Psychology as a Science Essay

It is, therefore, an accurate consideration to state psychology as the scientific study of mind and soul with regards to the meanings of the words psyche, meaning soul and ology, meaning “the scientific study of”. Pastorino and Doyle-Portillo (2005) define psychology as the scientific study of mental processes and human behavior (Pastorino & Doyle-Portillo, 2005). In this context, mental processes include and are not limited to memory, intelligence and problem solving while human behavior includes feelings, actions and other states such as sleep (Pastorino & Doyle-Portillo, 2005). Some experts refer to Psychology as a compound word coined by the combination of two Greek words psyche and logos. Psyche later broadened to include mind while logos had the original meaning of the word but was later transformed to mean reason or disclosure (Colman & Chorley, 2016).

These approaches are different in how they study human behavior, their research methods, and theories but have shared assumptions (McLeod, 2013). There are six different perspectives as stated below. Evolutionary psychology; explains that observed behaviors are as a result of evolutionary adaptation to help in survival Biological psychology; studies human behavior in terms of genes effect on behavior. Humanism psychology on the other side studies the behavior of the whole individuals; self-image and inner feelings. Cognitive psychology is concerned with the human behavior in relation to their minds. Runes (1962) explains that qualia refer to the experienced properties of this like sweetness or redness. Qualia is defined by McLaughlin and Cohen (2007) as the qualitative aspects of mental and sensory states (McLaughlin & Cohen, 2007). The mental and sensory states are presented by the question, “what is it like” to be a bat or “what is it like” to smell an apple (McLaughlin & Cohen, 2007).

In addition to these explanations, Buck (1993) argued that, even though qualia are most of the time as properties of external objects, the bodily events seems to have evolved and now include experienced properties too (Buck, 1993). Kanai and Tsuchiya describe qualia as the phenomenal aspect of consciousness of a subjective experience (Kanai & Tsuchiya, 2012). In line with this thought from Gibson, Ross Buck (1993), supposes that the ecological theory of perception can be applied to the perception of structured information found within the internal body environments which includes the subjectively experienced desires and feelings (Buck, 1993). To clearly understand the nature and meaning of subjective experience, the proper understanding and differentiation of the concepts of Russell’s (1912) “immediate knowledge by acquaintance” (AK) and James’ (1890) “knowledge by description” (DK).

Both Russell and James at different times made their contributions to the understanding of subjective (Buck, 1993). James (1890) understood that AK is like a person’s immediate experience of things that cannot be put into words. Like the experience of the taste of pear or of the color blue (James, 1890). For a subject or practice to be considered a science, it has to demonstrate the characteristics that satisfy scientific methods of research. These include the conceptualization of problems, collection of data, its analysis, and drawing conclusions based on the data (Stangor, 2011). The study of qualia has been quite a challenge to psychologists because of its inability to be observed publicly. For this reason, most researchers remained committed to the study of observable phenomena (Buck, 1993).

Qualia being subjective in nature requires a more advanced way to measure and collect data for analysis and conclusions to be drawn as science requires. The developments in the neuroscience field have greatly improved on the study of qualia. Through the use of the advanced machines, psychologies can do their researches through well-structured methods, collect data, and do their analysis. In conclusion, the study of subjective experience and qualia have greatly improved on the notion that psychology is a science. Without the use of the machines used in the brain scan and reading of the neurological changes, the study of subjective experience and qualia would not be so successful. This study has linked neuroscience and psychology in a wider perspective that makes most people without having a second thought will think of contemporary psychology as a science.