Essay: Psychology's Limitations And Strengths As A Scientific Discipline.

Empiricism in science and its contrast with current viewpoints

Science always uses experimental ideals which was found by John Locke and states that the specific place of knowledge comes from the five senses that human beings possess. This is completely in contrast with the present viewpoint that knowledge could also can be achieved through the aspects of reason as well as logic. Empiricism is the viewpoint that every knowledge is based upon experience (Badaan & Choucair,2022). Psychology is one of the greyer areas when it comes to understanding psychology as a science. Despite having a scientific method, there are several limitations of psychology that do not permit it to become a science. This also poses several limitations to psychology as a discipline.

Some limitations might address to the main subject matter, objectivity, disability, ecological validity and all ethical issues as well as philosophical debates. The subject matter of Psychology cannnot continue in a social vacuum. Every form of expression and characteristics changes over the course of time and it also changes in different situations. All of these different factors as well as individual differences can meet the findings of research only reliable for a specific time. Another limitation of psychology as a discipline is the fact that objectivity is not possible because it includes humans studying humans. It is extremely hard to study the expressions and behaviour of people from an unbiased perspective. Along with that in terms of the generic philosophy of science, it is very hard to become objective because humans are influenced by a specific theoretical standpoint and the biggest example of this is Sigmund Freud (Guo, et al 2021). Both the observer and the organism which is assessed are members of the same species and that can create a problem of reflectivity. Verification is also another limitation because even if it is possible an individual can never truly prove a hypothesis and they can only find several dynamic results to support the hypothesis. Another limitation of psychology as a discipline is the testability, most of the subject matter in psychology cannot be observed because it is related to memory. Because of this, it cannot be measured accurately. There are several forms of variables that can influence human behaviour and that is why it is not possible to specify the variables at a given time. Even though psychology has a lot of well-established observations there are still many limitations to psychology as stated above. Psychological hypothesis are generally restricted to one particular time and space. Psychology generally studies people and it studies the effects of social as well as cultural changes on behaviour. The biggest problem is that objectivity is not possible in psychology because it does not study a concrete substance rather it studies humans were extremely dynamic and can change at any time (Keith, 2019). These are the reasons that psychology is still a contested discipline and psychology has several limitations as a discipline.

Limitations of psychology as a scientific discipline

Even after the limitations of psychology, there are strengths of psychological research as well. The most important strength of psychological research is that it is very easy to replicate any experiment which was done in the laboratory. This is because psychological experiments use a standardised procedure. Psychology also allows for very specific control of independent variables. This allows the cause as well as the fake relationship to be established in psychology.

Other disciplines can also be incorporated into psychology to make the discipline stronger and have lesser limitations. There is a lot of value in bringing together multiple disciplines and working at intersections of different disciplines. Science has always been defined by the disciplines that it incorporates. Science has been designed by the areas of focus as well as training and different subject matters (Berry & Dasen, 2019). Just like biology, physics or chemistry, psychology is also a scientific discipline even if it has several limitations. The incorporation of social studies, political and biological studies along with industrial studies as disciplines in psychology have made the discipline more diverse. Now psychology has blossomed into some disciplines such as social, developmental, cognitive, biological, comparative as well as organisational and many more (Guo, et al 2021). The proper emergence of specialities inside a discipline is very healthy for the progress of the subject and expansion of knowledge. Other disciplines such as sociology, physical sciences and history or anthropology can increase the scope of psychology in terms of evolutionary psychology, modular mind and company psychology which can increase the scope of discussion on that subject (Badaan & Choucair,2022).

This can be seen through the connection of sociology as well as anthropology with psychology. The paper has been taken to study a real-world issue as well as a social issue Are Chinese children more compliant? Examination of the cultural difference in observing maternal control and child compliance by Ching-Yu Huang ( Huang & Lamb, 2014). This paper is going to be used as a reference to understand child development and child psychology (Liebal  & Haun, 2018). This paper is about parenting, cross-culture psychology and compliance. Children play a huge role in shaping their trajectories of development. This paper talks about the interplay of several biological, sociological as well as cultural factors that shape the psychological and physical development of a child. In this paper, the authors had examined the connections between maternal control and 5 to 7-year-old children and obedience in a cross-cultural sample (Badaan & Choucair,2022). It was between Chinese immigrants in the United Kingdom and non-immigrant white English people in the United Kingdom. This result had shown that English mothers did not use negative control and they were increasingly responsive  than Chinese immigrant mothers. It was also seen that the English mothers showed more positive effects than both the Chinese immigrants as well as Taiwanese mothers. The paper also showed that the Taiwanese children had shown more situation in compliance than Chinese immigrant children and there were no important cultural differences in committed compliance or oppositional behaviour. This paper had also done a further regression analysis which had shown that the committed compliance, as well as the situation of compliance, were associated with predictors which were different.

