Psychology as a Science: In Theory PDF

Roger Bacon ​ A medieval Franciscan friar, promoted empirical observation, experimentation, systematic record-keeping, inductive reasoning, and an interdisciplinary approach to knowledge. ​ Naturalistic philosophy- empirical knowledge reveals the true nature of creation (God...

Roger Bacon ​ A medieval Franciscan friar, promoted empirical observation, experimentation, systematic record-keeping, inductive reasoning, and an interdisciplinary approach to knowledge. ​ Naturalistic philosophy- empirical knowledge reveals the true nature of creation (God centred) ​ He identified three sources of knowledge: ​ Authority- Yields belief, but not understanding ​ Reason- Produces understanding,but cannot distinguish between genuine truth, and things have the appearance of truth ​ Experience-A combination of philosophical (sensory) and divine (internal) ​ He also proposed three purposes of science: ​ Discovering truth (Inventio Veritatis)- to investigate the secrets of nature ​ Providing moral and ethical guidance (Rectification Morum)- support or refute theoretical claims, in process of attaining doubt free knowledge ​ Usefulness Knowledge (Usus)- Provide observation or instruments to aid development of other science William of Occam ​ Is famous for Ockham's razor, or the law of parsimony, which suggests choosing the simpler explanation when faced with multiple possibilities. ​ This is related to the representative heuristic and the conjunction fallacy (Kahneman & Tversky, 1972) Isaac Newton ​ Founded physics as a separate discipline from philosophy and emphasized empirical data collection and inductive reasoning. ​ Uses large observation David Hume ​ Critiqued induction: ​ Demonstrative problem (that past events do not guarantee future outcomes, Deductive reasoning, analytics, a priori, relation ideas) ​ Probable problem (that we assume nature is uniform based on habit rather than logic, Inductive reasoning, synthetic, a posteriori, matters of fact). ​ He introduced the availability heuristic, which suggests that people judge the probability of an event based on how easily they can recall similar instances. Auguste Comte ​ Is credited with founding positivism ​ Emphasizes empirical observation and scientific principles over theological or metaphysical speculation. ​ Positivism assumes: ​ Realism- That the world exists independently of us ​ Empiricism- that we can access the world through observationDeduction- we can build and test hypotheses from these theories, and therefore predict the behaviour of the natural world ​ Induction- We can make generalisations and build theories from our observations ​ Positivism puts science in the place of deriving universal, objective truths  ​ Knowledge is accumulative Charles Sanders Peirce ​ A pragmatist, believed that science advances through ​ Induction ​ Deduction ​ Abduction. ​ Abduction- is an explanatory reasoning process where conclusions do not necessarily follow from the premise and may involve logical leaps or missing data. ​ This reasoning allows you to generate a hypothesis that connects things to underlying causes - a plausible and testable hypothesis that guides us. Post-Positivism Post-positivism is a movement that acknowledges the limitations of positivism, recognising that scientific findings don't necessarily have a direct, one-to-one correspondence with reality. Karl Popper Proposed a solution to the problem of induction: ​ Disconfirmation- If no amount of observation can establish a universal, then one contrary one is sufficient to disconfirm it. ​ Conditionality- We don’t discover true regularities, we make statements that are conditionally true, we stick with them until we have reason to believe they’re wrong. ​ Falsification- Is a deductive process, so we can identify true conjectures without falling into the problem of induction. ​ He argued that no observation can be universal, and that a single contrary observation can disconfirm a hypothesis. So scientists should actively seek to falsify theories. BUT: ​ How many disconfirming instances are needed to reject a theory? ​ Only one? What about false negatives? (O’Donohue, 2021) Willard Quine ​ Argued that the scientific method is not neutral; it is theory-laden, and that all scientific observations depend on the theory being investigated. ​ It is theory driven ​ Disconfirming data may be a problem with the observations, not the theory itself. ​ Can reject good evidence based on bad theory. ​ The relationship between theory and observation are dependant. Thomas Kuhn ​ He was a Physicist ​ Explored scientific paradigms, or networks of interconnected statements that define how science is done. ​ Normal science occurs when these paradigms are followed unchallenged. ​ Anomalies can cause normal science to break down, leading to a scientific revolution where a new paradigm replaces the old. ​ Contrast Popper, who essentially argues each scientific claim is a singular statement that can be falsified. ​ Other philosophers (e.g Feyerabend) argue that science can involve the development of multiple alternative theories i.e that multiple paradigms can coexist. Kuhn and Popper: Similarities ​ Both thought positivist view of science was naive