Foundation of psychology
Chapter 10
Is psychology a science?
The foundation of psychology as an academic discipline was legitimised on two pillars
Psychology has a long, respectful past and uses the scientific method
Steven Ward
Makes the case that a new branch of knowledge can establish itself and survive only if it succeeds in convincing the ruling powers of the need for such knowledge as well as reassuring them that it is no threat to their prosperity.
The founders of psychology promoted it as a new academic discipline by stressing two messages
Consequences for the psychology curriculum
Because psychology was promoted on the basis of its long past and its sound method, both ‘history of psychology’ and ‘research methods’ were major components of the curriculum.
These books on history were self-legitimisation as much as essential stepping stones for a good psychology education.
Science is defined by its method rather than by its subject matter
Every topic studied within the scientific method is a science
To be accepted as a science, psychologists had to make the case that what differentiated sciences from non-sciences was the way in which problems were investigated, and not the type of problems addressed.
Although few people spontaneously associated the study of mental life with scientific research, the first academic psychologists maintained that there was nothing inherent in the subject matter that prevented it from being studied using the scientific method.
Methodolatry
Because of its emphasis on method in the definition of science, academic psychology invested heavily in developing appropriate research designs and analysis techniques.
It has been argued that psychology throughout its existence has overplayed the role of research methods at the expense of theory building.
Methodolarty or methodologism: tendency to see methodological rigour as the only requirement for scientific research, at the expense of theory formation.
The shadow of positivism
One reason why psychologists tended to stress valid testing rather than theory formation was that they tried too hard to be good scientists.
The scientific method has not let psychologists down
Systematicity and cumulativeness of knowledge
Science stresses the requirement that knowledge builds on existing knowledge.
New findings and explanations must be coherent with existing information.
Therefore, previous knowledge should be available and new knowledge must be made public.
Science is meant to be cumulative. Researchers consult what has been found before with respect to a particular topic, so that they can build on it and avoid previous pitfalls.
The use of well-defined methods
Information must be gathered in line with agreed methods that are clearly outlined.
There is systematicity in the collection of observations.
The methods used must be accepted by the existing research community and be described in such detail that the observation can be replaced by others.
Clarity
The findings are stated in such a way that they are interpreted in the same way by different readers.
Prediction
Science stresses the importance of prediction.
It is not enough to explain phenomena post hoc. A scientist must be able to predict what will happen in the future.
Such prediction enables control of the event
Knowledge is revisable
Scientific knowledge is open, and can be revised at all times.
Trying to falsify existing convictions is central to science, to make sure that no wrong beliefs are perpetuated.
Knowledge is not person-bound.
Comparison with pseudoscience
Pseudoscience: branch of knowledge that pretends to be scientific but that violates the scientific method on essential aspects, such as lack of openness to testing by others and reliance on confirmation rather than falsification.
Pseudoscience violates the scientific method on essential aspects such as:
Acceptable progress thus far
Psychological research remains largely scientific because psychologists themselves are nut unhappy with the progress they have made in the past 150 years.
Relationships to other sciences
By looking at cross-references it is possible to position psychological research relative to the other research sciences.
Psychology does not form an isolated island only referring to itself.
It is one of the seven major areas of research, forming a hub for a series of other disciplines related to human functioning.
Psychological research is well embedded within the sciences.
Interim summary
Reasons why psychology is claimed to be a science
There is little overlap between the stereotypical view of a scientist and the stereotypical view of a psychologist
Lack of overlap between the stereotypical image of a scientist and a psychologist
The fact that a psychologists is spontaneously associated with the image of a practising clinical psychologists means that there is virtually no overlap in the stereotypical images of scientists and psychologists.
Whereas the former are essentially depicted as loners obsessed with their investigations, the latter are nearly always seen in interaction with other people.
There is some overlap in the negative traits, but these are more part of the effort to keep the image of one’s own group high by attributing negative features to other groups rather than essential characteristics of scientists and psychologists.
Given the small overlap in the stereotypical views of scientist and psychologists, it should come as no surprise that the general public does not spontaneously associate psychologists with scientists.
Psychology researchers vs. psychology practitioners
Professional psychologists largely outnumber psychology researchers
Practitioners strongly outnumber the researchers is another feature that distinguishes psychology from other sciences.
Practitioners, both psychological and medical, rarely see themselves as (stereotypical) scientists.