Strengths of psychological research

This present study has provided very unique insights into child compliance and the formation of parenting in different cultures. It also saw the cross-cultural examination of parenting. There were extremely important cultural differences that were observed in the parenting, as well as child obedience even after the  behaviour of the child, were taken into consideration. It was observed that the child’s situation and compliance were different depending on the cultural background but during committed compliance, there was no similar form of differences. The findings ultimately suggested the fact that the Chinese rules of being respectful and compliant to parents might not have become completely internalised (Berghofer, 2020). Along with that, the Taiwanese children might also temporarily obey their mothers and their strong demands but they also might not internalise the agenda of the parent even if it is forced. The study was extremely detailed but it also had limited access by the moderate sample size and also the correlation of the nature of the design (Badaan & Choucair,2022). It had limitations because of the moderate sample but it still provides very important insights into child psychology and parenting styles in different cultures. It also has one limitation which is that it underscores the significance of perceiving human improvement from a holistic point of view to best understand human psychology and development (Berry & Dasen, 2019).

The limitations of psychology which was stated above were also clearly seen in this paper because this paper was also working with human beings as the mean candidates. This aspect of having variability and the absence of objectivity in experiments is seen both in psychology and sociology. It is not possible to be completely sure about human behaviour because humans always change and especially children have the potential to change. This paper clearly shows that even if Chinese and Taiwanese parents are more assertive and disciplined the children might not internalise the aspect of discipline and obeying the parents.Social sciences are very much integral to psychology as seen in this paper as well where the social science is trying to understand the child psychology and psychology of parents when they are bringing up the child (Berghofer, 2020).

The main challenge to understanding this particular paper is the limited amount of samples that would be available. The main challenge was also in the fact that it was hard to sample the observations and understand categories such as parenting and relationship problems along with the learning difficulties that the child might have. This was because the sampling size was very limited. This paper did provide very unique insights into child psychology and parenting (Liebal  & Haun, 2018). This paper was also the first of its kind to examine parenting as well as child compliance in Chinese and English families. Even so, there were some limitations in this paper. Firstly the sample was very minute and the parents also tended to be very well educated. There needs to be future studies that will involve a larger and more diverse sample that can give further insights. Secondly, the study had only investigated the mother and child interaction even though fathers also have a very big effect on child development in both direct and indirect matters. It was also found through this paper that Chinese, as well as immigrant Chinese fathers as well as mothers, had different viewpoints on the importance of obedience. This suggests that the fathers and the mothers would socialise their children differently. In Asian culture, the traditional rule of the parent is always associated with power and extreme discipline. The father in this relationship is more controlling and authoritarian than the mother who is always expected to be kind and nurturing. Therefore it is extremely important to examine the influence of both the father and the mother on the effects of child compliance (Taris, Kessler & Kelloway, 2021). Thirdly the relationship between the mother and child was only observed in the present study which generalised every other possible situation that may arise in this relationship. In the future, there has to be the inclusion of multiple observations and different situations related to the parent and child. Fourthly the data from the “don’t” task could not be included because the variability was very less.

