i used to love psychology until i realised the real reason for my anguish.and since have lost interest in alot i used to love in a good way.anyways psychology is still good if the psychologist cares.sometimes just having someone subjective to listen is all you need.not to mention that placebo effect and motivations from doing something to help yourself.

Though some do take it too far,it is a valuable too when dealing with employees and also very helpful tool in sales,you can learn to stroke ones ego without them knowing it,but yes psychology as a whole tends to stereotype people

Originally posted by Incarnated
Most psychology majors study psychology because the believe there's something wrong with their own heads. They also want to believe there is something wrong with your head.

I think that's called projection, lol.

So, tell me about your past...had any bad experiences with psychologists and psychiatrists...

The closest thing to true psychology is behaviorisim.

I'm sure Skinner would have been chuffed.

Originally posted by Tsuki-no-Hikari
So...how is Psychology not an observational science?

Of course it is. The problem is that many people appear to mix up the pop-psychology BS, psychoanalysis, and other forms of pseudopsychology with what psychologists actually do. For example...

Psychology is a big bull#. I studied Psychology at university for three years. Now I quit this # and Im preparing to enter the Medical University. You go for more to 10 years to a analist, speak some bull#, hear more bull#, pay a lot to nothing. Than you have some magical drug for some minutes and you are enlighted and free...

PSYCHOLOGY=BULL#=FREUD

lol

There is the applied stuff - counsellors, random therapists, educational, industrial, clinical, sports etc etc. These people apply the science produced elsewhere, and sometimes do research themselves.

And there is the fundamental research, which is where the science is mainly done. And it uses both quantitative and qualitative methods.

Look! Science!

Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

2008 Volume 137, Issue 4 (Nov)

Memory in posttraumatic stress disorder: Properties of voluntary and involuntary, traumatic and nontraumatic autobiographical memories in people with and without posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms.
Pages 591-614
Rubin, David C.; Boals, Adriel; Berntsen, Dorthe
Abstract | Full Text PDF | Full Text HTML | Permissions

Memory predictions are influenced by perceptual information: Evidence for metacognitive illusions.
Pages 615-625
Rhodes, Matthew G.; Castel, Alan D.
Abstract | Full Text PDF | Full Text HTML | Permissions

Selective attention in human associative learning and recognition memory.
Pages 626-648
Griffiths, Oren; Mitchell, Chris J.
Abstract | Full Text PDF | Full Text HTML | Permissions

Automatic and controlled response inhibition: Associative learning in the go/no-go and stop-signal paradigms.
Pages 649-672
Verbruggen, Frederick; Logan, Gordon D.
Abstract | Full Text PDF | Full Text HTML | Permissions

Retraction of Hard, Lozano, and Tversky (2006).
Page 672
Hard, B. M.; Lozano, S. C.; Tversky, B.
Abstract | Full Text PDF | Full Text HTML | Permissions

Will a category cue attract you? Motor output reveals dynamic competition across person construal.
Pages 673-690
Freeman, Jonathan B.; Ambady, Nalini; Rule, Nicholas O.; Johnson, Kerri L.
Abstract | Full Text PDF | Full Text HTML | Permissions

Stereotype threat and executive resource depletion: Examining the influence of emotion regulation.
Pages 691-705
Johns, Michael; Inzlicht, Michael; Schmader, Toni
Abstract | Full Text PDF | Full Text HTML | Permissions

Spontaneous gestures during mental rotation tasks: Insights into the microdevelopment of the motor strategy.
Pages 706-723
Chu, Mingyuan; Kita, Sotaro
Abstract | Full Text PDF | Full Text HTML | Permissions

I see Ambady's name in there. She was involved in the super study of person perception which experimentally demonstrated that a 'thin-slice' (30 seconds, IIRC) of behaviour was sufficient to influence longer term social judgement - first impressions last and all that.

The paper about resource depletion sounds interesting, a while back a couple of good papers (Shelton & Richeson) showed how exposure to race information depletes activity in the frontal lobe. This effect was related to the 'implicit' race bias of a participant, suggesting that people with covert race biases use areas of the frontal lobe to regulate the more reflexive emotion-based reaction.

Ooh! Bad Amos Tversky (he's dead now, though) - I see a retraction. He's the dude who worked with Dan Kahneman on heuristics and biases in decision-making. Showing, for example, how 'framing' of decisions alters behaviour with logically equivalent problems. This showed the idea of the uber-rational homo economicus to be a bit of a fantasy. More recently, Ray Dolan at UCL has demonstrated how such framing appears to rely on the amygdala, and overcoming it on the orbitomedial PFC - an emotional process. Fantastic stuff.

That's science!

[edit on 19-12-2008 by melatonin]