their statistics..even physician department chairmans and PIs of pharma/govt funded clincal trials!!).

[whiteboywushu]

Psychology doesn't qualify as being a science! Psychology is just an opinion of a person, by a person who is biased by their own beliefs and behaviours. Psychologist's believe they conduct experiments! Bull Schlaka! You can't conduct an experiment without a constant! There's no such thing as a constant in the human brain! You don't have to be very smart to get into psychology at uni, therefore, can't be a real science!

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Psychologist's believe they conduct experiments! Bull Schlaka! You can't conduct an experiment without a constant!

Then why have mathematicians spent so much time developing the field of statistics? It is designed precisely to draw conclusions from data that is not always constant or predictable.

 

You don't have to be very smart to get into psychology at uni, therefore, can't be a real science!

Science is more than just smart people writing papers.

[PhDwannabe]

Psychologist's believe they conduct experiments! Bull Schlaka! You can't conduct an experiment without a constant! There's no such thing as a constant in the human brain!

Can you define "constant" in this context in any kind of rigorous way? What exactly needs to be "constant" in order to conduct experiments?

 

Suppose I give two groups of people adrenaline shots without their explicit knowledge of what's in the shot. (Naturally, my shot-giver assistant doesn't know either.) Suppose I then expose one of those groups to a room full of confederates who also claim to have received the shot, and seem to be acting somewhat agitated. The other group sits in a room full of confederates who seem to be quite giddy. Then I observe behavioral and physiological data, as well as collect self-report data, from the subjects. Of course, I'll also be doing all this same thing to two other groups of people who've received saline shots. I wonder if the results--mean group differences, let's say, between certain reliably coded behavioral indices, or subjects' reports of emotionality--might tell me anything about the way human beings perceive emotional experiences?

 

Can you tell me why this double-blind, placebo-controlled design isn't an experiment?

 

You don't have to be very smart to get into psychology at uni, therefore, can't be a real science!

I wonder if the 200 people rejected yearly from the average doctoral program--or the 10-ish who get in--have anything to say about that? Being part of the latter group, I imagine I could think of a few choice words.

[insane_alien]

whiteboy, it sounds like you are confusing pop psychiatry with psychology. one is a load of mince and the other is a science (hint, psychology is the science)

 

it may not have started out as a science, but it did develop into one.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Can you tell me why this double-blind, placebo-controlled design isn't an experiment?

It may be an experiment, but it's clearly not a psychology experiment, because a psychology experiment requires a tall, well-dressed white-bearded man and a leather couch. Everyone knows that.

[Marat]

First I would dispute the assertion that social or humanistic studies are worthless because they are not natural sciences. Fields outside the natural sciences operate not by measuring data to predict the future by hypotheses based on the data, but instead develop hypotheses to guide the interpretation of human behavior, thinking, texts, and culture. They are 'sciences' of 'Verstehen' (understanding), as Dilthey pointed out, not of prediction, so their intellectual project is simply incommensurable with that of the exact sciences, rather than inferior to it. Everything worth the attention of human thought doesn't have to involve mathematical laws predicting how particles will move under various conditions.

 

Second, it is important to distinguish psychology as brain physiology, which is close to the exact sciences, from psychology as the classification of mental disorders in the DSM-IV, which is in many cases just the expression of social policing dressed up as science. If you do research on the role of hyperglycemia's effect on brain neurons and its relation to Alzheimer's disease, that is no different from ordinary science, yet it could still arguably be classified as psychology, especially if you related cerebral hyperglycemia to changes in behavior.

 

But when earlier versions of the DSM classified being homosexual as a mental disease, at least until that diagnosis became so politically incorrect that it had to be dropped from the DSM in 1977, then that type of psychology is just pure social fascism posing as science. Some clinical entities in psychiatry seem so clear and coherent, are found in so many cultures, and have such predictable courses -- such as schizophrenia, for example -- that their ontological status seems perfectly reliable and an acceptable basis for scientific theorizing. Other clinical entities, such as depression, however, seem more like excuses to sell expensive pills to people who are reacting perfectly normally to unpleasant life circumstances. The fact that psychology can't clearly separate the wheat from the chaff in its collection of clinical entities certainly undermines its claim to being a science.

[PhDwannabe]

But when earlier versions of the DSM classified being homosexual as a mental disease, at least until that diagnosis became so politically incorrect that it had to be dropped from the DSM in 1977, then that type of psychology is just pure social fascism posing as science. Some clinical entities in psychiatry seem so clear and coherent, are found in so many cultures, and have such predictable courses -- such as schizophrenia, for example -- that their ontological status seems perfectly reliable and an acceptable basis for scientific theorizing. Other clinical entities, such as depression, however, seem more like excuses to sell expensive pills to people who are reacting perfectly normally to unpleasant life circumstances. The fact that psychology can't clearly separate the wheat from the chaff in its collection of clinical entities certainly undermines its claim to being a science.

