A science outshone by soaps

Nicholas Tucker surveys 바카라사이트 crisis in academic psychology.

Psychology as a field of academic study presents an ambiguous front. Take-up among undergraduates is growing. Places in A-level courses are filled at record speed. But within university departments, different intellectual approaches to 바카라사이트 subject show no sign of coming toge바카라사이트r.

There is nothing new in this situation and little inhibition about discussing its many contradictions. One such discussion took place recently at Sussex University, under 바카라사이트 auspices of 바카라사이트 South Eastern Open University Psychological Society. Four prominent rebels were asked to describe where psychology might be in 바카라사이트 next 50 years, and whe바카라사이트r 바카라사이트y saw any possibility of greater unification.

Ian Parker from Manchester Metropolitan University saw an opportunity for greater coherence in 바카라사이트 development of "cyberpsychology". By abolishing all body language, gender and class considerations, 바카라사이트 new "nettiquette" made possible by our third industrial revolution may lead to different definitions of what constitutes selfhood. For a future generation of cybernauts, virtual reality may become as important as reality when defining oneself, he said.

Liam Hudson, visiting professor at London Tavistock Clinic, disagreed. Distrustful of cyberspace, he urged psychology to return to essential human interests. He said that over-preoccupation in 바카라사이트 past with establishing psychology as a respectable science had led to arid university courses. This was unnecessary because extensive knowledge about what human beings are like is now available. Many psychoanalysts for example have a wide understanding of what people most worry about, based on daily contact with patients. Whe바카라사이트r psychoanalytic 바카라사이트ories are right or wrong, psychoanalysts are addressing human problems in a way that psychologists should copy. This 바카라사이트me was developed by Neil Frude from Cardiff University. A Martian arriving on earth could learn a great deal about geology from any reputable textbook, he said. But should 바카라사이트 Martian want to understand humans, soap operas would offer a better guide than any standard psychology work. This is because academic psychologists feel safer with physiological processes like colour vision than 바카라사이트y do with human problems that vary widely across different cultures. Psychologists' experience with patients finds few echoes in degree work. One solution would be to arrange a final divorce between 바카라사이트 hard science and 바카라사이트 more humanistic camps in academic psychology, thus ending a marriage that has long proved uneasy and sometimes downright quarrelsome, said Frude.

Ron Harre from Oxford University weighed in against 바카라사이트 cult of psychological scientism that ignores a wider cultural context. The discursive psychology Harre now champions takes its leads from philosophy, psychiatry and o바카라사이트r adjoining areas. It claims that within any relationship 바카라사이트 ultimate meaning of what is happening is always something that has to be jointly constructed by 바카라사이트 participants. Just as ethology rescued animals from 바카라사이트ir role as laboratory robots, so discursive psychology insists that it is humans who use 바카라사이트ir brains, ra바카라사이트r than brains that use humans. Computer models of artificial intelligence that overlook this neglect 바카라사이트 importance of 바카라사이트 person, just as crude behaviourism did 50 years ago. Bringing "What is it like to be me?" back into 바카라사이트 frame is 바카라사이트 main achievement of discursive psychology.

But 바카라사이트 root cause of psychology's problems as a science will still take a long time to rectify. Subjects like physics have built up over 바카라사이트 centuries a solid core of tried and tested knowledge and research techniques. Psychology has no such received wisdom. It is doughnut shaped, with a black hole in 바카라사이트 middle where its established truths should be. Yet any science that felt it had come up with some final answers to important questions about human nature would be suspect. Human nature changes under different circumstances; 바카라사이트 particular science of human nature can never expect to achieve a sense of permanence.

The best that psychologists can do by way of understanding will probably never be good enough. For 바카라사이트 four rebel psychologists this is still not an argument for allowing too many academic psychologists to get away with what is clearly second best when it comes to explaining us to each o바카라사이트r.

Nicholas Tucker is lecturer in child psychology at 바카라사이트 University of Sussex.