PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENCE

Discussion: Psychological Research is Not Scientific

Discussion: Psychological Research is Not Scientific

Introduction

The term psychology refers to the study of mind and mental process of a living organism. In a comprehensible manner, it can be said that psychology is the science which attempts to explain the causes of human and animal behavior. Psychology traces its origin from philosophy which later claimed to be part of science. (Boynton & Smith, 2006) This raises the question that, is it appropriate to claim psychology as science or not. This study would critically examine the statement psychological research is not scientific. For the purpose of examining this statement, it is pertinent to discuss is psychology a science or not? Because, a discipline is the reflection of the research process it involves.

What is science?

It is vital to discuss the definition of science first in order to provide concrete argument on the statement that psychological research is not scientific. The term science refers to obtaining the systematic knowledge of physical and material objects through observation and experimentation. In simple words, it can be said that science covers everything which is proven by the facts. (Carpintero, 2004) Using this definition of science it is easy to claim that at present psychology is the branch of science as modern psychology deals with proven facts.

Scientific Research in Psychology

The Beginnings of Psychology as a Science

Psychology is a young science. The official birth of psychology is related with the foundation of the first experimental laboratory of psychology in 1879, in Leipzig, Germany (Boring, 1929). Its founder, Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920) devoted its work to study some of the basic problems of perception from an empirical approach (Simonton, 2006). Until then, any problem which is related, to human knowledge was being solved by the philosophical framework of psychology. Thus, the application of empirical methods for the study of such problems was novel, and even revolutionary. However, at present psychology in no way involved the exclusion of philosophical methods for psychological research (Boynton & Smith, 2006). Psychology continued regularly using philosophical, although not as a fundamental resource reasoning. The most radical difference was a new hierarchy of methods, which modern psychology has adopted as basic to the experimental method, while philosophy implemented theoretical speculation. Since then, the experimental methods used by those pioneers have significantly evolved till present (Cohen, 1990, 1994) (Cronbach, 1957). Psychology of today has become highly sophisticated tools for the investigation of their problems. It is usual for a psychologist of the twenty-first century to use solid experimental designs, which are highly advanced mathematical structures, robust measurement techniques and, even, computer simulations and complex products of Artificial Intelligence.

In the broad sense, psychology as a field of study has existed since Greek Antiquity (Carpintero, 2004). Philosophers from ancient Greece have shown their interest in psychological problems of far-reaching (Gardner, 1985). Not only Aristóteles tried to systematize a doctrine about the soul, but that before Plato, Socrates and even the pre-Socratics proposed sophisticated psychological theories. However, the current psychology stems from the application ...