PSYCHOLOGY’S EMPHASIS ON METHOD

It is sometimes said that the main thing psychologists know is not content but method. This statement is not usually meant as a compliment. When all is said and done, psychologists do not seem to provide firm answers to questions about the mind and behavior very often. Instead, they offer methods for research aimed at these questions. Indeed, sometimes psychologists seem more interested in the research process than in the answers their research is supposed to be seeking.

Such a characterization is not entirely fair, but it does contain a kernel of truth. Psychologists, like other scientists, never really expect to reach a final answer to any question. For a researcher, the real thrill is in the chase, and the goal is to continuously improve on tentative answers (hypotheses) rather than to settle anything once and for all.

For a researcher, the real thrill is in the chase.

Another kernel of truth is that, more than any other kind of scientist, psychologists are sensitive to and sometimes even self-conscious about research methodology, the way they use statistics, and even the basic procedures they use to draw inferences from data. Issues like these don’t seem to worry physicists and chemists so much. They have fewer debates about methodology, and introductory physics or chemistry textbooks do not usually contain an introspective chapter—like the one you are reading now—on research methods. But no psychology text seems complete without one. Why do you think this is?

Sometimes, the emphasis on methods and process is seen as a sign of weakness, even by psychologists themselves. It’s been said that many psychologists suffer from “physics envy.” But psychology’s self-consciousness about method is one of my favorite things about it. I remember beginning to study chemistry and finding that one of my first assignments was to memorize the periodic table of elements. Where did this table come from, I immediately wanted to know, and why should I believe it? But this was not part of the introductory curriculum. Certain facts were to be memorized and accepted without question. The evidence would come later. This was understandable, I suppose, but it did not seem like much fun.

A comic shows a dining area full off people talking, eating, and ordering food. — *“Certainly. A party of four at seven-thirty in the name of Dr. Jennings. May I ask whether that is an actual medical degree or merely a Ph.D.?”*

When I took my first psychology course, the approach was different. Although I was somewhat disappointed that the professor did not immediately teach me how to read people’s minds (even though I was sure the professor was reading mine), I was engaged by the way everything seemed open to question, and almost no “fact” was presented without both a description of the experiment that found it, and a discussion of whether or not its findings were persuasive. Some students disliked this approach. Why not just give us the facts and let us memorize them? they complained, like the professor does in chemistry class. But I loved it. It encouraged me to think for myself. Early in the semester, I decided that some of the findings of psychology did not seem all that solidly based. Later on, I even began to imagine some ways in which I could find out more. I was hooked. It could happen to you. Read on.

Scientific Education and Technical Training

Research emphasizes creative thinking over memorizing because it entails seeking new knowledge, not cataloging facts already known. The distinction is the fundamental difference between technical training and scientific education. By this definition, medical education is technical rather than scientific—it focuses on learning what is known and how to use it. Physicians-in-training do an astonishing amount of sheer memorization, and the last step in medical education is an internship, in which the future doctor is challenged to work with actual patients. Scientists-in-training, by contrast, do much less memorization; instead, they are taught to question what is already known and to learn methods to find out more. The last step in scientific education, including in psychology, is the dissertation, a research project in which the future scientist is charged to discover something new.

The biologist goes to a physician when sick; most of what the physician knows was discovered by biologists.

The contrast between the technical and the scientific approaches applies in many other areas, such as the distinction between pharmacists and pharmacologists, gardeners and botanists, or computer programmers and computer scientists. In each case, the issue is not which is better; each member of the pair is necessary, and each depends on the other. The biologist goes to a physician when sick; most of what the physician knows was discovered by biologists. But they are importantly different. Technical training teaches how to use what is already known; scientific training teaches how to explore the unknown. In science, the exploration of the unknown is called research. The essential aspect of research is the gathering of data.

research: Exploration of the unknown; finding out something that nobody knew before one discovered it.

PSYCHOLOGY’S EMPHASIS ON METHOD

Scientific Education and Technical Training

Glossary