Does Veeky Forums consider psychology a science? Why do you / why not?

Does Veeky Forums consider psychology a science? Why do you / why not?
I'm an social psychologist, and what I do is basically measure human behavior in accordance with the scientific method

I know that the stigma of psychology basically boils down to facebook posts saying "if a friendship lasts more than 7 years, it will last a lifetime" or other related spiritual bullshit. So it's pretty understandable that people toss it in the thrash right next to astrology

However, allow me to explain one of my personal favorite experiments to demonstrate what social psychology is

If you want to look it up, it's from Loftus and Palmer (1974)

People were shown a video of 2 cars crashing. It's short. 2 cars crash, some debris flies around and that's it. Participants were then divided into 5 groups. One week after the video was shown, participants were asked to recall certain aspects of the video. Specifically, they were asked if they remembered there to be broken glass in the video of the 2 cars crashing into each other (there was none). They also asked participants to report the estimated speed of the 2 cars

For each of the 5 groups, the researchers used different phrasings of the question. "Did you see any broken glass when they/how fast were the 2 cars driving when they" smashed (1) /collided (2) /bumped (3) /hit (4) /contacted (5) each other?

And lo and behold, people reported there to be far more glass when the experimenter used the word "smashed". The mean estimated speed was a lot higher as well when the word "smashing" was used (40.8mph) versus when the word "contacted" was used (31.8mph)

What does this tell us? Memory is a very malleable thing; things as simple as the phrasing of a question can affect someone's recollection of there being broken glass, or the speed of a car. Eyewitness reports, for example, can depend heavily on the phrasing of the investigator

How is this not a measurable, valid scientific field? Please discuss Veeky Forums, I'm curious about your opinion

I got some more of my favorite experiments if someone's interested

there's some psychology that follows the scientific method, there's a lot that doesn't

things get especially hairy when self-reporting is involved in data collection

self reporting is somewhat of a hairy topic indeed
on one hand, it's fucking self report
on the other, if there are clear cut differences in self report, what other conclusion is there left to draw that the designed manipulation was the determining factor involved?

I believe that's because psychology is not constant :

1+1 = 2
2 hydrogens + 1 oxygen = water
the word "smashing" gives sometimes 39 mph, 41mph etc...

I'm interested in psychology and sociology, studies look accurate but it seems to be affected by numerous of random factors, way more than other sciences

do you have some like pavlov and milgram experiments ?

there's indeed a larger margin of error around the values
that's why statistical testing is somewhat stricter than other sciences; things need to have a serious effect size in order to be deemed a valid result.

In the experiment I described, the only thing that differed between conditions was the word used to describe the collision between the cars. If you find a statistically significant difference between 2 or more conditions, it becomes very difficult to deny that this is the result of the phrasing used. It is very unlikely that all participants in one group just witnessed an accident on the street, skewing the result.

Even if psychology is a science, psychologists have the lowest quantitative GRE scores . I mean, go ahead and introduce yourself as a scientist at cocktail parties, but all the other scientists will still see you as a joke.

II assume psychology can be considered a science!

Today we understand that science can be tricky and contradicting the closer we look into things, for example with quantum mechanics!

In order to successfully study psychology one has to understand that as humans, our entire behavior is a reaction of induced emotions and patterns!

Humans have few emotions that are repeated constantly every day, over and over!

A normal human being will not notice this repetition because it is so smooth and swift.

Sometimes they can be extreme and very prominent as they are acted out and that is an abnormality (the inability to subconsciously minimize the reaction while operating on the daily basis)!

I assume it is much easier to study individual behavior as opposed to group behavior more accurately!

The reason that memory differs in a group setting it is because often emotions are perceived in a different way, and when emotions are induced they often have baggage!

For example if they feel slight fear by watching something scary (car crash) humans will immediately subconsciously process past memories (movies, events, interactions, stories) they had when they felt that emotion previously, all this while in-taking new information!

Scientifically it can be perceived that emotions are intermingled with memory, meaning past memories/emotions can distort new information input!

Not to mention often more than one emotion is induced in sequence thus complicating the process ever further!

And that is why individual psychological assessment is the most accurate, and can be considered scientific as humans tend to have patterns and can be predictable!

why the reddit spacing?

>I mean, go ahead and introduce yourself as a scientist at cocktail parties,
Because that's what science is about, right. Looking good at cocktail parties.

Iam sorry but I think Psychology is bullshit. You cant observe behavioral creators like human, record statistics and call this science.

It allows me to minimize writing mistakes, well at least the spelling!

I do love to write however not my strongest skill!

