Science in Psychology (2)

Introducing Scientific Psychology

Ways of Knowing

• Intuition:

  • Reliance on gut feelings, emotions, and instincts.

  • Not based on facts or rational thought; instead relies on personal belief.

• Authority:

  • Acceptance of ideas presented by authority figures (e.g., parents, media, doctors, religious figures).

• Rationalism:

  • Knowledge acquisition through logic and reasoning.

  • Involves stating premises and following logical rules to draw conclusions.

  • Examples:

    • Affirming the Antecedent

    • Denying the Consequent

Logical Reasoning

• Types of Reasoning:

  • Deductive Reasoning: Starts with a generalization and deduces specific conclusions.

    • Example: "All UPS trucks are brown; Tommy drives a UPS truck; thus, the truck is brown."

  • Inductive Reasoning: Starts with observations to generalize rules.

    • Example: Observing that men are generally taller than women.

  • Abductive Reasoning: Uses incomplete observations to develop the most likely explanation.

    • Example: Being deduced from the observations of wet grass and weather predictions.

Application of Abductive Reasoning

• Used in court trials where jurors sort through evidence to determine likely outcomes.

• Clinical psychologists utilize abduction based on patient histories and symptoms to form diagnoses.

The Nature of Science

• Definition: Systematic observations and hypothesis construction/testing (Massimo Pigliucci).

• Science strictly addresses empirical questions and findings must be publicly available.

What Science is Not

• Not a normative guide to human behavior or faith.

• Does not analyze aesthetics (no scientific way to quantify the best film, for example).

• Limited to empirical and testable claims.

Science vs. Pseudoscience

• Demarcation: Important to differentiate between valid scientific claims and pseudoscientific ones.

• Examples of Pseudoscientific Claims:

  • Healing through crystals.

  • Palm reading for future predictions.

• Characteristics of Pseudoscience:

  • Overreaching conclusions beyond evidence, lacking plausible mechanisms.

  • Attempts to prove rather than falsify ideas.

  • Not self-correcting; ignores proven wrong arguments.

  • Cherry-picks favorable evidence, often low-quality.

  • Dismisses criticism, often failing to engage with the scientific community.

  • Lacks falsifiability.

Goals of Science

• To Describe: Providing clear descriptions of phenomena.

• To Predict: Making predictions based on observations.

• To Explain: Offering explanations for observed phenomena.

• To Control: Understanding to manipulate or control elements of the natural world.