1500essay （Psychology: The Science of Behaviour ）

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Running Head: IS PSYCHOLOGY A SCIENCE

Is Psychology a Science?

Candidate Number: XWPH2

University College London

Word Count: 1650

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Stemming from the Latin word scientia, science has originally been described as

‘knowledge’, with those people searching for knowledge being defined as scientists (Williams,

2011). Yet this definition of science differs from what has normally been perceived today,

which is more likely to be associated with rigorous and objective research (Murray, 1999). By

introducing the definition of science and analysing a psychological study called ‘Individual

differences in the effects of a positive psychology intervention: Applied psychology’, this essay

aims to discuss whether or not psychology—or this article in particular—is a science (Antoine,

Dauview, Andreotti, & Congrad, 2017). In order to carefully examine this claim of psychology

being a science, evidence from the article that support the claim and those that deny it will be

thoroughly evaluated and an overview of this topic will be provided at the end.

To begin with, science—as described in most modern works—is notable for the below

six characteristics. First of all, science is recognized for its application and ‘review’ of previous

literature since having ‘good grounds’ and ‘appropriate validation’ help people come up with

reasonable and verifiable hypotheses (Shrake, Elfner, Hummon, Janson, & Free, 2006).

According to Shrake et al., any assumption that fails to be supported by scientific evidence is—

by definition—unscientific (2006). The second essential element of science is objectivity.

Science is fact-based and hence should exclude all subjective opinions in order to gain reliable

outcomes (Chalmers, 2013). Objectively formulating hypotheses sets foundations for testable

hypotheses that allow other investigators to falsify and amend, which is the third main point of

science (Murray, 1999; Shrake et al., 2006). Falsifiable hypothesis usually allows future

replication or repetition of research that enable improvements (Shrake et al., 2006). Just as

David Goostein said, ‘science is self-correcting, in the sense that a falsehood injected into the

body of scientific knowledge will eventually be discovered and rejected’ (Shrake et al., 2006,

p. 130). To this point, science is linked to the consideration and references of published works,

objectivity, and the replication of the research that either verify or disprove the hypothesis.

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Fourthly, science is rigorous and logical. Formal language, clear explanations, and the

elimination of possible confounding variables—factors other than experimental factor that

might exert influences on the results—are all essential elements for a psychology to be

scientific (Myers, 2014). In the fifth place, science should always take ethical issues into

consideration. Yet as Williams (2011) and Burk (1986) reveal, this key aspect of science has

often been neglected. It should thus be reminded that for a psychology to become a science,

the participants should be protected by any sort of harm and their information should be kept

confidential (Myers, 2014). Obtaining informed consent—an ethical principle that allow the

participants to be ‘told enough’ about the study and to quit the study when they aren’t feeling

‘right’—and debriefing participants—a process explaining the purpose of the study and any

deception involved after conducting the research—are hence crucial for a study to be scientific.

Lastly, the scientific method is required to generate this ‘systematic, fact-based discipline’ of

science (Shrake et al., 2006, p. 134). The US Supreme Court even declared in 1993 that for a

statement ‘to qualify as “scientific knowledge”’, the scientific method must be used in advance

(Shrake et al., 2006). While scientific method more or less contains all of the above-mentioned

components of science, core elements of this method are observation, testable hypothesis,

experimentation or design, and results (Shrake et al., 2006). In conclusion, for a psychology to

be scientific, the researcher should examine earlier studies, obtain the data in an organized and

unbiased way, purpose testable hypothesis that enable further testing, be rigorous, consider

ethical issues, and utilize the scientific method cautiously.

After providing the definition of science, it should be noted that the article conducted

in France by Antoine et al. (2017) is an experimental study evaluating the influence of positive

psychology intervention (PPI) on affective variables such as depression and anxiety and

processual variable including mindfulness and emotional regulation. It also examines how PPI

might exert ‘differential effects’ on individuals with different ‘baseline characteristics’

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(Antoine et al., 2017). The participants are contacted from a French community and are divided

into control (n = 43) and experimental group (n = 59) (Antoine et al., 2017). Only the

experimental group receives the PPI and the self-assessment measures for the participants

include ‘Mindful Attention Awareness Scale, Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire’

and so on (Antoine et al., 2017, p. 140). Using the statistical data, the researchers conclude that

anxiety, depression and other affective variables have reduced while mindfulness and emotion

regulation techniques have progressed during and after PPI (Antoine et al., 2017). These

positive improvements are inclined to increase more when participants initially have lower

levels of mindfulness or positive reappraisal (Antoine et al., 2017).

