Stanovich How To Think Straight About Psychology Summary
Keith E. Stanovich in the book entitled “How to Think Straight about Psychology” in chapter one “Psychology Is Alive and Well (and Doing Fine Among the Sciences)” addressed the issue of whether psychology should be considered a science or not. He begins the chapter by referencing well known “media psychologists” such as Dr. Phil and Wayne Dyer, then follows by comparing Freud as the closest to a “pop psychologist” in actual psychology. Stanovich explains that Freud’s importance to modern psychology is actually extremely exaggerated, and his methods are very misleading for impressions of psychological research. He writes “Freud built an elaborate theory on a database that was not substantial enough to support it” (How to Think Straight about
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Therefor psychology isn’t the only solitary area of study that researches human behavior. However, psychology is different from any other behavioral field. One being every conclusion they make will derive from scientific evidence, otherwise it will remain a theory. The other being they will always use the scientific method during their tests while trying to research their hypothesis. I was surprised when reading the information provided about Sigmund Freud in the beginning of the chapter. During my senior year, my A.P. Psychology teacher constantly referred to Freud as the father of psychology. So to read about him in a negative tone was interesting. I was able to see both sides to the argument, when I realized my teacher never provided much information about Freud to really prove he was an exceptional psychologist. I have never had any experiences to go against or disprove anything the author wrote about. Although I cannot recall many to prove his points either. It never occurred to me, people would challenge the idea that psychology is a science. Throughout psychology you are able to study several other sciences. Such as biology, chemistry, anatomy, and physiology. However, I do understand much of what you learn in psychology is often theories, which may be controversial to
Therefor psychology isn’t the only solitary area of study that researches human behavior. However, psychology is different from any other behavioral field. One being every conclusion they make will derive from scientific evidence, otherwise it will remain a theory. The other being they will always use the scientific method during their tests while trying to research their hypothesis. I was surprised when reading the information provided about Sigmund Freud in the beginning of the chapter. During my senior year, my A.P. Psychology teacher constantly referred to Freud as the father of psychology. So to read about him in a negative tone was interesting. I was able to see both sides to the argument, when I realized my teacher never provided much information about Freud to really prove he was an exceptional psychologist. I have never had any experiences to go against or disprove anything the author wrote about. Although I cannot recall many to prove his points either. It never occurred to me, people would challenge the idea that psychology is a science. Throughout psychology you are able to study several other sciences. Such as biology, chemistry, anatomy, and physiology. However, I do understand much of what you learn in psychology is often theories, which may be controversial to