They are users of scientific information, but do not consider it as part of their job to generate new knowledge on the basis of the scientific method.
The fact that psychological and medical practitioners are users of science rather than scientists means that there is quite some variety in the scientific standards to which they adhere.
Ward
The differentiation between researchers and practitioners has been a strength of psychology.
Each approach meets different needs in the population.
Psychology practitioners often forget their scientific education
Dawes (1994)
After graduation clinical psychologists have a tendency to forget all they have learned and to return to ‘clinical intuition’, which is not much better than that of untrained people.
Ways in which psychology researchers have tried to distinguish themselves
Because psychology researchers saw the natural-scientific status of psychological research constantly being misunderstood, they repeatedly tried to distinguish their own work from the mainstream image of psychology.
Unlike scientific results, psychological findings are easy to understand
Everybody understands worthwhile psychological findings
Science is perceived as difficult, a challenge many people try to avoid.
In contrast, psychology is seen as accessible.
Because we are all humans interacting with others, we all have experience with what works and what does not work in our daily life.
Psychological research can give us new insights, but if these insights are worthwhile we will have no difficulty relating to them.
There will be a resonance between our own intuition and the new knowledge.
Not all psychologists are convinced of the added value of the scientific method
The hermeneutic alternative
Psychology should stay within the humanities and in particular adopt the investigation approach of history.
Hermeneutics: approach in psychology according to which the task of the psychologists is to interpret and understand persons on the basis of their personal and socio-cultural history.
Throughout the history of psychology, the hermeneutic approach has coexisted with the mainstream natural-scientific approach, often on not every friendly terms.
Unravelling how the human mind functions vs. understanding what the human mind comprises
The main criticism of the proponents of hermeneutics against the experimental study of the human mind has been that it is too much geared towards unravelling the processes of the mind.
What the experimental psychologists overlooked, according to hermeneutists, was that understanding a person involves not so much knowing how the person functions, but what the person thinks, believes, feels and wants.
Interim summary
Reasons why psychology is not seen as a science
Dilthey: Naturwissenschaften vs. Geisteswissenschaften
Wilhelm Dilthey (1833-1911)
One of the first authors to openly criticise psychology’s turn to the natural sciences.
Distinction between:
According to Dilthey, the human mind should be understood, not explained
The four elements of Dilthey’s approach
There were four elements in Dilthey’s approach
Psychoanalysis and related schools
Freud
Freud’s method was in line with the hermeneutic approach because it aimed at understanding the contents of a person’s mind and was based on the interpretation of visible human products with the use of psychoanalytic theory.
Related schools
In the twentieth century, Freud’s ideas inspired a series of other theorists to come up with alternative theories of what constitutes the core of the human mind and how it develops over time
Rogers and humanistic psychology
Rogers
Carl Rogers
Started to question the Freudian therapy and promoted an alternative form of therapy.
Rogers emphasised the empathic form of understanding, whereas Freud chose the hermeneutic level.
Therapist in Rogers’s view had to share the client’ experiences but not interpret them.
Rogers combined the hermeneutic approach with the natural-science approach when he insisted that the efficacy of his therapy be tested.
Maslow
Abraham Maslow (1908-1970)
One of the founders of humanistic psychology.
Humanistic psychology: psychological movement promoted by Rogers and Maslow as a reaction against psychoanalysis and behaviourism. Stressed that people are human, inherently positive, endowed with free will and living within a socio-cultural context.
Maslow did not conclude that science was worthless for the study of the whole person.
He stressed the need for a new type of science, which was not exclusively based on Descartes’ mechanistic world view.
Neglect of individual differences
Another criticism against experimental psychology was that it ignored individual differences and tried to understand the functioning of the ‘average’ person.
Research methods govern research questions
The method of determined the research questions to be addressed.
Research questions that did not fall within the realm of the natural-scientific approach were not examined and, by consequence, were not thought to be of interest.
The direct impact of experimental psychology on everyday life is limited because many human choices and interactions are centred on values rather than facts.
Psychology has been confined too long to white Western males
Scientific psychology has been criticise for being interested only in topics and research approaches that were of concern to Western males.
Feminist psychology: movement in psychology aimed at understanding women; is particularly concerned with the way in which women are treated in mainstream psychology.
