Psychology in Perspective
Introduction
Reconsidering
Approaches in Psychology
New
Methodologies
If you are exploring this
page, you are likely looking for answers to some of the large questions
implied or discussed in the book: Can psychology truly be a science? Is it
possible to reconcile the differing approaches? What can we expect
psychologists to be doing in the future? (Or, if you haven't read the
text, you may simply looking for some sort of summing up of what
psychology is all about....)
Unfortunately, I have no
crystal ball, and there are no simple answers to be found for many of the
large questions facing psychology today. As a teacher and a researcher, I
find that occasionally discouraging, but mostly exciting: where some
physicists are talking about a "grand theory of everything" and
"the end of science", in psychology some of the greatest
potential discoveries lie ahead. For example, in the Biological approach,
the recent announcement that the entire human genome has been mapped
represents a new beginning, not an end, to exploring the impact of
heredity on behavior. Similarly, applying psychology to social issues like
aggression, gender roles, and mental health care remains a huge challenge.
So, if you are seeking final
answers here, you will be disappointed. But if you wish to learn more
about some of the frontiers of psychology today, continue on.
Throughout the text and this
website, we have considered psychology in terms of five distinct
approaches, which often differ not only in the way they explain particular
behaviors, but also in the research methods, types of data, and conceptual
frameworks used. Elsewhere, we have explored the history of their origins,
and the role that factors like perceptual processes have played in the
development of the approaches. Yet, while this helps us understand how
psychology began and developed, the reality is that almost 150 years after
the first psychology research labs were started, psychology is still not a
unified discipline, and many disagreements (such as those between
Behaviorists and Psychodynamic theorists) seem no closer to resolution.
To understand why, one must
consider the role that evidence plays in science. Generally, we assume
that a hypothesis based on a theory gets proposed, and that research is
then designed to gather data to test that theory. Depending on the
outcome, the theory either receives support or is proven false. This
process, called logical empiricism, regards the data as neutral
observations, unaffected by the theoretical framework, or the beliefs of
the researcher. However, in recent years, this view has been challenged by
a framework called social constructionism, which argues that no
observation has a truly neutral meaning--instead, its meaning is derived
from the broader framework which the theory exists, called a paradigm.
(This usage of the term paradigm was coined by Thomas Kuhn, a philosopher
of science, in the 1950's.) Consequently, since observations have no
conclusive role in evaluating a theory, changes in theories relate to
changes in the underlying paradigm. To give an example from astronomy:
Ptolemy described the heavens in terms of the Earth being at the center of
the universe, with the Sun moving around it; later, Copernicus showed that
it was much simpler to view the sun as the center of the solar system.
Technically, it would be possible to describe the movements of the planets
either way, although Copernicus's framework is simpler to deal with. The
change, however, had a great deal to do with social and religious
changes--in a Copernican system, humans, as much as the Earth, are no
longer the center of the universe. Social constructionism says paradigms
change for social reasons, and consequently, there is no ultimate way to
determine (for example) that the Behaviorists are correct and that
Psychoanalysis is wrong, because they represent different underlying
paradigms.
The debate between logical
empiricism and social constructionism continues, with each side trying to
offer arguments and evidence (!) for its position. Like many debates, it
is likely that the truth lies somewhere in between: that is, social
processes probably do influence the acceptance of theories (just as
perceptual processes influence their creation), but it seems extreme to
suggest that there is no order to the world beyond what we impose upon it.
Or do you believe, as the old Zen story would have it, that you are a
butterfly dreaming of a man, rather than a man dreaming of a butterfly?!
Whatever you believe, the issue is a thought-provoking one, and is worth
thinking about in relation to the five approaches to psychology.
Resources
Paradigms in Science
Thomas
Kuhn--Biography of Kuhn, along with discussion of his theory, and
links for further reading; by Frank Pajares of Emory University.
Thomas
Kuhn: Paradigms Die Hard--A 1997 article in Harvard Science Review,
providing a summary and critique of Kuhn's classic theory of paradigms in
science by Imran Javaid.
Whether Kuhn's ideas are right
or wrong, new theoretical frameworks continue to be developed. What is
particularly interesting at this point in time is that many new theories
represent very different methodologies for explaining behavior. Most of
the theories we have discussed are deterministic, modelled after the
classical world of Newtonian physics, where predicting outcomes is the
ultimate test of a theory. However, behavior is much more complex than
simple mechanical systems, and deterministic models often seem either
simplistic (as critics of Behaviorism would argue) or untestable (as
critics of Psychodynamic theories say). As a consequence, there tends to
be a trade-off between predictive success and complexity in psychological
theories. While there is no simple answer to this problem, new theoretical
frameworks are leading to reassessments of the importance of prediction.
Two examples of this trend are
chaos theory and systems theory (sometimes also called
cybernetics). While neither argues that the world is not deterministic,
they help to explain why outcomes in complex systems may often defy simple
predictions, and provide new conceptual tools for understanding what is
happening. Interestingly, neither framework originated in
psychology--chaos theory arose from mathematics, and systems theory was
originally developed by Norbert Wiener to improve the accuracy of
bombs and artillery shells in World War Two! However, both have
increasingly been applied to the analysis of human behavior, as the
resources below indicate.
In the end, no one can
say what the future holds for psychology as a whole, but there is no doubt
that the study of human behavior will continue to be both challenging and
interesting.
Resources
Chaos Theory
What
is Chaos?--Brief description, with links to other sites; from The
Society for Chaos Theory in Psychology and Life Sciences.
Systems Theory
Systems
and Systemic Theory--Web site for a course at Concordia University;
contains various material discussing systems theory concepts, especially
as applied to educational technology.
Systems
Theory and Incest/Sexual Abuse--Article by social worker Pat McClendon
illustrating the application of systems theory to human behavior; part of
her Clinical Social Work site.
Norbert
Wiener: A Memoir--Article by Walter Rosenblith and Jerome Weisner, two
of Wiener's long-time (and equally distinguished colleagues); from MIT
website created as tribute to Jerome Weisner.
|