intro

• Science


  Knowledge based on systematic and objective methods of data collection that can be replicated to demonstrate the validity and reliability of results
• Using evidence-based data


  Makes the research more useful to society both ethically and economically
• It would be wrong, for example, to give people a drug for depression without having some certainty that it is effective
• Psychoactive drugs may save around £22.5 billion a year in England alone
• Nomothetic approach


  Aims to formulate general laws of behaviour based on the study of groups of people, attempts to summarise the differences between people through generalisations
• Idiographic approach


  Focuses on individuals and emphasises uniqueness, favouring qualitative methods in research
• Psychologists today have established much more rigorous qualitative techniques which are scientific i.e. they can be objective and systematic