I've tried so hard, really I have, to take a mild interest in my coursework but I'm finding myself more and more disinterested in the meagre goings on of the psychologist's world. Physicists have the laws of the universe at their beckoning, playing a substantial role in sending rockets into outer space, something that is immensely fascinating with far-reaching implications both physically and metaphorically. Chemists have the power of the atom under their thumb, with the claim to be being able to blow up our entire planet several times over by applying their elemental discoveries. Engineers have incredible monuments that testify their greatness, from Canary Wharf, to the Golden Gates suspension bridge, to the very first who engineered great monuments such as the pyramids and the Great Wall that still stand to this day. In every science, from biology to anthropology, there is a myriad of great discoveries and inventions that typify the science and make exploring it a humbling experience. Great men have emerged from each of these sciences, great writers and thinkers have emerged, and with them the highest accomplishments known to man.

Even the smallest finding can make all the difference; where would we be without the light bulb for example? Where would we be without the realisation that fossils can be used as fuel? Where, I ask you, would we be without the ability to preseve food? To fly? To cure and heal our bodies? The world is an extraordinary place quantified by an incredible race, the greatest of whom make all the difference and shape our very landscape and climate. Look around you- everything you see is likely to have been discovered, invented and then manufactured by man. Not nature- man. We mould this world to our will, and only humans are capable of changing the world to any significant effect.

So where do psychologists come into this?

The answer? They don't. And here's why:

Psychology is a relatively 'young science,' that is to say it has only been around for the best part of a century and is barely even a science if you get into the fundamentals of it all. The distinction between psychology and philosophy lies solely in the notion that psychology is a testable study (thus making it a science), and conforms to a Newtonian paradigm of experimentation. The trouble is, humans aren't exactly the easiest subject matter to experiment with as no two humans are ever the same. While biologists can get around this little inconvenience (because our innards are pretty much made of the same things, just assorted differently) it is a massively confounding situation for psychologists who desperately want to create a science where laws apply to everyone from every culture but simply can't, because people differ so radically in their thoughts and behaviours. So to start with we have a science that is pretty much screwed from the start, vainly trying to apply accepted scientific measures to unearth phenomena that they know won't apply to the majority of subjects. And this isn't the half of why psychology is such a stunted science.

The only way to make a significant finding is to assume that there will be errors along the way, the confidence interval of which is assumed to be over 95% at the alpha level. What that means is that for a given population, say students, for every twenty experiments you do that are insignificant and are caused purely by chance one will turn up with a significant result. In order to keep the funding coming, psychologists need to discover things. So they mess with the results, they retest, they remove outliers, they screw with the data and omit classes of people and then finally, at the end of all this, they apply a mathematical test they know will shine a favourable light on their results. So from one in twenty being down to pure chance you can lower that figure drastically after all the screwing about and you will soon discover that it is no coincidence that all psychological papers you see have significant results. You don't get funding by reporting insignificant or worthless tests, it just doesn't work that way. Instead of creating a hypothesis and trying to disprove it, they go about searching for any complimentary evidence and for each one they find they throw it in the final results section. The doggedness in pursuing a worthless hypothesis by this manner would astound you, as you flick through the journals and- slap face- all the results compliment the starting hypothesis!

If you've been keeping up you'll duly note that when psychologists test something, it generally works out, and when it doesn't the hypothesis is tweaked and the results transformed so that bingo, it's all significant. The journals might then go on to print it in a year's time; they won't if your experiment doesn't say anything. They make "box models" of theories, which is about the biggest farce I can think of. As soon as any contradictory evidence comes along they append another box to the diagram to take it into account and et voila! the model is unquestionable again. Until more evidence comes up and another box is added, and so on until the next paradigm shift. This method is always self-correcting, so that a box model is always assumed to be truly and indefinitely correct even if it was never right in the first place. Yet despite all of this, it isn't why I think the study of psychology is such a pointless exercise.

I take it none of you have ever actually read a psychology paper? If not, I need to place a prelude to my vituperative tirade so that this can be given in its rightful context. The purpose of a psychological paper is not to further enhance the field of psychology, but rather with the aim for it to be eventually published. Like a car dealer only does a car up enough so that it will run for a couple of thousand miles so it is with psychology; if a paper cannot be published, it is of no use to the department or the people who awarded the grant for the study to be undergone in the first place. The majority of studies are never published, and those that are can wait up to two years before it is finally printed. Those marked "for immediate publication" tend to be published around a year after submission, and the majority that will be published are sent back to be altered at least once but possibly two times as well before being shown in an academic journal. The process is long and marred with red tape, and only a select few actually make it, putting further pressure on the academics to make sure their study levels up and delivers an important finding.

The definition of "an important finding" in psychology is:

An imp.ort.ant find·ing, n.

1. At item that has been discovered that is of merit.

2. In psychology: A pointless fragment of non-information that applies to only a majority of Caucasian participants and has no real-world value.