Postcolonial psychology: movement in psychology addressing the issues of racism and the ways in which dominant groups treat other groups.
Say that science is not an objective and value-free enterprise, but a value-laden approach related to the socio-cultural context in which it occurs.
Scientific claims of objectivity and universal validity are exaggerated
A criticism of the natural-scientific approach in psychology is that it promises more than it can deliver.
Critical psychology
Critical psychology: movement in psychology that criticises mainstream psychology for failing to understand that knowledge does not refer to an outside reality (realism), that scientific knowledge is not cumulative but consists of social constructions, and that psychological theories and claims have an impact on the world in which people life.
Idealism instead of realism
There are two opposing views in philosophy about the nature of human knowledge
Critical psychologists believe that scientific psychology wrongly beliefs in realism.
According to them, human language does no represent things in the world but is meant to facilitate social interactions.
What matters is the person as a social being.
Science is a social construction
Science is not a progressive uncovering of reality, but a social construction in which scientific statements are primarily determined by the language and the culture of the scientists.
Scientific statements are not ‘fixed truths’ but ever-changing stories that reflect the socio-political and cultural world of the scientists.
Scientific writings must be read like history texts, as one of the possible accounts of what is/was going on.
Psychologists have a moral responsibility
Because the (social) reality is constantly changing as a function of what happens, critical psychology urges psychologists to be aware of the fact that their research affects reality.
Psychology research can condone a social injustice and promote its continuation by giving it a ‘scientific’ justification.
According to critical psychology, psychologists cannot pretend they are studying their subject matter in a detached way from the outside, they are part of the subject matter and have to act accordingly.
Interim summary
The critique of experimental psychology
Interim summary
The wider picture, where did it all start? - summary of chapter 1 of Historical and conceptual issues in psychology, by Brysbaert, M and Rastle, K (second edition)
Foundation of Psychology
Chapter 1
The wider picture, where did it all start?
Introduction
This book describes the growth of psychology as an independent branch of learning and tries to comprehend the essence of the discipline.
The introduction of written records represents one of the most important moments in the development of science.
The preliterate culture
Preliterate civilisation: civilisation before writing was invented.
Though these civilisations have not left us with written testimonies, it is possible to discern several important features of them by studying existing cultures that do not use writing.
This research revealed three important characteristics of knowledge in these kinds of cultures:
The first writing systems
Written language appeard separately in at least four cultures:
These four written languages were preceded by protowriting, the use of symbols to represent entities without linguistic information lining to them.
Characteristics of writing systems
From an early stage, writing systems were a combination of pictograms and phonograms.
Pictogram: an information-conveying sign that consists of a picture resembling the person, animal or object it represents.
Phonogram: a sign that represents a sound or a syllable of spoken language.
Phonograms were gradually replaced by simpler signs symbolizing meaningful sounds in language, (phonemes or syllables).
The use of phonograms to represent phonemes led to the alphabetic writing systems.
Logograph: a sign representing a spoken word, which no longer has a physical resemblance to the word’s meaning.
Written documents form an external
.....read more The scientific revolution of the seventeenth century and its aftermath - summary of chapter 2 of Historical and conceptual issues in psychology, by Brysbaert, M and Rastle, K (second edition)Foundation of Psychology
Chapter 2
The scientific revolution of the seventeenth century and its aftermath
Introduction
The word psychology did not appear in literature before 1500.
Scientific revolution: name given to a series of discoveries in the seventeenth century, involving Galilei, Descartes and Newton, that enhanced the status of science in society.
The geocentric model of the universe in the sixteenth century
The earth as the centre of the universe
The model that of the universe used in the sixteenth century was the model described by Aristotle who built on others) and elaborated by Ptolemy.
Aristotle’s universe was a limited universe with the Earth in the middle
Geocentric model: model of the universe in which the Earth is at the centre; was dominant until the seventeenth century.
The addition of epicycles
A key problem within the Aristotelian universe was the movements of some of the wandering stars.
To explain strange movements, Ptolemy used the notion of ‘epicycles’.
Epicycles: small cycles made by the wandering stars in addition to their main orbit around the earth.
Copernicus’s alternative heliocentric model
The sun at the centre of the universe
Aristotle’s model was not the only one that had been proposed in ancient cultures.
Heliocentric model: model of the universe in which the sun is at the centre.
Copernicus saw the heliocentric model as a valid alternative for the geocentric model.
