What is the phenomenon of opposing a person called?

1.

Is psychology a science?

From the day I studied psychology, familiar voices often sounded in my ears.

"I heard that peopl

What is the phenomenon of opposing a person called?

1.

Is psychology a science?

From the day I studied psychology, familiar voices often sounded in my ears.

"I heard that people who study psychology have psychological problems."

"Don't you study psychology? Why are you still angry about this? "

"I have psychological problems, please show me."

"Can you interpret dreams? What a big dream I had. "

After a long time, I became numb.

Indeed, psychology has developed rapidly in China in recent ten years.

Although many official WeChat accounts have been actively offering popular science psychology and university psychology courses,

However, until now, psychology in the eyes of most people-

This is still the case.

In that way

Even this!

Sometimes when I see others say this, I am desperate and don't know how to explain it, which shows that psychology in the eyes of the general public is far from scientific psychology.

For this reason, in the eyes of many people, psychology is not a science.

That's a problem,

What do you know about science?

What is science?

2.

What is science?

The first question-is psychology a science?

I asked a lot of people around me, and some answered yes, some answered no,

Including some psychology students who have studied systematically, some of them find it difficult to answer this question firmly.

Then the second question comes-what is science?

When we ordinary people talk about science, the first thing that comes to mind is often-

Science can be proved to be true, or science is truth.

But the opposite is true,

Science becomes science not because they are "correct" or even because they can be proved, but because they can be falsified.

For a long time, our understanding of the world often comes from our "experience". Many people think that the theory that can prove us right by summing up experience is truth, that is, "verifiability". But karl popper, a British philosopher of science, gave a different answer.

First of all, Popper's doubt about "verifiability" comes from his vigilance against the incompleteness of human experience induction.

In the scope of empirical science, confirmation and falsification are asymmetric.

Specifically, the number of experiences required for verification is infinite.

Falsification is different, and a false experience is enough to infer that this conclusion is false.

In order to prove that "all swans are white", we need to observe the colors of swans in all time and all space, but in order to falsify this view, we only need to find a swan that is not white.

Secondly, Popper cited cases in academic history and thought that many witchcraft or religions can often use the experience of a large number of cases in actual operation, thus claiming that their conclusions have been "confirmed", while some Freudians and Marxists also explained a large number of historical cases by revising their theories at any time, claiming that their theories have been proved.

The unscientific part of these theories is not that they cannot be proved, but that they cannot be falsified.

Popper said: "I can't think of any human behavior that can't be explained by these two theories (psychoanalysis theory). In the eyes of admirers of these theories, the fact that these theories are always applicable and always confirmed constitutes the most powerful argument to support these theories. I began to understand that, in fact, this superficial strength is their weakness. "

Popper's conjecture and refutation: "... every conceivable case can be explained by Adler's theory or Freud's theory." I can illustrate this point with two different examples of human behavior: a person pushes a child into the water in order to drown him; Another man sacrificed his life to save the child. Freud's and Adler's theories can explain these two situations equally easily. According to Freud, the first person is depressed (such as a component of his Oedipus complex), while the second person has reached sublimation. According to Adler, the first person has an inferiority complex (which may lead to his self-proof requirement of daring to commit crimes), and the second person also has an inferiority complex (his requirement is his self-proof of daring to save children). "

Some theories or propositions are always correct but meaningless.

In this regard, Popper cited such a set of examples in his monograph The Logic of Scientific Discovery:

"Will it rain here tomorrow" is not a proposition of empirical science, because "it can't be refuted". Although this assertion is certainly not wrong, it is equally useless.

"It will rain here tomorrow" is an empirical scientific proposition, because we may falsify this proposition through the weather conditions the next day.

We can also find from practice that some deceptive metaphysics or theories are justified by constructing falsifiability through vague concepts and contents that can be expanded or changed at will.

For another example, constellation theory holds that a person's personality is related to the constellation to which his birthday belongs. However, the description of people in different constellations in constellation theory is often extremely broad and can be applied to everyone, just like "Will it rain here tomorrow", which is correct anyway.