The studies that are bandied about in lectures as being "all-important!" and having "serious overtones" are, in actual fact, run-of-the-mill phenomena that don't describe anything of productive value. I strain to think of a single finding in psychology that has any serious calibre to change our lives, and even then the only thing that the layman associates with psychology, Freudian psychoanalysis, has been proven to be as effective as having no consultation at all. In fact, chemistry has a better track record of curing mentally ill patients than psychology does. Do you want to know the "fascinating" discoveries that I can confidently masturbate to at night? Did you know that short-term memory may or may not be stored acoustically? Did you know that young infants perhaps have no understanding of object permanence? Or did you know that it is harder to recall words when you repeat "the" between them? Have I just enriched your life?

Of course I haven't. I haven't told you anything of worth, I've just told you shite that doesn't change your life or mine and is of questionable scientific integrity. Imagine having to learn each of those points, and then learn who did the study, and at what date, what the historical context was and how it can be used in further study. This is my life. Welcome to it.

Psychology is, like most university subjects besides Art, multi-faceted. We also get the pleasure of being immersed in the wonderful world of statistics, qualitative analysis and, forgive me if I blow my load recounting this, the role biology plays on the mind of rats! Yes, rats! Rats are the accepted norm for psychological study, despite having a brain size several hundreds of percent smaller than ours, being antisocial (in retrospect, a lot like chavs! Haha!) and without opposable thumbs the psychologists are convinced that these obtuse rodents can represent a real alternative to human testing. Biologically, I am inclined to agree, but putting a rat in a fucking Skinner box does little to teach us of the intricacies of the complex human psyche and unless you're a behaviourist, you are probably agreeing with me right now.

There's a nice module I'm doing entitled "Qualitative Design and Analysis" which is about as close to 'real' psychology as you're likely to get. It's a largely discredited study, again with little real-world application, whereby you analyse how people say things and why. It's interesting but at the end of the day I am compelled to take a step back and think "what's the point of all this?" Sure I know how people are saying things, and why, but what larger good will this do mankind? I'm at a loss to answer that question, as with every other facet of psychology I can think of. As fun as it is actually being allowed to analyse what people say, the only time you get to analyse things in psychology despite the misconceptions, there really isn't much point to it at all.

Furthermore, I get really agitated at the attitude of the department here. I'm assured this isn't just a Loughborough psychology issue but this is prevalent in all psychology courses. If you study psychology you will wince when you read this: CITATION.

Citation is what killed originality. Citation, that loathsome word, is the initiation into the higher ranks of respect in the small, insignificant world of the would-be psychologist. Citation is the process whereby academics are "quoted" (I use the word loosely because I don't want to get into fine details) with studies that back up a statement. You cannot, like a philosopher can, make a statement without quantifying it. You can't say "most people like being happy" without having a rigorous scientific experiment to prove this and seeing as you can't single-handedly prove everything, you need to rely on others to help you. If you write "most people like being happy (Bradford et al., 1977)" then it is acceptable, any other way and it is not. This is just how it is with psychology. The lists of citations on most journals are the benchmark to which the study is judged by; if you can prove you have done your research, by systematically writing down each person's study as mentioned in your experimental write-up, then you are on the path to acceptance in the psychological world. At a rough estimate 90% of a scientific journal is balls-licking of other people's work, with very little scope to pen your own opinions and thoughts. You have to do this or your article will not be published. Is this theme of duty sinking in yet? If you're especially perceptive, you'll have noticed that paradigms must progress from previous opinion.

You cannot, and I repeat cannot, state a radically different opinion. Not ever. You can't cite anything that hasn't been inferred before, so all work is stifled by the perverse need to bring in previous work. There are exceptions, but on the whole you cannot make a marked difference unless you are a very well established and respected psychologist in the field. Psychologists don't just 'burst on the scene' with exciting ideas, they emerge over time and even then, as I've argued, their findings are stale and largely irrelevant to anything of any worth. There is just so much wrong with the way this science is conducted and executed that I am disillusioned to the point of rejecting it completely.

The findings are so insignificant, so worthless and so inconsequential that I struggle to find any non-financial incentive to undertake it as a vocation. To make any impact on psychology would involve playing the game, citing the countless other arbitrary studies, and crossing your fingers hoping that the journals take kindly to your non-conformist ideas (which, of course, they wouldn't). It's a pathetic state of affairs, and I pity the man who attempts to garner a self-fulfilling job in the field of psychology. Look at the greater picture; you're but a small brick in a wall that is founded on bad principles and serves no purpose other than to occupy the time of the builders. The psychologist makes money, of course, but is played for the fool. They are stifled by infrastructure, common objectives, policy and purpose; the psychologist is the eternal citator and must accept his place as being nothing more than the lapdog of the journals. They cannot form their own identity for they must conform. They will do whatever is necessary to be published, by skewing results, populations, or engaging in meaningless material.

For you, the psychologist, I pity. I pity the misguided people who attempt to etch out a living from this most microscopic of endeavours; for them, it is a hollow and pitiful existence. For me, it is a laborious burden, but at least one that I can deshackle after graduation.

Other sciences have great monuments, feats, achievements and prestige attached to them. They have great influence and impact on the world, since the dawn of manhood to the present day. What does psychology have to say for itself? Not a lot. And you can take that from someone who doesn't have any financial, moral or societal obligations.

Posted by Star at 5/21/2005 12:05:00 AM | Post a Comment(0) | View Comments