Psychology's Young Science Excuse

Criticisms of psychology persist despite psychology's output of articles, books, and more. Psychology seems immune to criticism. Does something about psychology ensure its survival despite repeated predictions of its demise? (more)

Psychology: Dictionaries, Word Circles, and Seeing

What is the least ambiguous way of talking about what psychologists observe? Notice something: I am discussing what psychologists observe. I am not discussing what psychologists theorize about. (more)

Some Questions About Psychology

In the late 1960s, I started university. I had planned on doing a law degree. But I decided to get a general education first. Little did I know what I was doing, because, on the way, I got caught up in psychology. I am talking here about academic psychology, the discipline taught in university departments of psychology. (more)

Psychology, Organism-Environment Dualism, and Anthropocentrism

One of psychology's main assumptions is this: There should be and is a science of the individual, and psychology is that science. (more)

How to Tell the Psychological Story

You can tell the psychological story (and do psychology) only if you perform several academic tricks. (more)

Psychology's Theories

In addition to fields and topics, psychology offers theories. There are many theories for every topic and many theories in every field. (more)

What is Psychology?

The psychological story underpins the discipline of psychology taught in universities. (more)

Happiness

Many people could sit in an armchair and talk about the things they do happily, cheerfully, willingly, or joyfully. Armchair answers are weak compared to answers crafted when people watch what they do, write notes, watch again, write more notes, and reflect on what is written. (more)

Psychology's Dismissal of Traditional Wisdom

The psychological story and its science give no place to the truths about human lives implied by some proverbs and other traditional wisdom. (more)

What Does Psychology Offer?

Instead of rushing to defend psychology with declarations about its scientifically proven theories, students of psychology should ask some questions about psychology itself. (more)

Morality

It seems quaint to relate fables, parables, and proverbs to morality because morality now has a different meaning in popular discussions. (more)

Self-Esteem

When you apply flattering or insulting generalities to yourself, you risk living a life filled with mood swings, meaning you swing from feeling heartened to feeling disheartened and back to feeling heartened. In the extreme case, you risk swinging from delusions of grandeur over to the dismay of irrelevance and back to delusions of grandeur, in an endless alternation created by taking flattering and insulting generalities to heart. (more)

Traditional Wisdom - One World, One People

The wisdom expressed by many proverbs and fables does not promote the interests of this nation against that nation, or this sect against that sect, or this person against that person. more

Psychology—Benefits of the Printing Press Wasted

Nov 16, 2006

The benefits of the printing press—the beneficial ways it changed what people could do—are easily overlooked. When these benefits are set out, they give an unusual, yet informative, vantage point on psychology. more

ADHD–Another View

Nov 8, 2006

Panksepp gave a down-to-earth account of the problems that psychology explains away as ADHD. He pointed out that diagnoses of ADHD escalated during the twentieth century. Specialists coined the label ADHD (then ADD) in 1902. They gave the label to about one percent of American children. By the end of the twentieth century, the incidence had increased to about 15 percent. more

Scientific Illiteracy and Psychology

Nov 3, 2006

…Psychology—or, more exactly, psychology's failure to study, criticize, and reject the anthropocentric assumptions it uncritically accepts—has promoted scientific illiteracy (and the trivialization of traditional wisdom about prudence, thrift, justice, and sustainability). more