Is psychology actually a science?

You edited the post. There wasn't a link there when I replied.
My bad.

Anonymous said:This is something I’ve been wrestling with for a long time.
I think the answer is both yes and no.

If you're looking strictly at the statistics, then sure, it counts. But if we're diving deep into psychology—specifically Analytical Psychology—it doesn't quite qualify as a pure science. As far as I know, things like dreams and visions haven't gained official scientific recognition yet.

It’s strange, though, considering how much they actually contribute to mental health.

Carl Jung was almost like a shaman—blending medicine, psychology, mythology, and even extrasensory stuff... but I won't go there.

One thing I am curious about, though, is psychological testing.
There is no way these tests can be 100% accurate; honestly, they aren't even 70% reliable because a human being isn't a machine where you can just plug in specific measurements and parameters.
So, should we even trust these tests or base any kind of statistical data on them?

In math, 2+2 always equals 4. If you tried to apply that same logic to psychology, 2+2 could be 3, or 10, or 9, or 7.8, or 10,000... anything goes.

Come on, let's get a real discussion going. Give me some explanations.

👍

Based on what Bradley Fisher20 is saying, Carl Jung would never have been considered a psychologist in the modern sense. Psychology is defined as a science, "unlike theology," whereas Carl Jung inextricably linked psychology to the human Soul, the Spirit, and our inherent need or dependency on the Divine—essentially religion.

That seems correct. In today's climate, Jung likely wouldn't be accepted as a psychologist at all, and I suspect the same might apply to Freud.

One has to realize that modern psychology doesn't really have much in common with the subjects those two were actually exploring BACK THEN.

Jeffrey White3 said:😲
Dammit! You really should have mentioned that BEFORE I signed up for my degree!

I mean, honestly... 🙄 😵

Besides, a relatively small percentage of people who graduate with a psychology degree actually do what the general public assumes they do—"helping" people or practicing therapy. Depending on their interests, plenty of people go into research, data analysis, organizational psychology, cognitive studies... The profession isn't just clinical psychology, and certainly, not every psychologist is a therapist, counselor, or "helper."

That is correct. I suppose those specific roles tend to attract people who aren't particularly drawn to the more rigorous scientific aspects of the discipline.😛

Jason Taylor4 said:You edited the post. There wasn't a link there when I replied.
My bad.

I thought it might be useful to include a link that provides a brief overview of the methodology.

The methodology itself isn't actually that complicated. It’s the statistical analysis techniques that have become increasingly complex. You rarely see research relying on straightforward tests like t-tests or ANOVA anymore; nowadays, everything revolves around multivariate techniques. But that’s beside the point. What really matters is that the researcher knows exactly which technique to apply, why they're using it, and where its limitations lie. As for the actual math? The computer handles that.
There’s no mystery to it.

Suppose we want to determine the correlation between personality traits and intelligence. What would our next step be?
The simplest route—and the one most people take—is to just pair an intelligence test with a personality questionnaire.
Suppose we utilized Raven's intelligence test to measure general intelligence alongside Eysenck's EPQ to assess two specific personality dimensions: Neuroticism and extraversion. These traits are relatively well-supported by neurophysiological studies on temperament, effectively corresponding to negative and positive affectivity.
Alright, we have a research problem on our hands: determining how the E and I dimensions correlate with general intelligence. One working hypothesis suggests that Neuroticism will show a negative correlation with intelligence.
So, what’s our next move? We need to select our sample group. To ensure we get a sufficiently homogeneous set, I’m proposing we target healthy individuals between the ages of 25 and 30. At this stage, people are typically at their physical peak. Intelligence hasn't begun its gradual decline, and personality traits haven't fully solidified yet.
Sample size? Honestly, 300 men and 300 women should be plenty.
The margin of error is sitting at about 4%, which is perfectly acceptable.
It’s actually quite straightforward. We gather a group and administer one test followed by another. By rotating which test comes first for different participants, we effectively neutralize any carryover effects from the initial assessment.
Once we have the results, we plug them into the computer and run the analysis using specialized software like SPSS. If you don't have access to those programs, Excel will get the job done.
What was the point of this study? We wanted to tackle a specific question: is there actually a link between intelligence and personality? Using statistical correlation analysis, we found that the correlation between Intelligence and extraversion 0.11 isn't statistically significant. Essentially, there is a 95% probability that no connection exists between these two traits in the general population. However, the relationship between Intelligence and Neuroticism yielded a negative correlation of -0.35, which did prove statistically significant. This means we can be 95% certain that this negative link holds true for the broader population as well. No significant correlation was found between extraversion and Neuroticism. From here, we can pivot to a more granular analysis by separating men and women to see if gender influences these patterns or shifts how strongly these traits intersect.
Now we have the numbers—the actual results that require interpretation. The correlation we've identified suggests that individuals scoring higher in Neuroticism tend to perform poorly on intelligence tests. A potential reason for this could be [bla bla bla]. To be clear, this is a hypothetical study. The data I’m presenting here is purely dummy data, created solely to illustrate the most basic type of psychological research. Correlational research.These methods establish correlations between phenomena, but they don't actually provide answers regarding cause and effect.
You can try to argue causality here, but you have to tread carefully. If you really want to establish cause and effect, an experiment is the way to go—but let's save that discussion for another time.
Generally speaking, correlational studies remain the workhorse methodology across most branches of psychology. The actual processing methods are far more intricate than my brief summary suggests, often involving multiple variables and their complex interactions, but the fundamental logic remains essentially the same as what I described above.