Features of Science - viewing psychology as a science

• Objectivity 


  removing personal bias, investigators own ideas are distanced from the research and when recording observations
• Empirical Method


  (lab experiment) - applies scientific approaches e.g. controlled, standardised procedures that are based on gathering evidence through direct observation
• Falsifiability


  Karl Popper (1935) believed that genuine scientific theories should hold themselves up for hypothesis testing but also be able to reject the hypothesis

  FALSIFIABILITY:

  • able to be proven false
  • set out to disconfirm
  • contingent - giving up on beliefs because you've been proven wrong
• What did Karl Popper believe in?


  Pseudoscience - fake science that couldn't hold up falsifiability as it couldn't test a hypothesis so therefore cannot be proven false
• Replicability

  the extent to which scientific procedures and findings can be
• Hypothesis testing 


  a theory needs to propose a number of predictions (hypotheses) which can be tested to either strengthen the theory or prove it false
• What is a Paradigm?


  an accepted set of assumptions about something in particular, for example: gravity - it is agreed to by everyone and cannot be argued with
• Why can't psychology be considered a paradigm?


  because psychology is a field that encompasses multiple paradigms, such as behaviourism, cognitive psychology, and psychodynamic theory - as Kuhn suggested (1962) that psychology doesn't have a universally accepted paradigm
• What is a paradigm shift?


  an important change in the basic concepts of a scientific discipline - a scientific revolution