and unrealistic ​ Both challenged the notion that science progressed through the accumulation of facts ​ Both recognised that science changed over time ​ Popper: better theories replace worse theories ​ Kuhn: Explains how the process comes about ​ Both emphasise importance of on disconfirming evidence. Differences: ​ What knowledge claims do experiments target? ​ Popper- They test core hypotheses ​ Kuhn- Experiments were puzzles within a scientific world view ​ What do scientists believe? ​ Popper- Scientist know their core theories are conjectures and conditional ​ Kuhn- Scientist actually believe theory core theories ​ What do scientists do? ​ Popper- They try to disprove their theories (evidences that doen’t prove hypothesis) ​ Kuhn- They cling desperately to their theories for as long as possible (looking for evidence that does fit hypothesis) Imre Lakatos ​ Expanded on Kuhn and Popper by proposing a falsification account within research paradigms ​ Dividing knowledge claims into: ​ Hardcore (basic assumptions)- A world view. The set of basic integral assumptions that are in front of themselves irrefutable. ​ Auxiliary hypotheses (secondary assumptions)- are generated by the assumptions of hard core. ​ Distinguished between refutation (looking for contrary evidence) and rejection (when you cannot find you are forced to reject hypothesis). ​ He argued that scientific research follows positive and negative heuristics. ​ Positive Heuristic: Drives science forward. ​ Science directed attention to a chain of known anomalies ​ Science build models to approximate these anomalies ​ Science build auxiliary hypotheses to address them ​ This serves to organise the development of a research program ​ The research programme grows scientific knowledge by acquiring novel results ​ The auxiliary theories form a ‘protective belt’ around the hard core. ​ Negative Heuristic: Explains anomalies ​ Disconfirmatory evidence is acquired ​ The hard core is retained as auxiliary hypotheses and modified to accommodate new information ​ Prevents of falsification of core tenets of a theory E.g behaviourism: The hard core was the observation of the stimulus and response. Anything unobserved was beyond the scope of the science. Anomalies arise when behaviour breaks the stimulus- response pattern (not feeding when hungry). Auxiliary hypothesis suggests that motivation (to lose weight) might mediate behaviour.  ​ Science is progressive when it accrues new information and can explain anomalies, and degenerating when it fails to do so. ​ Programmes can be progressive or degenerating as auxiliary hypothesis shifts. ​ To be progressive they must show: ​ Theoretical progression- The science predicts empirical content over and over the previous theory and must predict novel and unexpected facts ​ Empirically progression- Those facts are corroborated. Science as post-positivism: ​ Knowledge is reconstructive rather than accumulative ​ New pieces of knowledge can be use to reinterpret, as well as add, to old knowledge ​ Knowledge is temporally situated ​ What is ‘known’ can subsequently turn out to be wrong ​ E.g flat earth, heliocentrism ​ Different research programmes can have competing claims to knowledge ​ Lakatos was rather fey on the circumstance i which a programme should be shifted, or indeed if a research programmed had to be true Scientific Values Khun/ Khunian values- argued that scientists apply a set of values to judge knowledge with. A theory should: ​ Ordering phenomena- Without the theory, data would be isolated and confused. ​ Be internal consistency- and consistent with other accepted theories ​ Agreement with current evidence- findings and results should align with that we know/expect and extend beyond particular observations, law or sub-theories it was designed to explain. ​ Produce new research findings. Merton/Mertonian values- ​ Originality- Science should tell us something new ​ Universalism- There should be a single set of objective criteria used by all to judge scientific ideas ​ Communalism- knowledge is a shared resource, freely available to everyone within the scientific community ​ DisinterestednessScientist should be aloof from science ​ Organised skepticism- (Bonus) Scientists should doubt everything at first blush Are scientists Mertonian? Universalism: ​ Scientists often deviate from these values, for example by viewing well known academics as more reliable, by depicting theory choices as individual, by failing to agree on interpretations of experiments, and promoting their own ideas. Psychology as a Science Modern psychology generally presents itself as a science. Is psychology a Popperian science? ​ Ostensibly, yes ​ It is broadly positivistic and empirical, using observation and measurement to generate theories. ​ It uses null hypothesis significance testing (NHST) in a broadly Popperian way. ​ We aim to falsify the null hypothesis However ​ Evidence against the null hypothesis is not necessarily evidence in favour of a theory, and p-values are arbitrary, leading to questions about how well psychology is doing science. Is psychology a Kuhnian science? ​ Psychology does not fully align with Kuhnian science due to the absence of clear paradigm shifts e.g behaviourist