Why Copernicus waited to publish his model
Only shortly before his death, Copernicus was persuaded to get his book printed.
Possible reasons
Galilei uses a telescope
Because of the many problems with Copernicus’s model, it failed to have much impact.
Galilei’s observations
Galilei built a telescope and found out that:
Eighteenth- and nineteenth- century precursors to a scientific psychology - summary of chapter 3 of Historical and conceptual issues in psychology, by Brysbaert, M and Rastle, K (second edition)Foundation of Psychology
Chapter 3
Eighteenth- and nineteenth- century precursors to a scientific psychology
A characteristic of current Western society is that people derive their self-image and self-esteem from their own qualities and accomplishments rather than from the position of their family in society.
Individualisation: trend in a society towards looser social relations and a greater focus by individuals on themselves than on the groups they belong to.
Historians believe that this process of individualisation started sometime around the end of the Middle Ages and is still growing.
Following factors are contributions:
Interim summary
Since the end of the middle ages there has been increasing individualisation in society. Factors hypothesised to play a role include:
Descartes was the first Western philosopher after the Ancient Greeks to value new and independent thinking.
Epistemology: branch of philosophy concerned with the nature of knowledge.
Empiricism instead of rationalism
The traditional rationalist view
The traditional view of understanding in philosophy was based on
.....read more Establishing psychology as an independent academic discipline - summary of chapter 4 of Historical and conceptual issues in psychology, by Brysbaert, M and Rastle, K (second edition)Foundation of psychology
Chapter 4
Establishing psychology as an independent academic discipline
By 1850 there was a thriving literature of psychological subjects in Germany.
The universities reform in Germany
Universities in the German states for a long time were dominated by the humanities and religion.
This was a feature proponents of the Enlightenment fought against.
The Enlightenment ideas mainly came from a group of academics who had been expelled from the University of Leipzig, because of their critical attitude and modern ways of thinking.
A reform took place after the defeat of the Holy Roman Empire in 1805-1806.
The defeat by the French particularly upset the Prussians, who decided it was high time to modernise their country.
The school system was reorganised and a new university model was installed.
The emphasis on scientific research and the freedom given to the professors made the German universities dynamic and open to new areas for scientific investigation.
Wundt and the first laboratory of experimental psychology
Wundt’s career
After this Phd in medicine, he obtained an assistantship with Hermann von Helmholtz where Wundt began to identify himself as a scientific psychologist.
In 1862 he gave his first course in ‘Psychology as a natural science’ and in 1874 he published a book on physiological psychology.
In the book, psychology was defined as the study of the way in which persons look upon themselves, on the basis of internal physiological changes that inform them about the phenomena perceived by the external senses.
Wundt called his psychology physiological because:
In 1875 Wundt was appointed Professor in Leubzig were
.....read more Strengthening the scientific standing of psychology - summary of chapter 5 of Historical and conceptual issues in psychology, by Brysbaert, M and Rastle, K (second edition)Foundations of psychology
Chapter 5
Strengthening the scientific standing of psychology
The USA began to rule psychology in the twentieth century.
The expansion of psychology around the start of the twentieth century
As well as laboratories, in 1892 the American Psychological Association (APA) was founded, giving psychology researchers a forum to meet and discuss their findings.
Two journals were established that would dominate the field and that still exists today.
The first American psychology: functionalism
As psychology in the USA expanded, it got moulded by the expectations and preoccupations of American society.
There was a mistrust of intellectualism, knowledge for the sake of knowledge.
America was a nation of common-sense businessmen, not interested in abstract science, but in practical accomplishments that at the same time made money, revealed God’s glory, and advanced the American dream.
If psychology were to prosper, it had to subscribe to American values, which it readily did.
Part of the attraction to the functionalist approach to the Americans was that Wundt’s experimental research programme ran into problems in 1880s.
Psychology and its position within universities
Most psychology laboratories were set up within philosophical and theological institutes.
Staff members were not always happy with this.
On other occasions experimental psychologists were told not to stay too far from good old psychology as developed in philosophical writings.
Trying to win over the public
Phrenology
Phrenology: view that mental functions are localised in the brain and that the capacity of a function corresponds to the
.....read more The input from brain research - summary of chapter 6 of Historical and conceptual issues in psychology, by Brysbaert, M and Rastle, K (second edition)Foundations of psychology
Chapter 6
The input from brain research
Beliefs of the ancient Egyptians
The Edwin Smith papyrus
In 1862 an American collector, Edwin Smith, bought a papyrus scroll in the Egyptian city of Luxor.