>Does Veeky Forums consider psychology a science?
No, although I've only completed one 100 level paper of psych the paper was known as a good filler paper for Bsc but it was over saturated with pretentious artfags now I regret I didn't do an actual useful chemistry, physics or even biology paper.

Psychology is mostly psuedo-science, animal behavior is applied biological principles to psychology which is a verified science, though soft it holds more objectivity than psychology.

>I'm an social psychologist, and what I do is basically measure human behavior in accordance with the scientific method

You can't apply the scientific method to something as vastly nuanced and unpredictable as human behavior we don't have the current technology to enable that and if we did freewill exists and other physical factors would have to be accounted for, which indeed is what psychologists do which ends in jeopardized and falsifiable results.

The problem or at least my problem with psychology is summarized in your post actually its bullshit clicker question crap, generally strangely outdated to fuck sometimes to embarrassing levels I had an article from 1879 as a recommended academic source still quoting fruedoed but most stuff from the 60s, 70s and late twentieth century times rife with fucked zeitgeist where a flaky subject is bound to be influenced by the general disregard of human life.

>Memory is a very malleable thing;
Yes we know memory is fallible and collective, psychology is a meme like the Mandela effect, we're biped apes not servos, this coupled with the multitudes of bullshit unnecessary fields of psychology further distance it from ever being a science, there's tonnes of applied fields just from a quick google search.
Abnormal Psychology
Behavioral Psychology
Biopsychology
Cognitive Psychology
Comparative Psychology
Cross-Cultural Psychology
Developmental Psychology
Educational Psychology
The only field in psychology that should exist should be biology.. oh wait.

Psycology is a study based on observation and to a degree statistical evidence. Any study based on statistics is a soft science at best.

>psychology isn't science

It's an invisible tool that can be used on anybody at any given time.

Jews use it all the time and good goys say its not a science.

Let them. More people for us to manipulate.

it actually isn't. i think of it more as a part of economy

Not a science. Psychologists are brainlets that couldnt get into physics or medicine so now they larp as doctors and scientists.

Are you implying that other sciences aren't divided in multiples of different subspecalities? Do you want me to list all the different kind of chemistry and biology? And you also admit animal behavior is a science yet behavioral psychology which uses the very same principles is not? Hell all psychological fields have the end goal of testing their hypothesis using behavioral measures.

>Blah blah you can't use the scientific method of human behavior we're too complex too many factors

You can apply this very same critism to human genetics yet I never hear anyone claim it's not a real science. So many factors from epigenetics to differing envirements in the womb to the tendency of adoptive parents to choose similar kids to adopt that cannot be controlled for.

>yes we know memory is fallable
uncle bob who has very good people skills is just about as correct as someone who's able to predict the weather somewhat correctly by looking at the sky
that doesn't mean we should write off meteorology as a whole
>a multitude of bullshit unnecessary fields
>names the fields
>see? I have proven they are bullshit
you know nothing about any of those fields, the hypotheses they generate and the predictability of human behavior that comes from it
it's not like someone threw a dart at a board full of adjectives, saw the dart landed in "cognitive" and decided "we don't have that one yet, let's make it a field of psychology"
it's a name given retrospectively to a field that emerged at some time when researchers saw the need to branch out

IQ tests are the only legitimate part of psychology

neuropsych only non garbage subfield of psych

>Neuropsych
>Better than behavioral

Don't get me wrong I love neuropsych but its main findings are still young and shaky and as such the field isn't as reliable as many other psych fields. I tend to like that aspect in a way but comparing fields it's an obvious flaw.

B I O M A R K E R S
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Is your period key broken?

I'm a pretty big brainlet, but aren't humans constantly changing throughout the generations? How do you keep consistent data when the brain is forever adapting?

Because social sciences are for brainlets that use "an" incorrectly. Fuck, I would expect you to at least use proper grammar if you want to defend your field.

Only when findings can be explained and confirmed using hard scientific methods like neuroimaging, otherwise there is too much room for interpretation

Humans are just biomechanical automatons. Every human is a product of their perceived environment. Programmable and adaptable beyond the makers original design. Your lives are worthless and none of this made up garbage matters. Pull your head out f your butt. Its all psudoscience because you cant even prove you or your perceived world exist beyond your own mind.

>I know that the stigma of psychology basically boils down to facebook posts saying "if a friendship lasts more than 7 years, it will last a lifetime" or other related spiritual bullshit. So it's pretty understandable that people toss it in the thrash right next to astrology
Actually it has more to do with things like the reproduction crisis.
Good thing its "theories" have no predictive value, then.