Psychology As A Science Essay

Psychology as a Science
1. Define Psychology. Is psychology a science? Elucidate your answer with relevant arguments.
DEFINITIONS OF PSYCHOLOGY
Psychology has been defined in different ways.Some people have defined psychology as an
art.Other people have defined psychology as a science.Many text books define psychology as the
science of mind and behavior.Psychology involves the study of human nature and/or
behavior.Different opinions come from different perspectives.
Eric Pettifor at GIGANTOPITHECUS defines psychology as "an art which presents itself as
science".
H.D.Hamm Ph.D.,who authored and maintains a site for Northern Michigan University,defines
psychology as the "scientific study of the behavior of humans and animals".
Tom Bolling at the University of...show more content...
But this conclusion sidesteps some evaluation points that can be used to determine whether the
existence of scientific research within a field grants scientific status to the field itself.Here are the
points: A. Does research address and potentially falsify one or more core theories that define the
field? B. Does research honor the null hypothesis? C. Does research have the potential to change
how the field is practiced?
Point A
Does research address and potentially falsify one or more core theories that define the field?Does the
scientifically valid result make psychology itself scientific?No,of course
not.Why?Because,regardless of its practical significance,research doesn't address or potentially
falsify the core theories.When psychologists perform research,some of the results pass muster as
legitimate science,but unless those results address and potentially falsify the core theories of
psychology,the research cannot confer a scientific status to psychology itself.To summarize,for
criterion (A) to be satisfied,psychology must have a theoretical core of testable,falsifiable theories
and ongoing research must address and potentially falsify those theories.On this ground,psychology
fails Point A.
Point B
Does research honor the null hypothesis?The "null hypothesis" is a scientific precept that says
assertions are assumed to be false
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Is Psychology A Science?
Whether psychology is a science or not has been a long running debate between psychologists and
other scientists alike. There have been various attempts at making psychology a scientific discipline
in the past such as the movement from behaviourism into cognitivism. Researchers such as Wundt
and Watson have worked hard to bring psychology into the world of scientific research and through
the years have made a very good start but have they managed to achieve scientific criteria?
Berezow (2012) defined what separates science from non–science in five criteria. He stated that a
science must have; clearly defined terminology, quantifiability, highly controlled experiments,
reproducibility, and predictability and testability (What separates science from non–science, 2012)
His claim that a discipline must meet each of these criteria to be defined as a science puts limits on
psychology. There isn't enough known about psychology, when compared with subjects such as
physics and chemistry, to have clearly defined terminology for everything studied. Humans are a lot
more difficult to study than particles and chemical compounds, meaning that test results will be a lot
more varied, are a lot harder to control and are more difficult to reproduce but this variability can be
overcome with the use of statistics. In terms of how quantifiable psychology is, it is incredibly
difficult to quantify something with no physical measurements. Scales and definitions are invented
every day in

Essay about Definition of Psychology
Definition of Psychology
The term psychology comes from two Greek words: psyche, which means
1. The spirit or soul. 2. The human mind. 3. In psychoanalysis, the mind functioning as the center of
thought, emotion, and behavior.
And logos, "the study of." or according to modern researches "science"
These root words were first combined in the 16th century, at a time when the human soul, spirit, or
mind was seen as distinct from the body.
Definition of Psychology:
Psychology is one of the youngest sciences. It is still going through the process of its development.
There has been much fierce controversy about its definition. It has been variously defined as the
science of soul,...show more content...
Great psychologist like Sigmand Freud support this fact.
The science of Behavior:
J.B. Watson described Psychology as the science of Behavior.. He said that external action or
behavior is the only concern of Psychology. He totally ignored mental processes. He said that what
goes on in our mind eventually comes out as our behavior. But this is not true for all times so this
was considered incomplete.
Now a days the most comprehensive definition of Psychology is:
"Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior, and its application to solve human
problems"
OR
"Psychology is the schematic study of behavior and mental processes"
This definition contains three elements. The first is that psychology is a scientific enterprise that
obtains knowledge through systematic and objective methods of observation and experimentation.
Second is that psychologists study behavior, which refers to any action or reaction that can be
measured or observed–such as the blink of an eye, an increase in heart rate, or the unruly violence
that often erupts in a mob. Third is that psychologists study the mind, which refers to both conscious

and unconscious mental states. These states cannot actually be seen, only inferred from

