|
Advantages
- use of the scientific method- control for bias, fair sampling, blinding of studies
- data and methods are recorded for peer review and scrutiny
- replicable for others to confirm or falsify results
- significane, confidence, and error rates are recorded, which are important for science
- psychology is in a state of 'normal science' as it has gone through multiple revolutions and has cognitive psychology as its paradigm
- psychology has multiple paradigms; psychonalaytic, biological, humanistic (Davison et al)
- the original aim of psychology as the scientific study of the mind/brain
- it is the use of scientific methods that psychology uses that makes it a science, not the topic being studied
- falsification- due to the emphasis on replicability, psychological research can be falsified (Popper)
|
Disadvantages
- psychology is prescientific as it lacks one shared paradigm (Kuhn)
- the argument that psychology has multiple paradigms is wrong; it has multiple approaches. it is a mistake to equate approaches with paradigms (Lambie)
- two main problems with psychological research due to the nature of studying humans: experimenter bias (Orne) and demand charcateristics (Rosenthal)
- problems quantifying psychological terms (e.g. happiness)
- psychological research relies too heavily on subjective experiences and concepts
- issues with falsification- psychology has a tendency to publish more positive papers
- it is difficult to account for all extraneous variables when studying people
|
Comments
No comments have yet been made