Conceptual Issues in Psychology

Elizabeth R. Valentine

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781134962648
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Psicologia
• Subtopic: Storia e teoria della psicologia

This comprehensive and up-to-date textbook gives a clear account of the different philosophical and theoretical approaches to psychology and discusses major philosophical questions such as free will and the relation between mind and body.

Chapter 1

Psychology as Science

Is psychology different from other sciences? Many of its theoretical problems are based on such a belief. What particular problems does the nature of its subject matter raise and how may they be resolved? In this chapter we shall introduce a number of issues that will be dealt with in more detail later in the book and indicate the main approaches to be taken to them. Our first concern will be to consider psychology as science and what assumptions underlie such treatment. For convenience, these may be classified as: (1) metaphysical – fundamental views about the nature of the subject matter, (2) theoretical – relating to the nature of scientific theories, and (3) methodological – pertaining to observation and experimentation.

Metaphysical Assumptions

The scientific treatment of psychology assumes that its subject matter, the behaviour of humans and other animals, is similar in relevant respects to the subject matter of other sciences, namely, other natural phenomena. Human behaviour is indeed one of the most recently added areas of scientific investigation, partly due to theological objections: it was formerly considered sacred and not appropriate subject matter for science. (For the history of, and rationale for, the dichotomy between human beings as the possessors of a soul and reason, and other animals whose behaviour is guided by instinct, see Beach, 1955.) This dichotomy was challenged by Darwin’s assertion of continuity between human and infrahuman species, which led to the ‘brutalisation of Man’ and the ‘humanisation of animals’ (Peters, 1953).

An important respect in which this similarity must be assumed is that of determinism, which implies that behaviour is caused and is therefore predictable in principle. This appears to raise a difficulty for free will (how can a person be ‘free’ if behaviour is completely determined?) and similarly for moral responsibility (how can people be held responsible for their actions or praise and blame be apportioned?). Possible resolutions of this dilemma will be discussed in Chapter 2, where it will be argued that the obverse of determinism is randomness, that free will may require rather than preclude determinism (the issue becoming one of the nature rather than the existence of determination) and that determinism does not imply compulsion, coercion or any mysterious force.

Determinism does imply predictability, at least in principle though not necessarily in practice. It is interesting to speculate as to whether our failures to predict are due to lack of skill on our part or the inherent nature of the subject matter. One successful prediction does not imply determinism (one might predict correctly by chance) but repeated successful prediction does imply an underlying regularity.

There are, however, a number of difficulties here, namely, areas of unpredictability. One of these is the possibility of the falsification of predictions (which has sometimes been used as an argument in favour of, or at least a test of, free will). The process of making a prediction may be subject to interfering effects which invalidate it. Attempts to take these into account lead to an infinite regress. A similar difficulty arises from Gödel’s theorem, which demonstrates that within some consistent systems of logic there are propositions which can be seen to be true but which are not provable within the system. Neither of these, it will be argued, endangers determinism but both suggest that there are limits to the possible completeness of descriptions.

A discovery in quantum mechanics, namely, Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, threw doubt on the universality of determinism: at the level of subatomic physics there are certain conjugate properties such as the position and momentum of a particle which cannot be simultaneously determined. Thus, there is some evidence for indeterminism in some aspects of the universe. The implications of this micro-level for the macro-level of human behaviour are, however, remote and obscure, to say the least.

The possibility of prediction raises the possibility of control, and the consequent ethical problems of deciding who does the controlling, frequently held up against Skinner’s Utopia (Skinner, 1948; 1971). In a symposium with Rogers (1956) the latter points out that science, and Skinner, must presuppose values. Science can investigate the determinants and effects of values and hence may provide knowledge relevant to their selection and implementation (see Day, 1976) but it cannot itself determine what they shall be (see also Heather, 1976, who argues forcefully against the notion that psychology is value free).

A fundamental problem in the philosophy of psychology has been whether laws of a different nature from those which apply to inorganic matter are required. An adequate solution to this problem may depend on advances in the philosophy of biology. Generally in science a mechanistic model has been preferred, which enables future events to be predicted on the basis of antecedent conditions and assumes the universal applicability of causal laws. (It is worth noting, however, that modern physics has advanced beyond causal explanations. Psychology has frequently sought to ape outdated models from other sciences.) There are a number of features of the behaviour of organisms that have raised doubts about the appropriateness of the mechanistic model. One is purposiveness, essential to survival, which involves flexibility, sensitivity to consequences and the direction of behaviour towards goals; this has tempted explanation by reference to future events. On first sight it looks as though purposive and causal explanations are diametrically opposed, and, indeed, many philosophers have taken the view that actions are intentional and fundamentally different from movements or happenings. Much heat has been generated on this question. We shall argue that the two types of explanation are compatible but different. Indeed, purposive phenomena depend on mechanistic ones. It can thus be argued that the truth of a mechanistic account is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for the truth of a purposive one. Purposive explanations are discussed in Chapter 12 and the use of cybernetic models in the explanation of behaviour in Chapter 10.