The Science of Psychology Essay
The Science of Psychology
"Psychology is the scientific study of mind, brain and behaviour. Some of what you do learn may
seem like 'common sense', or at least familiar to you because you are learning about topics in which
you can relate to. However some things you may believe is true, but is incorrect. The way we know
this is through the application of scientific methods."
Mark Leary suggests that the subject matter of psychology is much more familiar to most people
than is the subject matter of physics or biology; we see behaviour all around us. Psychology would
be an odd science of thought and behaviour if it only considered thoughts and behaviours completely
foreign to people's...show more content...
An example of this is; one of the simplest rules of behaviour is that if you reward someone for
doing something, they are more likely to do it again (the principle of reinforcement. How many
people out there actually verbalise this rule and use it consistently? Certainly not the mother who
rewards her child's tired tantrum in the street by buying them a toy or a magazine, nor the person
who showers their partner with attention and affection when they are having a jealous sulk at a party.
If you take Milgram's study of obedience, you can see that, the teacher obeyed the person with
authority. If you met a policeman in the street and he asks you where you were the following
night, because an incident happened and you may have been around the area or the time it
happened, you would do as the policeman asks as he has more authority, so it may seem like
common sense, as it is something you would see happening in everyday life. But Milgram's study
was a scientific experiment to see whether people would go as far as killing a person by authority.
Also if you look at the surroundings and at how the experiment was set up it was all very scientific,
based in a make–believe laboratory. With scientific equipment, so a lot of it actually was more
scientific than common sense, which is explained above that scientific methods usually way up more
than common sense.
Zimbardo's study

Essay about Psychology is a Science
Psychology is definitely not what I thought it was. It is not just a therapist wanting to take your
money and not do anything for it. Psychology is an exact science that uses the scientific method to
figure out problems. Things like astrology and graphology are not a real science, they do not use
true science to deduct things and find a true answer.
There are a lot of different ideas within the history of psychology. There was Structuralism, which
focused on the structure of the mind. Fuctionalism believed in adapting to ones environment, Gesalt
Psychology, focusing on the whole rather than the parts, Behaviorism, no studying of the mental
processes, only behaviors, and Psychoanalysis, which only focused on the unconscious mind.
There...show more content...
Behavioral view in which our behavior is primarily shaped by our learning. Trait view, the results
from our own special combination of traits. And Sociocultural view, behavior is influenced by our
culture and social experiences.
The psychology world is changing rapidly. More and more people are getting their education in
psychology. There are five different types of psychological research.
1.Experiments. The researcher controls all the conditions of an experiment.
2.Correlational studies. No experimental manipulation, only study of the relationships between the
variables.
3.Surveys. Opinions, responses, etc.
4.Naturalistic Observations. Research of people or animals in their own home surroundings.
5.Case Studies. Involving either one individual, or at most, a few.
Bias come up a lot too in psychology. There are personal bias?, which involve your beliefs, opinions,
preferences, etc. These can cause people to ignore data that they otherwise would?ve counted. Then
there is expectancy bias?. This can be telling someone to expect something before it happens so that
they assume something and come to flawed conclusions.
Basically, psychology is all around us and everything we do or say can be from a deeper place
than we realize. A simple smile at someone else can tell you how they are feeling simply by seeing
the reaction on their face. Although you may not think it?s

Together, can a conclusion be made? The conclusion being that science helps many parts of our
lives? "Like all science, psychology is knowledge: and like science, it is knowledge of a definite
thing, the mind" in this quote by James Mark Baldwin, it states that psychology is a science, a
science that is being used in many different ways. Unlike usual science, that teach us about cells,
rocks, and animals, this science gives us a glimpse of something that everyone has and something
that everyone has questions about... the mind! Psychology helps us in many different ways, and one
of those ways is to help police catch criminals. Psychology helps the police force catch criminals by
looking at behavior patterns that these criminals have when it comes to committing crimes, looking
into the criminals' past, and allowing the formation of a special unit. It is important to remember
that the use of psychology to catch criminals isn't just for any type of criminal, but mostly helps law
enforcement catch violent criminals namely, serial killers, serial rapists, serial arsonists, and
terrorists. Many argue that using psychology in profiling is not a sound science and law
enforcement is making a guess rather than an educated assessment. Looking into behavioral patterns
of violent criminals has a lot of important pieces. One of these many pieces is victimology (study of
victims, socioeconomic background as well as physical traits, e.c.t.) "... The victim constitutes
roughly half of the

The question that 'psychology is a Science' motivates a substantially critical debate amongst many
professions, having very strong opinions. To come to a vigorous conclusion on this subject we must
take into recognition both sides of the argument, what is science, and weather Psychology meets the
principles of Science. In doing this the following essay will be debating the principles of science, the
scientific unifying approach, poppers opinion on whether psychology is a science through his theory
of falsification, and examples of past falsifiable psychology research. The further argument of
weather psychology has been revolutionised by looking at Khun's opinion, and Millers paper on the
revolution of cognitive science.
Science its self is scientific methods being practiced to widen and construct a system of knowledge
about our natural world, where Pseudoscience is all else that does not meet the principles of
scientific method, but claims it is science. In order to conclude if psychology is a science it must
be assessed what principles must be attained to be contemplated as science. Many would argue that
Psychology is not a Science, for many reasons. The first being that all natural sciences have a
unified approach, with Biology's being the theory of Common Decent, Physics following the unified
field theory and Chemistry following the theory of molecular bonding. Psychology lacks a unified
approach, and instead has six different perspectives (Gilder, October 12, 2015). Does

