Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[Cognitspy]

I am a psychology student. And I would be thrilled to hear some other psychologist talk about stuff.
Not many agree with the statement psychology being a science. I though am a strong believer of it.
_________________
A tiny ripple of hope

[mkg1211]

i can discuss such matters with you but in 2 fields(social psychology,and psychological health)

[Cognitspy]

I can only talk about psychonomics and social psychology (development psy and differential psy still studying)
_________________
A tiny ripple of hope

[Honey]

I do believe psychology is a science, since it's got a very clear object to study: the human being, with his behavior, thoughts and feelings. It's different to think that it's a very complex, deep and sometimes abstract matter. Yet, it's a very important area, since it provides useful notions of our development as individuals and as members of a community, depending on the chosen approach.

My favorite areas are psychoanalysis and humanism!
_________________
Sweet like Honey
http://honey.fun2learnmore.de

[Cognitspy]

I believe so too. Like sociology, biology, economy, anthropology, etc Psychology has something to say to this world :
Psychology has resolved (or has tried) many problems like prof. Zimbardo's Prisoners experiment, Milgram's "Obedience" experiment, Nuttin (he was one of my professors, so I'll certainly mention him) with his letter preference experiment, Zajonc, etcetcetc

I have the honour of following classes of Nuttin junior, d'Ydewalle (another great Belgian psychologist), Hoorens and Eelen.

Last year I had the opportunity to hear some lectures from some international psychologist like Wagenaar and of course Loftus.
_________________
A tiny ripple of hope

[Wyatt_Ehrenfels]

As a social psychologist, I believe that the SCIENCE of psychology tries to hard to imitate that of other sciences and ended up creating a caricature of science that is estranged from the phenomenon under study and the wits of the professors trying to be scientists. Naturally, you've heard of the distinction between the "letter of the law" and "the spirit of the law" (or for that matter, the "letter" or "spirit" of anything). Well, as you will learn on my web site, psychology's brand of science (known in philosophy of science circles as a "paradigm") fails to grasp the spirit of science (i.e. the spirit of discovery / the spirit of exploration / the spirit of detective work). Sure, psych profs produce official-looking trade papers that seem scientific on the surface, and many of them are, but certain classes of phenomenon the public identifies as "psychological" (e.g. dreaming) is being subjected to a unique combination of neglect and harassment (i.e. para-skeptical contempt) by psych profs operating under this caricature of a scientific attitude.

I am not arguing for a soft science or for "art". I believe my methods to be more ESSENTIALLY scientific than that employed by most psych profs interested in the same phenomenon. Take dreams for example. While EEGs and EMGs (all that gleaming instrumentation) certainly play a role in data collection, the kind of research that takes place in sleep labs today by technically-minded profs never really gets its hand dirty in the content and characteristics of the dream reports themselves and thus are unable to address the relationship between dreaming and waking experience in a way necessary to understand the functional significance of dreams. The research ends up being more about the brain and the biological construct of REM sleep than about dreaming. This is why I believe no reliable or interesting conclusions have come out of dream research over the past 30-40 years.

My web site advocates for good dream research, and it also offers a unique critical ethnography of the modern psychological community. As a trained social psychologist, I can offer unique insights into the SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION of psychology's science and help people understand where psychology departed from science and into self-serving institutional gloss.

best

Wyatt Ehrenfels
http://www.fireflySun.com/news.html

[RedRose]

A Psycologist better be ordinary-looking, neither beautiful nor ugly.

Because if a Psycologist is good-looking, then his patients tend to fall love in him, and if he is too ugly, then he would scare his patients.

However, an ordinary look is most proper for a Psycologist.

In my college years, my psychology teacher was a handsome guy, about 35 years old. almost all female patients of his hitted on him. finally, he got sick of his patients

[faig yosif]

am also graduate from school of psychology i specilaizes on early childhood education and my graduate research was mental disutrbed and the low , it is an interesting issue cuz you move through human mind and descover what and how they think about them selfes , also it is a large life accourding to what psychologist say and what about the role of philosophy then the father of psychology which is frued and skinnar and so many scintist , am so glad to find one who talk about this issue even he/she is not studied it brfore..

i likechildren so much they have a diffrient type of cognative and expretions specially when they in 4 years they talk and ask more questions and they also wana the answer now and they also understand all thinks through there views , child have a wight mind that help to develop it and grow the informations as you like , but some of them have disability to learn or to know things they are special needs children..
i will make along chat with this point later..

[bradjesness]

Here is a site that gives you the facts and information you can use
to decide about psychotherapy as a "science". This is major
psychohtherapy critique -- hated by many in the field, but supported by
major
professors, like Allen Ivey, Alvin Mahrer and researcher Paul Barrett:

http://cyberper.cnc.net

This is science criticism (critique) of psychotherapy AND TELLS YOU HOW
to protect yourself