and cognitive revolutions. ​ Instead, it has fragmented into various sub-disciplines. ​ Kuhn was well received by psychologists BUT ​ Kuhn himself seemed dismissive of psychology as a science. ​ Psychologists argue about the fundamentals of psychology more than do the natural sciences (Howell, Collisson and King, 2014) O’Donohue (1993) ​ Kuhn’s work is a historiography of natural science- is it applicable to the social sciences? ​ Can we infer from ‘was’ to ‘ought’? ​ Kuhn is remarkably vague about many conceptual details: ​ E.g paradigm is defined in 20+ ways (Masterman, 1970) ​ Meaning of a paradigm shift is also vague ​ Even if it can be applied to psychology…does it have any value? Psychology may be dealing with human kinds rather than natural kinds, leading to issues with how research is designed and interpreted. Natural kinds- Are external to us and exist independently of our own knowledge of them- have ontological independence and exist regardless of human intervention​ Human kinds- Are the actions of human begin, and people ascribe meaning to their actions, how and why they act- are dependent on human interpretation to exist Natural sciences- single hermeneutic: we try to understand e/g rocks. Rocks do not try to understand us. Social science- Double hermeneutic: We try and understand you and you try and understand us e.g demand characteristics might arise because of this Alternatives: Constructivism ​ Is presented as a learning theory where individuals actively construct meaning within the social world. ​ It focuses on how individuals engage with the world, understand stimuli, and organise information to form their own understanding. ​ This understanding is influenced by interactions with others.  ​ The meaning of actions is temporally and spatially situated, relative to when and where they occur. ​ Social objects only make sense relative to the meaning individuals assign to them. ​ Knowledge is constructed rather than being externally real; it is built by the mind using available inputs. ​ The mind mirrors reality Social Constructionism ​ Is presented as an alternative to constructivism, where the objective world may exist but is inaccessible. ​ According to this approach, subjective accounts of the world are collaboratively constructed through interactions with others. ​ Meaning does not exist within individuals but between individuals. ​ As soon as an experience is articulated, it becomes a version of that experience, subject to interpretation. Meaning is negotiated through discourse. ​ Like constructivism, the meanings of actions are temporally and spatially situated, and social objects make sense relative to the meaning collectively assigned to them. ​ Knowledge is collaboratively co-constructed rather than externally real. ​ Social constructionists are interested in everyday interactions and how language is used to construct and control reality. ​ Discourse itself is considered an action, a behaviour. Interpretivism ​ Interpretivism suggests that behaviour is more than just reactions to external forces; people are intricate individuals with rich mental lives. ​ Different people experience the same reality in different ways, with different reasons for actions. ​ The subjective experience and understanding are of paramount importance. ​ It focuses on how people make meaning and make sense of the world. It takes an emic perspective, meaning it adopts an insider's viewpoint. ​ Interpretivism uses qualitative methods and tends to be inductive. ​ Seek to see the world through the actors eyes ​ It is a qualitative and inductive approach Feminist Approach ​ The feminist approach emerged from the historical exclusion of women from universities. ​ It challenges traditional knowledge construction and seeks to give voice to the disadvantaged and marginalized. ​ It considers data points that are normally excluded, seeing them as valid or more valid than the included data. ​ Inequality is seen as inherent in the production of knowledge. ​ Knowledge is spatially and situationally contingent, not universally true. ​ Ethics and political views are paramount in shaping knowledge. ​ Feminist approaches tackle issues of oppression within society, such as gender, class, culture, and ethnicity. Post-Positivistic Epistemologies ​ These alternative epistemologies use the methods of natural sciences, such as experiments and surveys analysed via statistics, but focus on interpreting and understanding phenomena rather than trying to find universal truths. ​ They often use qualitative methods like interviews, focus groups, and naturally occurring data. ​ These approaches assume that phenomena has a purpose and is doing something rather than just existing. ​ Different schools of psychology can make different empiricist assumptions and follow different epistemological positions. For example, applied behaviour analysis, a modern radical behaviourist movement, uses inductive methodologies that reject Popperianism. Discursive psychology follows a social constructionist perspective. ​ Applied Psychology ​ Branches of applied psychology have moved towards approaches such as case studies, which focus on a single participant and their subjective experience without attempting to generalize.