Psychology as a science is very complicated, with many parts and attributions to other fields of
science. These many parts come together to help explain why humans behave the way they do. Most
of this depends on the brain and the way it tells our bodies to react to the environment around us.
Our brain function allows us to have these reactions, along with many other things that make up a
person. Their motivation, emotions, development, and personality are all products of the different
functions and parts of our brain. Sometimes these things are put into too much focus within the
brain, therefore becoming disorders. Psychology analyzes why these brain functions cause us to
behave in certain situations, whether that be under extreme stress or in a social situation.
II. History The simple idea of psychology goes all the way back to when humans began to even
have simple ideas. Psychology was studied by philosophers such as Buddha, Confucius, Socrates
and Plato during the ancient times. The first major discoveries in the area of psychology came in
the 1600s with the birth of modern science. New theories are formed on human behavior, such as the
conflicting theories of learning. Early belief was that humans were born with pre–existing
knowledge that needed to be "unlocked". John Locke proposed that minds were born as blank
slates. Scientific advances also led to the discovery of nerves during this time. Psychology as we
know it today came about in 1879, before this psychology

The Science of Psychology Essay
The Science of Psychology Psychology is defined as "the scientific study of the behavior of
individuals and their mental processes supported by research". The word psychology itself is
derived from two Latin roots– "psyche" meaning mind and "logos" meaning study. It emerged as a
separate discipline around 1879. However, unlike the other sciences, it is far from straightforward as
its main field of study is the mind, which is an intangible object. Due to this, there have been...show
more content...
It has its roots in Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov's famous experiment with dogs and is thus also
known as "Pavlovian conditioning". He was successful in making the dogs salivate at the sound of a
bell by pairing its ringing with their food. Four important concepts in classical conditioning are
unconditioned and conditioned stimulus and unconditioned and conditioned response. Stimuli that
animals react to without training are called primary or unconditioned stimuli (UCS). They include
food, pain, and other "hardwired" or "instinctive" stimuli. For example, animals do not have to
learn to react to an electric shock. Pavlov's dogs did not need to learn to salivate at the sight of food
as this response was merely reflexive. Stimuli that animals react to only after learning about them are
called secondary or conditioned stimuli (CS). These are stimuli that have been associated with a
primary stimulus. In Pavlov's experiment, the sound of the bell meant nothing to the dogs at first.
After its sound was associated with the presentation of food, it became a conditioned stimulus.
Higher order conditioning up to third and fourth order is also successful. In this, a strong CS (e.g.
bell) is paired with a new stimulus (e.g. light) in place of the UCS and the new stimulus begins to
elicit the CR. Stimulus generalization also occurs after conditioning, i.e., the CR is triggered by
stimuli that

What Is Psychology A Science
PSYCHOLOGY AS A SCIENCE
Psychology is the scientific study of the behavior of individuals and their mental processes. (Fuchs
& Milar, 2002). But what makes it a scientific study? First of all, why not? Nowadays the idea
of psychology as a science seems so natural to us, but it was not always like this. The
late–eighteenth–century declaration that a true scientific study of the mind was not possible posed a
challenge that was answered in the nineteenth century when the possibility of a scientific study of
mind emerged within philosophy by the adoption of the experimental methods employed to study
the physiology of the senses. (Fuchs & Milar, 2002). Christian Wolff first popularized the term
psychology to...show more content...
To do this, psychologists often look for patterns that will help them understand and predict behavior
using scientific methods, principles, or procedures to test their ideas. Through such research studies,
psychologists have learned much that can help increase understanding between individuals, groups,
organizations, institutions, nations, and cultures. Psychology lies at the intersection of many other
different disciplines, including biology, medicine, linguistics, philosophy, anthropology, sociology,
theology and other sciences. Like other social scientists, psychologists formulate theories, or
hypotheses, which are possible explanations for what they observe. But unlike other social science
disciplines, psychologists often concentrate on individual behavior and, specifically, in the beliefs
and feelings that influence a person's actions. If we compare theological and psychological
explanations of human and animal behavior, we can see how different they are, but still interrelated.
Explanations of why people behave the way they do and how they change have concerned
philosophers, theologians, cultists, and occultists throughout the centuries. These explanations form
the basis of modern psychology. Yet psychology deals with the very same areas of concern already
dealt with in Scripture. Since God's Word

Psychology As A Science Essay

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