why psychologists consider the field of psychology to be a science
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ESSAY ASSIGNMENT You are to write a brief 750-1000 word essay on why the majority of Ph.D psychologists consider the field of psychology to be a science and define themselves as social or behavioral scientists. Your textbook author defines psychology in this manner as do virtually all introductory psychology textbooks. This is a function of the type of training that occurs in doctoral level psychology programs. The vast majority of applied doctoral programs in clinical, counseling, educational, school, and industrial/organizational psychology also continue to employ an approach labeled as ″scientist-practitioner.″ There is a reason why the word scientist appears before the word practitioner in the last sentence. Your essay will need to provide a thorough desсrіption of: (1) The critical components of a scientific (empirical) approach to the study of human behavior, affect, and cognition. What techniques, procedures, and applications set empirical approaches apart from non-empirical approaches. Please indicate the ways in which psychology fits the empirical model. (2) Pseudoscientific approaches to understanding human behavior and cognition are often viewed as being connected to or representing the field of psychology. Please provide three examples of pseudoscientific approaches to ″understanding″ human behavior. Indicate the ways in which such approaches do not fit an empirical model and some of the factors that are responsible for continued support and ″belief″ in the effectiveness of pseudoscientific approaches by many ″practitioners″ and customers/clients/patients. (3) The limitations of both scientific and nonscientific approaches to the understanding of human behavior. YOU NEED TO use information from your textbook, other books, journal articles, and appropriate resources on the web. WIKIPEDIA and similar on-line encyclopedias are not acceptable sources for this essay. It is essential that you cite sources appropriately and that you provide references for any content that you produce based on sources other than yourself. You must provide references and citations for information you use from books, journal articles, or the web. (Essay: 32 points possible) We expect that your essay will be well organized and grammatically correct. The essay assignment is worth over 10% of your final course grade and will be critically evaluated. As with all of the web assignments, make sure that you have addressed all of the issues described in the assignment. Failure to do so will result in a substantially lower grade.