Before I studied psychology, I always thought that I was a Virgo in junior high school. Later, I compared myself with the above description and found it was me! Later, it was discovered that China's birthday was divided into the solar calendar and the lunar calendar. The solar calendar corresponds to a foreign constellation, so it became a Libra. As a result, I found that I really fit all the personality characteristics of Libra. But, in the end, I found out that I am actually a Scorpio, as you all know. Therefore, looking at various constellations now, I regard it as a "psychological game" at most. Of course, I will not deliberately correct other people's "superstition" about constellations, because as fun, it is harmless and there is no need to disturb other people's interest. )

1948, the psychologist Bertram Forer once extracted some sentences from Constellation Personality Theory for his students, and asked them to evaluate whether these sentences described their own personality.

Results The same personality evaluation was highly consistent with the situation of 39 different students (the accuracy rate was 0 for the lowest, 5 for the highest, with an average of 4.3 points).

These personality descriptions are like this: "Sometimes you are outgoing, friendly and full of social life, and sometimes you are introverted, cautious and silent." "Although you have some personality defects, on the whole, you can make up for them." "You have considerable untapped potential and have not exerted your advantages." ......

-Who doesn't?

This phenomenon is also known as Barnum effect-people will give highly accurate comments on some personality descriptions that they think are tailor-made for themselves, and these descriptions are often very vague and universal, so they can be widely applied to many people.

In fact, Barnum effect can explain why many pseudosciences, such as astrology, divination or psychoanalysis tests, are generally accepted by the public.

To sum up, we say that science has three characteristics:

First, systematic positivism research methods.

Positivism refers to the practice based on observation, which is neither invented by slapping the head nor decided by anyone with authority. In ancient China, the saying that "the sky is round and the place is round" is people's guess, not a scientific conclusion drawn through observation.

At the same time, this observation cannot be fragmented. It must be based on a large number of practices in order to collect enough information, solve problems and draw conclusions from them. This is called systematicness.

Second, scientific research results should produce public and testable knowledge.

"Publicity" here refers to submission to the same scientific subject. A scientific discovery, if published in Weibo, is not scientific propaganda. The purpose of submission to scientific entities is also for testability, that is, other scientists can get the same results under the same conditions.

Einstein's achievement in winning the Nobel Prize is his theory of photoelectric effect, not the theory of relativity. The main reason is that the former is a proven theory, and the Nobel Committee has always believed that the supporting evidence of relativity is not sufficient.

So you will understand that the so-called "supernatural experience" and "telepathy" are not public. If someone called a psychologist in the media says that he has made important discoveries, if these findings are not published in important trade journals, it is not credible.

Third, problems in scientific research must be truly solvable and falsifiable.

What do you mean "truly solvable"?

Steven Pinker, a cognitive psychologist, divided the "unknown" into "question" and "suspense".

The problem is solvable, and "suspense" can only be guessed or argued. For example, whether human nature is good or evil is a mystery.

Suspense and questions can be transformed into each other. For example, in ancient times, we could not judge whether an emperor was an illegitimate child, which was a suspense at that time, but in modern times, it is an easy problem to solve by using DNA technology.

Falsifiability, that is to say, this theory can be tested and proved to be flawed. Science advances in the cycle of constantly putting forward theories, testing and revising.

For example, what we usually call superstition is why it is called superstition, because people can't say what's wrong with it. That is, it is often said that "if you believe, you will have it."

Freud's theory is no longer considered as scientific psychology. In the American Psychological Association, people who agree with Freud's psychoanalysis are now less than 10%. Because it cannot be falsified. As Jung said, Freud guided patients to know themselves like children, but he was not responsible for finding a way out for patients.

But because Freud's reputation was so great, he misled the public to understand the real psychology.

Of course, we can't say that Freud's theory is absolutely wrong. His "unconscious" theory is still generally accepted by the scientific community, but it is definitely wrong to abuse some of its theories and concepts! )

Similarly, those "chicken soup for the soul" and "short stories and great truths" have nothing to do with science. For example, the relationship between the ego and the ego can be said as follows: "If you don't sweep a house, how can you sweep the world?" It can also be said that "a gentleman is ambitious and doesn't care about details." Whatever you say is right. If you can't refute it, it is not science, or it doesn't belong to science.

3.

How to distinguish scientific psychology from pseudo-psychology?

Science always has one of its greatest enemies, and that is pseudoscience.

Knowledge or theory that claims to be science but does not follow scientific methods looks like science, but it cannot be tested by scientific methods, or even disguised as a scientific scam.

-Pseudoscience

With the progress of science and technology, we have entered the era of information explosion.

