Why do you think many people might be skeptical about psychology being a science?

Name: Problem 18, Chapter 1: Psychology Openstax
Uploaded: 2020-06-01T20:33:11-08:00
Duration: 6 min 58 s
Channel: Dagny Deutchman
Description: Why do you think many people might be skeptical about psychology being a science?

Why do you think many people might be skeptical about...

Key Concepts

Scientific Method

The scientific method is a systematic process used to develop and test theories through observation, hypothesis formulation, experimentation, and analysis. It is foundational to any discipline that is defined as a science, emphasizing the need for objective findings, controlled experiments, and empirical data.

Measurement and Operationalization

In psychology, abstract concepts such as mood, cognition, or behavior must be translated into measurable variables, a process known as operationalization. This challenge in defining and quantifying complex human experiences often contributes to skepticism about the rigor and precision of psychological studies.

Replicability and Reliability

Replicability refers to the ability of a study’s findings to be consistently reproduced over time and across different samples. Issues with replicability in psychology—where studies sometimes yield variable results due to the complexities of human behavior—can undermine confidence in its scientific status.

Complexity of Human Behavior

Human behavior is influenced by a myriad of interacting factors including biological, social, and environmental elements, making it inherently complex and difficult to isolate in research. This complexity often fuels debate about whether psychology can achieve the same level of predictability and precision as other sciences.

Transcript

00:01 One of the biggest criticisms in psychology is that people sometimes refer to it as a soft science.

00:13 What does this mean? what do people mean when they say this about psychology? well, basically they mean that they are skeptical that psychology is a real science.

00:33 Why might people say this? this is a really big question and it comes up all the time.

00:40 Well, there are actually a lot of pretty good reasons why this started out this way.

00:46 If we think about the history of psychology like we've learned, there's a handful of people who got very, very famous along the way in psychology who have really, i wouldn't necessarily say, undermined the credibility, but had got psychology famous for what could have been the wrong reasons.

01:04 We've got people like sigmund freud.

01:10 A lot of people know who sigmund freud is.

01:14 They know his history.

01:18 And what we know now as psychologists is that a lot of what sigmund freud said wasn't true, isn't scientific, doesn't hold up.

01:25 But because he was one of the most famous, a lot of people think psychology and think that we still believe and act on and research the things like sigmund freud said.

01:37 There's other reasons why people might be a little bit skeptical of the field of psychology.

01:41 One of them, if you haven't heard of it yet, is called the replication crisis.

01:54 Basically, what the replication crisis is, is that sometimes you have a bunch of researchers who say, oh my gosh, i discovered this thing, and they're really excited about it.

02:09 But then another researchers will try it out and say, uh, i did not find a thing.

02:24 So this right here makes a lot of people wonder, gosh, why did this person find this thing and this? and this person not.

02:32 Remember if we think about the scientific method, we need things to be able to be replicated in order to call a good science.

02:45 If we can't replicate it, then we're probably having a problem here.

02:52 So this replication crisis is a thing.

02:55 This happened.

02:55 And there's a handful of social studies, social science studies that cannot be replicated.

03:01 And it's really changed the field.

03:04 And it's changed the way that we do statistics.

03:06 It's changed the methodologies to try and make sure that we can replicate science more clearly...

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