 

Psychology can't separate the wheat from the chaff? As I assume you're aware, Marat, the psychiatrists handle the DSM. Do psychologists serve on the committees? Yeah. But because of biomedical power and piss-poor advocacy on the part of our professional organizations, we're largely along for the ride on that thing. You won't find a lot of psychologists defending the biomedical, "atheoretical" disease-model of the DSM. That's a universe that we grudgingly exist in so we can get paid.

[Marat]

In all these sciences of the mind its hard to distinguish boundaries. At the end of the 19th century, Hugo Munsterberg and William James were still arguing about whether psychology should be a part of the philosophy department, and now there are borderline questions between psychology and psychiatry. Even within the ontology of psychiatric disease entities, there was a scandal a few decades ago when it was found that British and American psychiatrists were constructing schizophrenia diagnoses differently, according to which side of the Atlantic the patients presented.

 

So, yes, I would agree that the problems with the diagnostic entities of the DSM, which are generated by the mutual guilt of psychiatrists and less so by psychologists, and used by both psychiatrists and psychologists, cross boundaries between psychiatry and psychology.

[Conor]

I can't speculate on the rest of the world because I frankly don't know, however most high-schools and universities in Australia consider psychology as a science. Whether it's a natural science is up for debate. Also most of the psychology courses Iv'e looked at, at a graduate level also require the involvement of a decent amount of biology and some introduction to chemistry so to say that psychologists, even at a graduate level, have no scientific knowledge would just be plain wrong.

 

You don't have to be very smart to get into psychology at uni, therefore, can't be a real science!

 

If this is a serious response then I pity you.

It's like saying because penguins can't fly they aren't real birds.

What proof do you have that you don't need to be very smart to get into psychology at uni? Can you define smart and how does not being 'very smart' and doing a particular subject therefore make it unscientific?

 

 

 

[CaptainPanic]

Mandatory XKCD:

 

[Taylor]

Some psychological questions lend themselves better to "science" than others. Much of psychology is correlational, but you can certainly perform scientific experiments from which you can draw causal inferences. Yes, there are certainly restrictions on what you can control, and certainly not just from an ethical standpoint. But the same is true of biology.

 

What you can't do with psychology that you can do with physics is predict individual behavior. Some might argue that certain laws exist from a conditioning/behaviorist school, but for the most part, psychology is vastly more complex than something like physics - truly understanding it is beyond our capacity to comprehend - thus, the need for probability and statistical analysis.

[charles brough]

Psychology is a subpart of neuroscience, which is part of science.

 

You stated that three times in your post so it must be true . . . !

 

I believe I can show that psychology can be more accurate by not being connected to neuroscience!

 

OK here goes: we evolved through millions of years as small group social primates and in the form of hunting and gathering groups. Neuroscientists are not able to effectively show this neurologically nor are genetists able to genetically. It is knowedge resulting from work in paleontology, anthropology, etc. The result of that knowledge is that our behavior must necessarily resemble that of many other small group social animals, especially primates.

 

So, the innate motivation that is common among small group social primates can be, and has been, visibly observed and noted. Those behavioral patterns we all share can be honestly referred to as "instincts" which in us, are subject to minor modification by our ideologies in order to enable us to operate more efficiently.

 

Thus, we are in a position to tell neurologists and geneticist when their conclusions are wrong if and when they are.

[stradi]

You stated that three times in your post so it must be true . . . !

 

I believe I can show that psychology can be more accurate by not being connected to neuroscience!

 

OK here goes: we evolved through millions of years as small group social primates and in the form of hunting and gathering groups. Neuroscientists are not able to effectively show this neurologically nor are genetists able to genetically. It is knowedge resulting from work in paleontology, anthropology, etc. The result of that knowledge is that our behavior must necessarily resemble that of many other small group social animals, especially primates.

 

So, the innate motivation that is common among small group social primates can be, and has been, visibly observed and noted. Those behavioral patterns we all share can be honestly referred to as "instincts" which in us, are subject to minor modification by our ideologies in order to enable us to operate more efficiently.

 

Thus, we are in a position to tell neurologists and geneticist when their conclusions are wrong if and when they are.

 

 

How can the way we think not be related to neuroscience?

[charles brough]

Well, is it ? I read this article 2 months ago (I'm sure someone has read it here):

http://www.arachnoid...logy/index.html If not then I'll go over the main point the author tries to make:

 

He says that psychology ISN'T a science because it isn't a strict discipline as all the other sciences such as Biology, Chemistry and Physics. He goes on to say that different types of mental illnesses are being 'founded' by the hundreds every year and this number is expotentially growing and so soon

"no behaviour will be normal."

 

He says that there is ethical restrictions on experimenting on humans (because there is) preventing proper analysis of psychology/psychological methods.

 

Even if we could cut up humans and their brains, we don't even fully understand the brain so we wouldn't even know what were're looking for.

There is no way of quantifying this. There is just too much variability (aka. 50:50) and not enough science (100%). He actually relates psychology to religion as a belief system.

 

I think its quite a good article. I'm still pretty confused on the area.

What do you all think? Discuss.

