WHY is psychology considered a science? Can anyone pls.tell me?thank you?

Answer 1

Psychology is a science because it is investigated using scientific methods. This means that we don't just say that something causes something else and say that the statement is true.
We research it, we conduct experiments on it and we test our hypothesis.
I have a degree in psychology. Most of the content of my degree involved knowing statistics and research methods. The study of human thought and behaviour is incredibly complex and thus psychology is a very complex science.

An example of how psychology is a science is this:

Someone thinks that maybe having a lot of people around means that any one person might not think that they are responsible for calling the police if something bad happens.

So researchers created an experiment to test this hypothesis.
They brought participants in and had a fake assaut happen (the participants didn't know that it was fake) and sometimes there was only one person present and sometimes there were more. When there was only one person present and watching, they sought out help about the assult more often than when there were many people present.

Wikipedia sums up a definition of science quite well:
The essential for science are hypotheses and research methods. They enable researchers to construct theories, models and to plan and conduct experiments.

Answer 2

The last example (with its real-life counterpart being the Kitty Genovese incident in the 1960's), while thorough, sort of mixes sociology with psychology.

Sociology is interested in how people interact among each other ("group think"), psychology focuses more on the individual who is being acted upon and how s/he develops ("self think").

Psychology is a soft science -- it can be explored, and some behaviors can be validated in limited settings, but ultimately people are all different. It's harder to force a defined result by performing the same list of steps on different subjects.

As an example, take any two people who need a heart transplant, and the surgeon can open them up and do the same procedure and have it end with the same results (barring random complications).

Take any two people with the same psychological problem and apply the same solution... and it might not work. There are just too many variables in individuals -- their past environments, their genetic makeup, their experiences, and so on -- that it can only make generalized predictions and guidelines.

Even the more medical aspects of psychology can't guarantee results. Give any two people the same medication (dose adjusted for body weight) to resolve anxiety, and it might not work on one of them, or cause side effects in the other.

So psychology is less "verifiable" than normal hard sciences like chemistry or physics, where the rules are established, and you can generate very specific, very exact results each time you follow the same list of steps.

Psychology is more intuitive in nature.

Answer 3

You must understand the meaning of science. Science is basically to know or knowing. Psychology is a branch of science that studies the human psyche therefore it is knowing about psychological processes in not only human but anything with a mind.

Answer 4

i prefer to think of psychology as theory with intent of finding a dependable, testable pattern in order for it to actually become a true science.

Answer 5

It is the science of studying and understanding the mind.

Answer 6

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Atbw1h8IOUi7_GY44K3UQ.jsy6IX?qid=1006043017834