In the text, written around 1700 BCE, but probably a copy of an older papyrus from 3000 BCE, a series of 48 cases were described dealing with the consequences of head and neck injuries.
Each case included a title, details of the examination, a diagnosis and an indication of the treatment.
The diagnosis consisted of one of three conclusions
The Edwin Smith papyrus: papyrus from Ancient Egypt that contains short descriptions of the symptoms and treatment of different forms of brain injury; named after the person who bought the papyrus in Egypt and had it analysed.
They illustrate how physicians treating wounded soldiers quite early became convinced of the importance of the head (brain) in controlling behaviour.
Beliefs in the wider society
The existence of the Edwin Smith papyrus did not imply that the knowledge contained in it was widespread.
In Ancient Egypt most scholars were convinced that the heart was the seat of the soul.
The roles of the heart and brain in Ancient Greece
The discussion over whether the soul was in the heart or in the brain continued in Ancient Greece.
Plato
Plato and Hippocrates placed the soul in the brain.
Plat also saw a function for the heart.
According to Plato, the soul was divided into three parts
Aristotle
Aristotle was convinced that the heart was the seat of the soul.
The function of the brain was to counterbalance the heat of the heart.
The heart and the brain formed
The mind-brain problem, free will and consciousness - summary of chapter 7 of Historical and conceptual issues in psychology, by Brysbaert, M and Rastle, K (second edition)Foundations of psychology
Chapter 7
The mind-brain problem, free will and consciousness
Throughout history, humans have been impressed by their ability to reflect about themselves and the world around them.
Self: the feeling of being an individual with private experiences, feelings and beliefs, who interacts in a coherent and purposeful way with the environment.
Mind-brain problem: issue of how the mind is related to the brain.
Three main views
Mind: aggregate of faculties humans (and animals) have to perceive, feel, think, remember and want.
Dualism: view of the mind-body relation according to which the mind is immaterial and completely independent of the body; central within religions and also in Descartes’ philosophy.
Dualism in religion and traditional philosophy
Religion
Dualism is central to religions.
They are grounded in the belief that people possess a divine soul created by God, which temporarily lives in the body, and which leaves the corpse upon its death.
The soul is what gives people their purpose and values in life.
It usually aims for the good, but can be tempted and seduced by evil forces.
This gave rise to the demonologist view of psychopathology.
Demonologists view: the conviction that mental disorders are due to possession by bad spirits.
Plato and Descartes
Dualism was central in the philosophies of Plato and Descartes.
Cartesian dualism: theories in which the mind is seen as radically different from the body and as independent of the biological processes in the
.....read more How did psychology affect everyday life? - summary of chapter 8 of Historical and conceptual issues in psychology, by Brysbaert, M and Rastle, K (second edition)Foundation of psychology
Chapter 8
How did psychology affect everyday life?
Introduction
Over the course of the twentieth century, the discipline of psychology grew from a marginal academic field to a discipline that has done more than any other to transform the routines and experiences of everyday life.
Applied psychology: the application of psychological knowledge and research methods to solve practical problems.
Evolutions before World War II
Mental health problems must be treated by partitioners with a medical degree
Psychologists were not allowed to provide unsupervised therapies in official settings and their private practices were not covered by health insurance.
The first clinical psychology centres
Treatment centres run by psychologists started in the USA and were university-related.
Lightner Witmer
Opened the faculty that was the first psychology health centre in 1896.
Aimed at helping behavioural and learning problems in school children.
The founding of clinical psychology centres was impeded by the lack of support from academic psychologists.
In the meantime mental health problems and psychoanalysis became popular courses in psychology.
Clinical psychology: branch of psychology applying psychological knowledge to the assessment and treatment of mental disorders.
The first clinical psychology centre in the UK was set up in 1920 in a private house in London.
The impact of World War II
An urgent need for psychological advice and treatment
Shell-shock: anxiety response of battlefield that prevents soldiers from functioning properly; was one of the first topics addressed by applied psychology.
The finding of shell-shock in World War I gave rise tow two developments
When the USA decided to join World War II they also decided to properly staff the military psychiatric service.