In today's society, it is easy for us to obtain any knowledge or information, but at the same time, it is also easy to be misled by all kinds of false information and knowledge, in which the spread of the media will play a decisive role.

Many people think that the media and various public information platforms are symbols of "science" and "authority", but in fact, many media do not have the ability to distinguish information and test knowledge, and many carefully packaged "pseudoscience" is popular with the help of such power.

Here are two simple examples-

0 1

Water to oil

In March, 1984, the bus driver Wang Hongcheng claimed that he had prepared a special mother liquor. He called this mother liquid "Hongcheng base liquid", which is the so-called water-based fuel puffing agent. Only by adding a small amount of mother liquor to water, water can be turned into fuel, which is more energy efficient than diesel oil and gasoline. And most of the raw materials are water, so it is clean and less polluted. 1August, 992 14, the fourth edition of People's Daily praised Wang Hongcheng. 1995, at the first session of the Eighth CPPCC National Committee, four scientific and technological members of CPPCC, represented by Academician He Xiuxiu, jointly submitted a proposal to investigate the truth of changing water into oil. 1996, Wang Hongcheng was detained for examination. 1997 1 1 In June, Wang Hongcheng was sentenced to ten years' imprisonment. The scam of changing water into oil is over.

02

Acid-base constitution theory

Does the term "acid-base constitution" sound particularly familiar? In fact, this is not a new theory, and it has been refuted by many popular science articles, but it is still regarded as a set of classic theories of "scientific health preservation" in the domestic health care industry, and was once highly praised by health care enthusiasts. Robert young, a "master of acid-base constitution theory", pretended to be a doctor and suggested that a cancer patient should give up modern medical treatment methods and adopt the so-called "acid-base constitution theory" for treatment. As a result, the patient was misled and his condition deteriorated, and he was fined by the local court in San Diego, California, USA1050,000 USD.

In real life, many people do not believe that psychology is a science.

This is also because they regard pseudo psychology as psychology,

It's like treating pseudoscience as science.

What is pseudopsychology?

Pseudopsychology refers to those systems that look like psychology but have no factual basis.

Unlike real psychologists, pseudopsychologists never conduct scientific experiments.

Palmistry, phrenology, neurolinguistic programming, astrology and mind control are all pseudopsychology.

For example, phrenology was counted as "science" when it was popular and had many followers (1early 9th century), but it was completely proved to be nonsense after scientific hypothesis and test.

Phrenology is a hypothesis that people's psychology and characteristics can be determined according to the shape of the skull. For example, the more prominent the area responsible for "memory", the better the person's memory. Phrenology is regarded as pseudoscience.

Pseudopsychology is still very popular today,

One is that many people don't have the ability to distinguish between scientific psychology and pseudo-psychology, which seems to be true but actually deceives people.

The other is also inseparable from the packaging of "pseudo psychology" and "pseudo psychologist".

Among them, media packaging and misleading network information are the most common, just as many people don't know the celebrity introductions such as Baidu Encyclopedia, but individuals can edit them freely.

So this is the point.

As an ordinary person, how can we easily distinguish the authenticity of the psychology encountered in life?

The first criterion is that the case is worthless. This is easy to understand. What happens to a person has no promotional value and no reproducibility.

Why is the case worthless? Because a certain method is useful to a person, there are many factors that work, there is no comparison and no other interference, so it is completely unreliable.

There is a "placebo effect" in medicine. In medical experiments, if a doctor says to a patient, I am prescribing you a specific medicine for a certain disease, but in fact, it is just an ordinary vitamin. But there will still be some experimenters, and the condition will be relieved after taking the medicine. This is a placebo, not a drug.

So when someone says what method he used or what medicine he took to cure the disease, whether it was medicine or placebo, or other factors, it is completely impossible to judge.

Since the case is not credible, why do some people believe it after seeing someone describing their treatment process on TV? This is because these cases are so vivid.

It is human nature to like listening to stories, such as a lecture. People often remember vivid examples instead of boring theories.

Brain memory will give more weight to vivid cases, and people will believe these examples more easily.

So don't believe in psychology that relies entirely on vivid cases for publicity.

The second criterion is to distinguish between relevance and causality. Just because there is a correlation between two variables does not mean that there must be a causal relationship between them.

For example, the data shows that where there are many telephone poles, the incidence of car accidents is high. The two variables of telephone poles and car accidents are related here, not causality, nor does it mean that the number of telephone poles leads to many car accidents.

