Is Psychology a science?

[QuantumJG]

no.

My I first say that I love your partial derivative equation signature, but, is that a real physics equation or not? My maths isn't at that sophisticated level where you do the square of the grad function, but, it will get there!

Its a hard question to answer!

Its not that quantitative in the sense if you were to look at physics, maths, biology or chemistry.

Its a much more qualitative subject as you are trying to come up with theories about how the mind works.

I did psychology in year 10 and hated it because it was too qualitative.

With science I loved biology (apart from dissecting rats), chemistry and physics (these two are my favourite sciences - I loved the chemistry pracs and physics was just great because a lot of reasoning came from the maths involved and vice-versa (the reasoning allowed the maths involved to make sense).

 

[QuantumJG]

it may not seem scientific but it is by far more interesting that those other pathetic subjects in the science category

lol, so your saying that Einstein and Newton, spent all that time on some pathetic science subject.

no i just believe imo that the vast majority of science subjects are as exciting as watching the grass grow, like take bio for instance who gives a flying foock about how a plant grows, it drove me insane last year hence i dropped it

Come on physics is an excellent science, you get to study nuclear physics, quantum physics, relativity, etc. All these cool fields of physics that see how weird our universe is. Chemistry is cool as with all the experiments you can do.

With biology if you scrap: botany, zoology and all those other crapy parts and look at immunology, genetics, pathology, etc. Its a great science.

[kurrymuncher]

astrophysics>everything

[QuantumJG]

astrophysics>everything

Damm right

[Collin Li]

For instance, behavioural economics is very important in order to understand human behaviour in markets. Why do people behave the way they do? Answers to this question can have really big implications on the economy.

I read an article that argued behavioural economics will never have a big influence on economics because it focuses on niches and nuances in human nature that do not effect the general population (clinical psychology), and hence the general marketplace (only affects a few select people who can behave 'irrationally' for a few 'rounds' or generations). They play a small part in the economy, so they are interesting outliers, but insignificant to macroeconomic considerations.

[Eriny]

For instance, behavioural economics is very important in order to understand human behaviour in markets. Why do people behave the way they do? Answers to this question can have really big implications on the economy.

I read an article that argued behavioural economics will never have a big influence on economics because it focuses on niches and nuances in human nature that do not effect the general population (clinical psychology), and hence the general marketplace (only affects a few select people who can behave 'irrationally' for a few 'rounds' or generations). They play a small part in the economy, so they are interesting outliers, but insignificant to macroeconomic considerations.

Oh right. I've never really studied it but surely there could be something general to say about the psychological motivations of the wider population? Like, usually the principles of social psychology affect the majority of people, for instance, and this could be related in some way to people buying things? I don't know.

[Collin Li]

Yeah, I sat in a few lectures of Behavioural Economics. I found them interesting. They're more reminders of what logical fallacies you may be tempted to make that you shouldn't, if you want to save yourself some money or make more utility-maximising decisions (better for you, essentially).

[Glockmeister]

There's an interesting lecture on TED, from Dan Ariely who's a Behavioural Economist

http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_ariely_asks_are_we_in_control_of_our_own_decisions.html