This intentionality of behaviour leads on to the issue of consciousness. What treatment it should be afforded in psychology and its relation to behaviour are considered in Chapter 4, and its relation to physiological processes as an aspect of the mind–body problem in Chapter 3. One particularly thorny issue is whether conscious processes should properly be assigned causal efficacy. This view has not found much favour amongst psychologists for a variety of reasons: (1) the difficulty of operationalisation (that is specifying observations that would be relevant to the truth of statements about a concept), (2) the difficulty of independent identification of mental states and resulting circularity of explanations in these terms, and (3) the successful prediction of behaviour without recourse to conscious states, though this does not preclude the possibility of alternative explanations in terms of mental states. Some form of double aspect theory, according to which the mental and physical are two aspects of the same underlying reality, will be considered the most acceptable solution to the mind–body problem.

A general assumption held in varying degrees of strength by scientists concerns the relation between different sciences. Many would agree that sciences can be arranged in a hierarchical order according to the size of unit or level of analysis; for example, it might be said roughly that sociology deals at the level of groups, psychology at the level of individuals, physiology with parts of individuals, biochemistry at the intra-cellular level and physics at the molecular. Hence, what is relatively molecular for a higher level science is relatively molar for a lower level science (compare, for example, a muscle twitch for psychology and physiology). The question arises as to what the relation between these different level descriptions is or should be. Reductionism is the view that higher level descriptions can be derived from lower level descriptions and hence in due course it might be possible to replace psychological explanations by physiological explanations. There is a covert assumption that lower level descriptions are more fundamental and hence preferable. Emergence is the opposite view, that higher level descriptions cannot be derived from lower level ones. The assumptions underlying reduction and the whole issue of the relation of psychology to physiology are discussed in Chapter 11. It will be argued that, as in the case of the relation of purposive to mechanistic descriptions, psychology and physiology describe different aspects of phenomena and hence are complementary, that strict reduction entailing logical identity is untenable because psychological and physiological descriptions have different meanings, and that empirical reduction which requires the establishment of bridging laws faces many difficulties.

Theoretical Assumptions

Many of the characteristics of scientific laws raise potential problems for the subject matter of psychology.

A first requirement is that of systematicity. At the very least science must be a coherent body of knowledge. The complexity of psychological subject matter, notably the diversity and likely interactive nature of relevant variables promises trouble for psychology, a promise that has been amply fulfilled. Grünbaum (1952), however, has argued that the subject matter of other sciences, such as physics, is hardly simple, and may have seemed as complex as that of psychology at the time of its inauguration. It is unlikely that psychology can rely on youth to account for its lack of progress. Comparison with biochemistry is enough to suggest that the malaise goes deeper.

A particular difficulty is due to the reflexivity of psychology. Not only is it the case that the observer and the observed are often members of the same species, but also that actually doing psychology constitutes part of its subject matter. This means at the very least that psychological theories must be self-referring in the sense of explaining the psychologist’s own behaviour, as Oliver and Landfield (1963) point out. Bannister (1968) has used this as an argument for the non-reducibility of psychology to physiology (see Chapter 11).

Other problems are associated with a second characteristic of scientific laws, that of generality. It is generally accepted that scientific laws are unrestricted in space and time. A glance at typical psychological theoretical statements indicates that this condition is not always met. Too often these statements refer to specific times and places. Of course this is a matter of degree: all statements are restricted to a greater or lesser extent, but the scientific ideal is that this should approach the latter rather than the former. The failure probably reflects a greater interest on the part of investigators in the content rather than the process of behaviour. Since the content of behaviour varies considerably, it presents much greater problems for scientific treatment than do the principles of adaptation. Social and cultural aspects of behaviour are much less amenable to a scientific analysis than are biological aspects.

Another possible challenge to generality comes from the conflicting demand to recognise the uniqueness of the individual. Since the movement of Verstehen psychology in nineteenth-century Germany, there have been cries to understand the individual rather than predict behaviour in general. It is frequently said that more is to be learned about human behaviour by studying literature rather than psychology. A comparison of idiographic and nomothetic approaches, which focus on the particular and general respectively, and encompass differences in subject matter, methods and explanations, is the topic of Chapter 14. They probably largely reflect differences in aims: empathic understanding as against deductive, predictive explanation, and in application they may be complementary. As far as science goes, however, nomothesis must be the rule of the day. If a clinical method works it must be covertly nomothetic and if truly unique it could not be communicated (see Holt, 1967). Nevertheless, there can be a scientific study of individuals.