They are linked by a third variable, namely the degree of economic development. With a high degree of economic development, there are many telephone poles and cars, so the number of telephone poles is related to the number of car accidents.

When we encounter psychology, we must distinguish whether there is a correlation or a causal relationship between two variables.

The third criterion is: randomized controlled experiments.

Time magazine said: "Randomized controlled trial is one of the greatest inventions of modern science." In the process of doing the experiment, two groups of subjects were set up, one of which was used as the experimental group to test a new drug. The other group was used as the control group, without medication. This will eliminate other interference.

People used to believe that superstition can cure diseases because there is no controlled experiment, which is also the reason why some pseudoscience can't be falsified.

The above three criteria, whether the case is valuable, the distinction between relevance and causality, and the randomized controlled experiment, let us know why pseudopsychology is unscientific. But we also need to know why scientific psychology is scientific.

The following three principles can help us better understand scientific psychology.

First principle: the conclusion is a probability.

The conclusion of psychological research, like other disciplines, is probabilistic. In other words, a conclusion will happen in most cases, not in any case.

As we all know, smoking is harmful to health. However, if you try to persuade an old smoker to give up smoking, he may not care even if there are medical statistics. He will refute you with several examples of great men smoking for a long life.

But exceptions will not invalidate the law. According to research, only 5% of people who live to the age of 85 are smokers and 95% are non-smokers.

The scientific conclusion that "smoking can cause lung cancer", to be precise, should be that medicine can tell us that smokers are more likely to die of lung cancer than people in the same non-smoking group. But it won't say who will die or when. This relationship is a probability and does not apply to all situations.

The conclusion is a probability principle, which is actually the other side of the case. We can't generalize, and we shouldn't make the conclusion absolute.

The second principle is: gradual integration mode.

In the development and progress of scientific theory, it is gradually completed, and there is no sudden new breakthrough, and there is no new experiment to finalize. All science is progressing on the basis of countless experiments and conclusions. This is the so-called "gradual integration model".

The new findings are consistent with the previous theory. Like Einstein's theory of relativity, Newton's theorem is still a science.

Therefore, when you see the so-called "unprecedented new theory" and "the latest technology from a country" in the media, you should be on your guard. This is not in line with the principle of gradual integration of new theories, and it is probably a scam of pseudo-psychology.

The third principle is that there needs to be a process from theory to reality.

There are two kinds of scientific research, one is that the results can be directly applied, and the other is basic research that needs a period of time from reality. Many psychological studies belong to the latter.

Many people are puzzled that psychology still needs to do experiments. They think that research in the laboratory has nothing to do with life. In fact, this is really a misunderstanding.

For example, the French neurologist Bullokar found that the lesion of the left frontal gyrus caused motor aphasia, which triggered people's research on the left and right brains and found that the left and right brains worked independently. This discovery makes it possible to treat patients with early epilepsy.

Blocker's discovery was made by dissecting human remains in the laboratory.

Similarly, some experiments on animals, such as Pavlov's and dogs' conditioned reflex experiments, can be used to solve various problems in human society, such as the treatment of autistic children, alcoholism and obesity, and anxiety.

Therefore, a correct understanding of scientific psychology requires a correct understanding of psychology and laboratory experiments. Just because some basic research can't be used in real life temporarily doesn't mean it's not psychology. There is a process from theory to application.

finally

One thing to pay special attention to:

In modern times, some psychological and sociological research is also limited by technical conditions, which determines that researchers can't strictly control variables in the laboratory like physicists or chemists and study the objects they need to study with modern classical experimental paradigms.

But it is precisely because of the complexity of many social and spiritual fields of human beings that various propositional theories in these fields are not as easy to be falsified as Popper imagined.

For example, it is impossible for historical propositions to achieve "repeatable experiments" in physics, and psychoanalysis is concerned with the psychological problems of personal growth and personality formation. Due to various factors such as ethics, it is impossible to completely isolate all kinds of mixed factors from the outside world and do univariate research. The methods of natural science since modern times cannot be easily copied to all fields of human spirit and society.

But we still need to know,

Science may not tell us what the truth is, but it will remind us what may be illusion!

A recent overview

Examiner: Li Tonghua

Editor on duty: Wan Xin

Source: Union of Psychological Lecturers.