Title: What Makes Psychology a Science? | Career Trend
Headings: What Makes Psychology a Science?
What Makes Psychology a Science?
Roots in Established Sciences
The Scientific Method
Descriptiveness
Falsifiability
Objectivity

Content: Falsifiability
Sciences consider a good theory one that can be proven false through experimentation. This characteristic, called falsifiability, is a common measure of whether a discipline can be considered a science. Psychoanalysis, a field that is often confused with psychology, is considered unfalsifiable and therefore unscientific. Freud's theory that the mind consists of the ego, superego and the id, for example, cannot be tested. Scientific psychology, on the other hand, relies on theories derived through research. It attempts to create experiments that measure social phenomena against a control, mimicking the type of laboratory research conducted in more established scientific disciplines. Objectivity
Traditional views of science state that in order to be considered a science, a discipline must be objective, a characteristic that is ensured through careful observation and experimentation. Arguments in favor of considering psychology a science maintain that psychology does this by maintaining a focus on research. Yet unlike traditional scientists, psychologists are also susceptible to personal biases that can influence an experiment. Likewise, psychology experiments are much more influenced by external factors, such as influence from participants themselves or changing social constructs over time, that make them harder to replicate than other sciences.