Since, if not before, Popper’s (1959) epoch-making work, the hallmark of scientific hypotheses has been testability, in this case falsifiability (further discussed in Chapter 7). This has raised problems for psychology because of the inherent difficulty in operationalising its concepts. Most of its area of interest is not directly observable. Indeed, Popper was led to formulate his demarcation principle partly as a result of noting the inadequacies in this respect of the psychological theories of Freud and Jung. The whole question of the relation of theoretical constructs to the evidence for them is thus a central one in psychology and discussed in Chapter 9.

Methodological Assumptions

There may well be no definitive characteristics of science, and indeed if there were they would probably change from one time to another. Strictly, ‘science’ means ‘knowledge’ but what it has come to mean in the modern Western world is knowledge acquired as a result of employing empirical methods. If there is any one thing that characterises it more than anything else, it is probably the empirical method. Other pursuits have been systematic, such as Greek cosmology, but we would not call them science. Empiricism involves appeal to sensory experience as opposed to reliance on a priori reasoning; the criterion of truth becomes one of correspondence with the facts rather than logical coherence. Typically it involves observation, measurement and experimentation. In some sciences, such as astronomy and geology, only observation and measurement are possible but usually experimentation is regarded as the characteristic of science par excellence. There are some difficulties in the way of experimentation in psychology, as we shall see below, and it may be more akin to geology than has been generally recognised. The possibility of applying any of these three procedures to psychological subject matter has been doubted by many.

Observation presents problems for psychology on account of the previously mentioned fact that most of what is of interest, that which is essentially psychological – thoughts, feelings and the springs of action – is not open to direct observation. Hence, as indicated above, almost all psychological statements must be inferential. I would claim that this is true of all sciences, but the gap between data and theory is probably greater and the connection looser in psychology than in other sciences. The issue of privacy will be taken up in Chapter 5, where it will be argued that all scientific statements are based on observations of private experiences, and that the distinction between subjective and objective is not as clear cut as at first supposed.

Furthermore, it is now clear that neither the observer nor the observed are passive, non-interactive organisms in the experimental situation. The fact that observation necessarily interferes with what is observed, first discovered in physics, became the subject of experimentation in psychology with the recognition that the experiment is itself a social situation. This work is treated in Chapter 6.

Dualistic thought would suggest that quantifiability was the exclusive prerogative of the physical. Kant (1781) held that observation could be applied to psychological phenomena but that measurement and experimentation were impossible. However, since the latter part of the nineteenth century, advances in the measurement of psychological or mental characteristics have progressively been made and the grounds for such a belief gradually eroded. In 1861 Fechner published an account of psychophysical methods, in the vain belief that they solved the mind–body problem. They did, however, provide methods for establishing functions relating psychological values or reported sensations to physical values of stimuli, though these have since been superseded. Ebbinghaus, coming on a copy of Fechner’s Elemente der Psychophysik, was spurred to similar achievement in devising ways of measuring memorial associations. The turn of the century saw the beginning of attempts to measure intellectual ability, or at least performance, with the Binet-Simon scale, and Galton’s predominantly physical measures and development of percentile ranks and correlation. From these sprang the whole field of psychometrics and factor analysis. Scaling focuses the difficulty of measurement in psychology. One of the central questions is the arbitrariness of the scale: to what extent can the values be said to reflect fundamental realities and relations and to what extent are they a function of theoretical constructs? For further discussion of this topic see, for example, Coombs, Dawes and Tversky (1970).

Herbart (1824) believed that observation and measurement could be applied to psychology but not experimentation. Wundt (1862), the first experimental psychologist proper, thought that experimental methods could only be applied to what he considered lower order processes: thinking, judgement and language were too socially conditioned to be similarly treated. Empirical investigation of social phenomena is possible, but experimentation in the sense of isolating variables with the purpose of identifying causal factors may not be because it is virtually impossible to implement sufficient control. There are various reasons why this is so: the number of variables, their interaction and the history of the organism.

One reason results from the adaptability of organisms. Behaviour is a function of the past history of the organism and can only be explained by reference to it. Only the blinkered would still fail to acknowledge that behaviour is not predictable on the basis of the observable, external physical stimuli but only on the basis of the meaning of these stimuli for the organism – cf. Underwood’s (1963) distinction between the nom...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of figures and tables
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• 1. Psychology as science
• 2. Determinism and free will
• 3. The mind–body problem
• 4. Consciousness
• 5. Introspection
• 6. Sources of artefact
• 7. Determinants of scientific advance
• 8. Theories and explanations
• 9. The problem of the organism
• 10. Models and computer simulation
• 11. The relation of physiology to psychology
• 12. Teleological explanation
• 13. Alternative perspectives
• 14. Idiographic psychology
• Bibliography
• Name index
• Subject index