Applying the criteria of science described above, psychology does appear to be

scientific in this article as all six components of psychology are incorporated in the paper. For

instance, the main aspects of PPI are designed based on thorough inspection of previous

researchers’ experiences and the literature (Antoine et al., 2017). The study is also objective in

a sense in which all scales and measurements are quantitatively analysed, with the article being

written mainly in a third-person point of view (Antoine et al., 2017). Besides, this paper’s

hypotheses of people’s decrease in ‘anxiety, depression, and psychological distress’ and their

enhancement in mindfulness as well as emotional control after PPI are tested and verified with

evidence from the study (Antoine et al., 2017). The necessity of future investigations is

indicated, and the repetition of the experiments is possible as the methods and application

strategies of the article are well-described (Antoine et al., 2017). For the fourth feature of

science, this study gains approval from the French Ethical Research Comity Nord Quest III and

it follows the instructions of the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and other ethical guidelines

(Antoine et al., 2017). Confidentiality of the participants’ information is maintained as none of

the people other than the researchers or the staff members know the exact information of a

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specific person (Antoine et al., 2017). Informed consents have been signed and enough

information of the study are given to the participants (Antoine et al., 2017).

Apart from these, this article also includes the fifth and sixth features of science—its

logic, its rigorous manner and its use of scientific method. As an example of this, the article

has been peer-reviewed, which provides credibility, ensures clarity of the language used, and

excludes certain subjective opinions. It has been organized into abstract, introduction, method,

results, discussion, and references with a logical flow from one section to the next. The

observation, hypotheses, experimentation, and conclusion—which constitute the scientific

method—are all present. Procedure flowchart, statistical data, and graphs are introduced in

addition to strengthen the explanation of the results and findings. In order to accurately

demonstrate the influence of PPI, only the data of those participants who have completed 75%

of the PPI are taken for analysis (Antoine et al., 2017). This guarantees that the outcome of the

study is caused by PPI alone rather than other confounding factors. So far, these six facets of

science have all been acquired, indicating that psychology is a science when regarding solely

of this article.

However, despite the authors’ attempts to create this scientific atmosphere, several

‘flaws’ demonstrating the unscientific aspects of psychology also emerge in the article. Biases

and subjectivity are those who render this article unscientific. For instance, due to the

participants’ knowledge and expectations of the PPI and the possible unintentional implication

or expectations of the investigators, the participants might be more likely to observe positive

emotions or improvements that they have previously neglected. This might lead to imprecise

data since participants might rate themselves closer to the healthier and better scale.

Furthermore, there is no random sampling—meaning that the population hasn’t been equally

represented (Myers, 2014). Instead, the sample has been ‘chosen’ from the related social circles

of Lille University Psychology students and participants are self-selected to participate and to

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be follow up (Antoine et al., 2017). Yet even the authors themselves notice that PPIs yield

better results when their programs are consistent with the participants’ interests and beliefs

(Antoine et al., 2017). The failure of random assignment—a method in which the control and

the experimental groups are randomly assigned to ‘minimize’ the ‘pre-existing differences’

between the two groups—further contributes to the unscientific atmosphere and gives rise to

the differences in education level and professional status (Myers, 2014; Antoine et al., 2017).

Hence the results of the experiment might not be due to PPI alone, the educational level and

the professional status might also be influential. Besides, some measures in the experiment—

such as the Mindful Attention Awareness Scale and the questionnaires on anxiety and

depression—have answers arranged on scales indicating the frequency or severity of the tested

targets (Antoine et al., 2017). This might as well be a source of inaccuracy since people have

different sense of their situations and two people choosing the same number might have

significant difference in their actual conditions. Hence analysing from this perspective,

psychology can never truly become scientific since people are always different hence

experiences or observed ‘facts’ are always subjective (Chalmers, 2013).

Overall, this assignment endeavours to find out whether psychology is a science by

defining the concept of science and see if the psychological article fits with these components

of science. While this psychological paper does attain all requirements of ‘science’, people are

always subjective to biases and subjective beliefs and one can argues that psychology can never

fully reach the state of true objectivity and scientific. Thus, to a certain extent, psychology is a

science, yet it is always influenced by unpredictable factors such that its scientific data become

unscientific, unreliable ones.

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References

Antoine, P., Dauvier, B., Andreotti, E., & Congrad A. (2017). Individual differences in the

effects of a positive psychology intervention: Applied psychology. Personality and

Individual Differences, 122, 140-147. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2017.10.024

Burk, M. (1986). The scientific method. Science, 231(4739), 659.

https://www.jstor.org/stablr/1696283

Chalmers, A. (2013). What is this thing called science? University of Queensland Press.

Retrieved from https://ebookcentral.proquest.com

Murray, R. W. (1999). The scientific method. Analytical Chemistry, 71(5), 153A. doi:

10.1021/ac990210y

Myers, D. G. (2014). Myer’s Psychology for AP. New York: Worth Publishers.

Shrake, D. L., Elfner, L. E., Hummon, W. W., Janson, R., & Free, M. (2006). What is

science? Ohio Journal of Science, 106(4), 130-135. http://hdl.handle.net/1811/36490

Williams, J. (2011). How do scientists work. In H R. Toplis (Ed.), How science works:

Exploring effective pedagogy and practice (pp. 31-43). London; New York:

Routledge.