 

We do not fully understand the brain but we do not understand anything fully. We can and do gradually learn more about everything. In physics, mathematical forumulas seem to result in "laws" that are rigid and without exception. However, when we now look back, we found that we have had to change many "laws" so that we have reason believe that all of what we know will in time, change as we make it more accurate.

 

In comparison, psychology is not so subject to mathematical formulating and we can only make generalizations which always end up with exceptions. So, we don't call them "laws." Science has to do with the field's limitations and that does not preclude the subject from being science.

 

What can make a "science" from not being a science is rationalizing. For example, social science data---including that of psychologists---is gathered in scientific ways but it is interpreted by social theorists in ways that ensure that the over-all picture is the very least offensive to the mythology of the old religions and to other "politically incorrect" subjects.

[charles brough]

How can the way we think not be related to neuroscience?

 

Good question! It all has to involve neuroscience, but brain physiology alone has not been explaining our social instinct repertoire.

[Scotchmana]

Is Psychology a real science?

Well, is it ?

 

Discuss.

 

I suppose it could be in that it is body of related neurological phenomenon.

 

We know quite a few mental disorders. Did you know that not one is worked out as to exactly what is causing the disorder? I suppose a few reading this may believe I am being harsh. After all, the brain is complex. Yet have you ever asked for a definitive test that proved these the exact disorder being labeled? You know that you can't get one right? Not one.... In fact if you go to different psychologists and list the same list of troubles you will get different diagnosis. That's right, different OPINIONS of what is wrong with you. Sound Like a well grounded science to you?

 

The drugs given out have a big list of side effects, even side effects that lead to a greater problem the drug was meant to help. Why? Because the exact problem is not understood well enough to know what will happen. Also, I hope you understand that these drugs are not weak or mild. To have these running through you system can alone give you additional disorders. Not to mention addictions. You could ask that if they don't know exactly what causes a particular disorder, how do they know if the drug will fix an exact mental problem? They don't.

 

The list of Mental Disorders given in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) is increased ever year. There has never been a disorder removed for any reason and the book is getting quite thick. The process of adding the disorders is that experienced psychologists observe people and try to describe distinct hehavior that may be due to a mental disorder. The observation is then checked in the DSM to see if it is already covered by existing lables. If not, a clear description of the disorder is then recited at an annual meeting where the disorder is voted upon as to weather it should be added to the manual. There is never a clear chemical analysis or any other definitive test to determine the eligibility of the disorder (hence why no clear test exist).

Now lets take the word "Psychology". What does it mean and how did it become the subject it is today? The word's origin means "The study of the spirit or mind (not a big distinction at the time)". The original psychologist were men that called themselves authorities on the subject of the soul (hence the word) and were payed professions circa 1600AD. You payed them to tell you if demons or black magic could be what's ailing you or something you care about (no joke). If you found a witch in the time of "witch hunts" they adopted the job of determining the truth of things from priests and Inquisitions. After a time this became unpopular and funding ran scarce. Fortunately, the over throwing of governments started becoming popular in the time of the US war of independence circa 1800AD. A number of aristocratic and government individuals became very interested in how to understand human thinking and behavior (especially how to modify human behavior to keep themselves in power). This spawned the first institutions for the insane. The idea being that these guys were already calling themselves experts on what makes man tick and the insane were people that experts needed look into to see what ailed them. It was not long after that experiments in "human behavioral modification" got underway in these institutions. Pavlov for example was accepted as a leader in the subject with his famous experiments on dogs. Did I leave out that they were claiming that there was not soul anymore? Scientific opinions were already separating from religious and so with the decline in popularity (and money) so too did the experts of the soul abandoned it and declared there is no soul, yet they kept the name. And how could we forget Sigmund Freud? He was employed from some years by the Dutch if memory serves me correctly to dig deeper into what makes people act the way they do. His work was quite popular.

We are now starting to come to 1900AD. The idea that mental disorders were influenced by a chemical basis was not introduced until after would war 2. The US and many other nations were investing quite-a-bit into warfare. Included in this was the means to attack or disable large populations at a time like entire cities and their populations. One promising subject were drugs. LSD for example was created with the idea that it could be dropped into a water works before a military invasion to pacify it's populace. As a side note, the word "high" refers to a state of mental euphoria often induced by drugs but not always. It came from the then US Air Force who had been recently formed in the time of WW2 and had large numbers of personnel being added to their ranks. Would be pilots would do test flights and it was noticed that if you went too high, a condition called "anoxia" would set in that caused the pilot to act erratically due to a lack of oxygen to the brain. "Anoxia" also causes euphoria thus "high" referred to this condition as a slang term. These same recruits were asked to assist in the drug testing of drugs like LSD and much of what provided the base compounds of modern behavioral drugs. "High" then became adopted by the general populace. As for the drugs, with so much money invested into research, drug induced behavioral modification and the effects of chemicals on people was now documented and the effects of chemicals on human behavior became the basis of the modern pharmaceutical trend.

And as another side fact: Psychiatric care is the only proclaimed help profession that reserves the right to overturn patient rights and lock you up against your will.

Edited November 1, 2011 by Scotchmana