Defining Psychology as a Science by Gregg Henriques

Let’s turn from defining science to defining psychology. In what follows, I will be referring to psychology as it is
presented in the academy, such as in Psych 101 textbooks. I mention this because it is different than the psychology that
many people have in mind when they hear the term, which is the professional they might go see to talk with about their
personal problems (note, the profession and practice of psychology is a whole separate issue). 

There can be little doubt that academic psychology values and aspires to be a science, views itself as a science and, in
many ways, looks and acts like a science. For starters, virtually every definition of psychology from every major group of
psychologists define the field as a science. In addition, academic psychologists have long adopted the scientific mindset
when it comes to their subject matter and have long employed scientific methods. Indeed, the official birth of
psychology (Wundt’s lab) was characterized by virtue of the fact that it employed the methods of science (i.e.,
systematic observation, measurement, hypothesis testing, etc.) to understanding human conscious experience. And to
this day, training in academic psychology is largely defined by training in the scientific method, measurement and data
gathering, research design, and advanced statistical techniques, such as structural equation modeling, meta-analyses,
and hierarchical linear regression. Individuals get their PhD in academic psychology by conducting systematic research
and, if they want a career in the academy, they need to publish in peer reviewed journals and often need to have a
program of (fundable) research. To see how much the identity of a scientist is emphasized, consider that a major
psychological organization (APS) profiles its members, ending with the catch phrase “and I am a psychological scientist!”
Indeed, mainstream academic psychologists are so focused on empirical data collection and research methods that I
have accused them of being “methodological fundamentalists”, meaning that they often act as if the only questions that
are worthy of attention in the field are reducible to empirical methods.

In sum, academic psychology looks like a scientific discipline and it has a home in the academy largely as a science, and
psychologists very much behave like scientists and employ the scientific method to answer their questions. So, at this
level, it seems like a pretty closed case. If something looks like a science and acts like a science, then it likely should be
considered a science. But we are not quite done with the debate because the question remains: If all these things are
true, then what is the problem? Why are there still so many skeptics? And why has psychology had such a long period of
critics both inside and outside the discipline claiming that there is a “crisis” at the core of our field?

How Psychology Fails as a Science

From where I sit, the reasons for the skepticism are very clear. And it is NOT found in the methods nor the mindsets of
psychologists, both of which are “scientific”. Nor is the primary problem found in the fact that what psychologists
study can be very difficult to measure, nor is it because people are too complicated, nor because humans make choices,
nor because it involves consciousness. Nor is it because psychology is a young science (note that this is a myth—there
are many ‘real’ sciences that are much younger than psychology). These are all red herrings to the “Is psychology a
science?” debate.

The reason many are rightfully skeptical about its status is found in the body of scientific knowledge—psychology has
failed to produce a cumulative body of knowledge that has a clear conceptual core that is consensually agreed upon by
mainstream psychological experts. The great scholar of the field, Paul Meehl, captured this perfectly when he
proclaimed that the sad fact that in psychology:

“…theories rise and decline, come and go, more as a function of baffled boredom than anything else; and the enterprise
shows a disturbing absence of that  cumulative character  that is so impressive in disciplines like astronomy, molecular
biology and  genetics.”

In technical terms, I am claiming that the core problem with the field is that it is “pre-paradigmatic”, which means that
psychology completely lacks agreement from the experts about what it is and what it is about, what its foundational
theories or even frameworks are, what its key findings are, and how it fits with the rest of the body of scientific
knowledge. The fact that psychology has been around now for almost a 150 years and remains pre-paradigmatic is
undeniably a very serious threat to the field's status as a real science.