This paper examines the standing of psychology as a scientific discipline by analyzing its methods, subject matter, and theoretical foundations. It traces the historical origins of psychology in Renaissance humanism and contrasts scientific approaches—such as behaviorism—with non-scientific perspectives like the psychodynamic and humanistic approaches. The paper also addresses the ethical and practical challenges of conducting experiments on human subjects, which distinguish psychology from the natural sciences. Finally, it outlines the key criteria for evaluating psychological theories, including parsimony, simplicity, empirical replicability, and theoretical coherence. The paper concludes that while psychology faces inherent limitations, it can and should strive toward scientific rigor.
Psychology is a relatively new field compared to the natural sciences. It was born out of the spirit of humanism after the Renaissance (Hergenhahn, 108), and as a result, its methods and norms are still being developed. The subject matter of the field — the mind, personality, and other intangible entities — cannot be subjected to the same kind of testing and experimentation as in medicine or physics.
Psychology has sought to become a branch of science in order to gain greater credibility and reliability for its claims. Science is recognized as objective, whereas other fields may be treated as subjective and based on philosophical speculation rather than rigorous experimentation and research. The history of science in the modern world can be traced to 1600, when William Gilbert published his work on magnetism based on objective analysis and experimentation, as opposed to the philosophical approach of Aristotelianism prevalent at the time. To be considered a science, therefore, psychology must accommodate experimentation and objective analysis in its methodology.
Science involves repeated experiments and trials to test a hypothesis. Accordingly, psychology should possess the capacity for hypotheses to be developed from observations and then tested through controlled experiments to verify or negate them. There should be adequate arrangements for laboratories and other controlled contexts where subjects can be monitored (McDougall, 4). Psychologists must also consider the extent to which experiments on human beings can ethically be conducted, given the social costs such studies may entail. Currently, experiments on the same scale of control as those in the natural sciences cannot be performed in psychology.
Psychology has been studied from a variety of perspectives, not all of which can be considered scientific. Some are not based on observation, experimentation, or the testing of hypotheses. One such perspective is the psychodynamic perspective. Developed and popularized by Freud, this perspective rests on a unique conceptualization of the human mind. Freud believed that the mind comprised the conscious and the subconscious, and that innate drives and suppressed desires shaped human behavior. This was not a scientific approach because the claims of Freudian psychology could not be tested empirically; they were therefore unverifiable and could not be relied upon with scientific confidence.
A second non-scientific perspective is the humanistic approach. Born out of the spirit of the Renaissance, it emphasized the primacy of human experience in explaining behavior. This approach also sought to explain how human behavior could be changed, in addition to how it was shaped by environmental forces. It stressed the power of human will and independence in the face of environmental pressures. Because this perspective was openly subjective in its orientation, it was inappropriate for scientific validation — there was no consistent set of rules for validating or disproving claims, since any explanation rooted in unique personal experience was considered valid.
Similarly, approaches that are artistic or theological in nature cannot be classified as scientific because they do not withstand objective scrutiny. Their conclusions cannot be proved through experimentation and logic, and their findings are not based on results that remain constant for a given set of environmental factors. In contrast, scientific psychology is grounded in experiments and observations. An example is behaviorism, which seeks to explain how human beings and animals learn new behaviors through experimentation (Galotti, 9). Classic examples include studies of classical and operant conditioning, in which repeated trials established the stimulus-response relationships underlying the acquisition of new behaviors.
Psychology must differ from the natural and physical sciences because of social and ethical questions that arise from its subject matter. The distinguishing feature of psychology, compared to other sciences, is that its primary subject is human beings. This makes it difficult to conduct experiments involving human personal and social behavior at the same level of control used with animals or inanimate objects. Extended laboratory experiments with human participants raise serious ethical and moral concerns about privacy. It is also difficult for psychologists to observe behavioral changes across human generations, as can be done with animals or plants. Therefore, psychology must rely in part on retrospective studies as a component of its scientific methodology.
The content of scientific psychology takes the form of theories of behavior and perception. These theories rest on the assumption that human motives can be inferred from behavior and self-reporting. Observation and self-report are therefore the most common research methods in scientific psychology. An underlying assumption is that findings are uniformly applicable within the population under study — for instance, conclusions about human behavior under stress are assumed to be broadly explanatory across the population.
Scientific psychology also operates on the assumption that it can be used to predict human behavior. The behavior of people entering a football stadium, for example, can be predicted based on observations of earlier, comparable instances. At the same time, the field acknowledges that human behavior is not entirely predictable, and that external factors — institutional norms, socialization, and free will — may complicate outcomes.
Evaluating psychological theories requires rigorous intellectual activity and objective analysis of competing explanations. Such an approach fosters objectivity and supports a consistent standard for theory evaluation. When several theories are put forward to explain the same phenomenon, the key consideration is the assumptions on which each theory rests. Generally, theories based on fewer assumptions are preferred (Kalat, 31), as they are considered more efficient than theories that explain the same phenomena through a greater number of premises. It is also preferable to favor theories built on simple rather than complex assumptions (Kalat, 31), since simplicity reflects clarity of thought. A third criterion is whether a theory supports or complements other theories on the subject (Kalat, 31). A theory should also distinguish clearly between correlation and causation (Plotnik & Kouyoumdijan, 33). Because scientific fields are built on integrated theoretical frameworks, evaluating theories in terms of their mutual support helps construct a robust body of knowledge.
"Theories of behavior, observation, and predictive assumptions"
"Parsimony, simplicity, replicability, and theoretical coherence"
Plotnik, Rod, and Haig Kouyoumdijan. Introduction to Psychology. 9th ed. Cengage Learning, 2011. p. 33. Print.
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