A crash course in the treatment of mental disorders was offered to all medical officers, and clinical psychologists were taken on broad, both for testing and treatment.
The beginning of client-centred therapy
The rising demand for psychological help provided a rich environment for new developments in therapy.
Psychoanalysis required a long series of treatment sessions and was not
What is science? - summary of chapter 9 of Historical and conceptual issues in psychology, by Brysbaert, M and Rastle, K (second edition)Foundation of psychology
Chapter 9
What is science?
Science’s claim of superiority was based on four principles
Thoughts before the scientific revolution
Plato, Aristotle and the sceptics
Plato
A strong rationalist view of knowledge acquisition.
Human perception was fallible and the observable world was only a shadow of the Real world.
The human soul had innate knowledge of the universe, which could be harnessed
Aristotle
More scope for observation and made a distinction between deductive reasoning and inductive reasoning.
True, theoretical knowledge started from axioms, form which new knowledge was deduced via so-called demonstrations.
Perception was the source of information but not knowledge itself.
Correspondence theory of truth: a statement is true when it corresponds with reality. Assumes that there is a physical reality which has priority and which the human mind tries to understand it. First formulated by Aristotle.
Pyrrho of Ellis
Scepticism: philosophical view that does not deny the existence of a physical reality, but denies that humans can have reliable knowledge of it; first formulated by Pyrrho of Ellis.
Humans must suspend judgment on all matters of reality.
Augustine
Augustine (354-430CE)
True knowledge was knowledge based on God’s revelations.
This view became dominant until well into the seventeenth century.
Interaction between theory and experiment: the scientific revolution
Galilei’s thought experiments
Galilei is usually credited as the person who convinced the world of the importance of observation and experimentation for the acquisition of knowledge.
But Galilei might in reality be a transition figure steeped in the Aristotelian tradition.
Is psychology a science? - summary of chapter 10 of Historical and conceptual issues in psychology, by Brysbaert, M and Rastle, K (second edition)Foundation of psychology
Chapter 10
Is psychology a science?
The foundation of psychology as an academic discipline was legitimised on two pillars
Psychology has a long, respectful past and uses the scientific method
Steven Ward
Makes the case that a new branch of knowledge can establish itself and survive only if it succeeds in convincing the ruling powers of the need for such knowledge as well as reassuring them that it is no threat to their prosperity.
The founders of psychology promoted it as a new academic discipline by stressing two messages
Consequences for the psychology curriculum
Because psychology was promoted on the basis of its long past and its sound method, both ‘history of psychology’ and ‘research methods’ were major components of the curriculum.
These books on history were self-legitimisation as much as essential stepping stones for a good psychology education.
Science is defined by its method rather than by its subject matter
Every topic studied within the scientific method is a science
To be accepted as a science, psychologists had to make the case that what differentiated sciences from non-sciences was the way in which problems were investigated, and not the type of problems addressed.
Although few people spontaneously associated the study of mental life with scientific research, the first academic psychologists maintained that there was nothing inherent in the subject matter that prevented it from being studied using the scientific method.
Methodolatry
Because of its emphasis on method in the definition of science, academic psychology invested heavily in developing appropriate research designs and analysis techniques.
It has been argued that psychology throughout its existence has overplayed the role of research methods at the expense of theory building.
Methodolarty or methodologism: tendency to see methodological rigour as the only requirement for scientific research, at the expense of theory formation.
The shadow of positivism
One reason why psychologists tended to stress valid testing rather than theory formation was that they tried too hard to be good scientists.
The contribution of quantitative and qualitative research methods - summary of chapter 11 of Historical and conceptual issues in psychology, by Brysbaert, M and Rastle, K (second edition)Foundation of psychology
Chapter 11
The contribution of quantitative and qualitative research methods
Quantitative research methods: research methods based on quantifiable data; are associated with the natural-science approach based on the hypothetico-deductive method.
Assumptions underlying quantitative research methods
There is an outside reality that can be discovered
Quantitative psychologists start from the assumption that phenomena in the world have an existence outside people’s minds.
They defend the idea that humans can discover reality by using the scientific method.
They are well aware of the fact that science is not a linear accumulation of facts but proceeds through trial and error. But are convinced that in the long term the scientific method based on the hypothetico-deductive model leads to an understanding of reality → scientific knowledge is cumulative
The main aim of scientific research is to find universal causal relationships
Researchers are primarily interested in discovering relationships between causes and effects.
