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Psychology as a Science - Coggle Diagram
Psychology as a Science
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Strengths
By adopting a scientific approach, psychology has produced stronger and better theories, so elevate the status of psychology
By adopting a scientific approach in psychology, it has led to a wide range of practical application, which has helped a large number of people
Weaknesses
The scientific approach looks for cause and effect in every aspect of human life. As a result, it views humans as predictable and controllable. This is reductionist
The scientific approach strives for objectivity and control. However, this means that the environment can be artificial and unnatural
When adopting a scientific approach, we will suffer from both demand characteristics and researcher bias. This is not a problem in the natural sciences like physics
Positions of the debate
Is a science
Psychology has the same goals as science, for example validity and falsification, so in this respect it is a science (many researchers use hypothetical-deductive model)
To a certain extent, psychologists use, or attempt to use, the same methods as other scientists
Isn't a science
Humans aren't predictive like chemicals, there are always going to be huge issues, such as cofounding variables and ethics, which mean that psychology doesn't have a fully scientific method
Thomas Kunn said all sciences have a set paradigm, which all separate paradigm unify under. However, psychology has many different paradigms (areas/perspectives), so Kunn said it can't be a science