How general are principles? And how do humans function?
Ideally they hope the mechanisms they discover will apply to all humans.
Trying to avoid confounds and sources of noise
Users of quantitative research methods are extremely vigilant about the possible intrusion of undesired factors into their designs.
They try to maximally control the circumstances under which they run their studies
They also try to eliminate the impact of random variables called noise.
Suspicion about the researcher’s input
A source of confounding and noise that is of particular interest to quantitative psychology researchers is the researcher him- or herself.
To protect themselves against biases and noise, quantitative researchers make use of standardised measurements and instruments.
Progress through falsification
Researchers constantly try to prove each other wrong.
Research methods are divided into three broad orientations
Descriptive research
Observation of numerical data
Detailed observation is the start of scientific research.
Typical for quantitative research is that the data are gathered in a numerical form, either by collecting measurements or by counting frequencies of occurrence.
Before researchers collect data, they have a good idea of how they will analyse them; what types of measurements they will obtain and what types of statistics they can apply to summarise and evaluate the data.
Large samples and a few data points per participant
The vast majority of descriptive quantitative studies involve the collection of a limited amount of data from a reasonably large group of participants.
Two main reasons to include
Psychology and society - summary of chapter 13 of Historical and conceptual issues in psychology, by Brysbaert, M and Rastle, K (second edition)Foundation of psychology
Chapter 13
Psychology and society
Science overtakes religion in Western society
Initial strong links between psychological thinking and religion
Psychology as a separate branch of knowledge grew out of the rising role of scientific thinking in Western society.
Education for a long time was controlled by the churches, which did not look favourably upon those who tried to examine the soul.
Many early psychologists had strong connections with religion.
Alliance formation with the expanding sciences
Rapidly, the experimental psychologists distanced themselves from religion, because it jeopardies their scientific credentials.
They sought to align themselves with the rapidly growing natural sciences, by denouncing weaker fields that might contaminate them, such as religion, philosophy, and sociology.
Psychologists replace pastors
Fewer people felt comfortable discussing their mental health problems with religious authorities.
Whereas for a long time churches were the first port to call for mental health problems, growing secularisation increased the need for non-religious counselling.
At the same time, a growing number of clergy started to study psychology to improve the help they were able to provide.
Changes in society impinge on psychological practice
Impact on psychological research
The massive changes in the organisation of Western society in the nineteenth and twentieth century generated ideas and research opportunities for psychologists.
Six historical developments that affected psychological research
Societal influences were not limited to the science-oriented track of psychology, but also shaped thought in the hermeneutic part.
Impact on clinical practice
Changes in society influenced clinical practice.
Mental disorders show cultural variation.
This is not only true between cultures, but also across time within a culture.
Each culture has a symptom pool, a collective memory of how to behave when ill.
At each time period patients with psychological problems gravitate towards the symptoms that at the time are thought to be legitimate indications of disease, as no patients wants to select illegitimate symptoms.
Society as a metaphor provider
Metaphors: in science, stands for an analogy from another area that helps to map a new, complex problem by making reference to a better
.....read more Historical Psychology
This is my personal collection of content about the history of psychology
All the interim summaries of the first half of Historical and conceptual issues in psychology, by Brysbaert, M and Rastle, K (second edition)The invention of writing
The discovery of numbers
The Fertile Crescent
Civilisations in the Fertile crescent:
The Greeks
Developments from the Roman Empire to the end of the Middle Ages
Ancient Romans:
Byzantine empire
Arab empire:
Western Roman empire:
All the interim summaries of the second half of Historical and conceptual issues in psychology, by Brysbaert, M and Rastle, K (second edition)Introduction
Mind-brain problem: issue of how the mind is related to the brain.
Three main views
Dualism
Materialism
Functionalism
Foundations of psychology In this magazine, you can find the summaries you need to finish the course foundations of psychology in the second year of the study psychology at the uva.
JoHo can really use your help! Check out the various student jobs here that match your studies, improve your competencies, strengthen your CV and contribute to a more tolerant world
JoHo kan jouw hulp goed gebruiken! Check hier de diverse studentenbanen die aansluiten bij je studie, je competenties verbeteren, je cv versterken en een bijdrage leveren aan een tolerantere wereld
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