Interdisciplinary studies and the role in strengthening psychology

These limitations in the experiment done in this paper show the very limitations that were talked about in the discipline of psychology. These limitations are always related to the sample size as well as the variables that are taken in the experiment. Psychology, as well as social sciences, work with human beings who can be very dynamic and who do not have a concrete result. Therefore through this experiment, it can be extremely difficult to have a concrete answer and only a hypothesis can be formed in a psychological or social logical experiment. The knowledge of all these limitations related to psychology and the inter-discipline of social sciences can help the researchers design better research in the future to tackle real-world issues inside developmental psychology or four and six psychology (Liebal  & Haun, 2018). This paper falls under the category of developmental psychology of the child and in the future, if the test samples are more diverse and the tasks have more variability then these limitations can be eradicated. The issue of child compliance and the style of parenting can be addressed better in the future if future research considers including a stronger temptation or emotion during the formation of tasks. It also needs to be an increased number of tasks that are performed by the children to understand the mannerisms and compliance that the children have. In the future, there also needs to be more assessment of the temperament of the child and also the maternal report from the parents (Milfont & Klein, 2018). The limitations of the experiment and the similarity of the limitations with the discipline of psychology are the fact that during these forms of research both the parents which include the mother and the father have to be observed along with the child. Not a single variable can be eradicated (Taris, Kessler & Kelloway, 2021).

There needs to be future scope and recommendation for future research and the limitations of psychology as well as this paper who is the fact that there is room for improvement in the discipline of psychology where the limitations can be dedicated. Psychology and social sciences already have public involvement in the research (Milfont & Klein, 2018). While recognising the limitations of the analysis of both psychology as a discipline and this particular person on child compliance, it has to be kept in mind that the answers are not going to be concrete. This paper was related to class cultural psychology and therefore there were several limitations in this particular paper. Cross-cultural psychology studies in which researchers attempt to find out whether a particular behaviour or a belief transcends any cultural boundaries or is different from one culture to another. These can have limitations just like the discipline of psychology because the researcher is unlikely to know about the individual societies while you’re comparing different societies all around the world. Just like the researcher of a psychology subject might have previous beliefs and bias is about human psychology, cross-cultural studies also might produce ethnocentrism in the researcher where they might display biased beliefs (Milfont & Klein, 2018). These limitations have been observed in the paper and the observation of the list of limitations is a positive impact on the discipline because future research can be improved if these limitations can be eradicated. Knowing these limitations can increase the scope of research that is related to the development of psychology and child compliance when it comes to different cultures and different forms of parenting. In future research, there can be more scientific methods and a diverse set of assumptions so that the research can have a diverse solution or answer. In the future, the researchers have to be free from personal bias or emotions which are very common in psychological and cross-cultural research (Proctor & Vu, 2019). This paper has also shown certain amounts of bias because the candidates were limited and the variables are also not diverse. The best method in the future for cross-cultural and psychological research is the scientific method which will prescribe how old researchers can collect and analyse data. There have to be more rules which will increase the objectivity by placing data under more than one scrutiny and also the scrutiny of the public. The limitations which have been stated above can help the researchers improve in the areas of data that are collected and the variables that are selected.

Cross-cultural study: Child compliance and parenting styles

There also needs to be the proper formation of laws  to organise the principles during a hypothesis. A theory also has to be established because the theory is a very important set of principles that will explain and also predict several observed relationships. One of the examples of such a theory is the stage theory of cognitive development. This cognitive development theory can also be used during cross-cultural observation of children and child development. Another aspect that was learnt from the limitations of psychology, as well as the paper which was presented above, was the lack of literature review (Taris, Kessler & Kelloway, 2021). There need to be more amount of literature review so that future research can be improved (Proctor & Vu, 2019). Other disciplines can also be included in this cross-cultural study apart from psychology. The other disciplines are anthropology, cultural studies and geography.

There were limitations observed in the present study of child compliance because it is related to cross-cultural psychology.   Course cultural psychology is also hypothetical and deals with human behaviour therefore the above limitations related to the discipline of psychology were applicable here as well(Proctor & Vu, 2019). These limitations can be eradicated for future research by including multidisciplinary work and also having more literature reviews. To have a stringent research study and a proper hypothesis, there need to be diverse amounts of variables and more amount of tasks that could be given to the children. The age gap of the children also has to be increased so that the different forms of the situation and committed compliance could be understood better (Taris, Kessler & Kelloway, 2021)

There are several limitations to psychological enquiry and they can be the lack of a true zero point in the measurement. This was also seen in the above paper related to cultural studies and cross-cultural psychology. There is also the limitation of the relative nature of psychological tools because any psychological or social logical test needs to be developed and adapted according to the context. For example, the test which is developed for urban children would not be suitable for rural or tribal children. The third limitation is a subjective interpretation of the qualitative data. These limitations or observed in the given paper and these can be eradicated by a more multidisciplinary and scientific approach to the cross-cultural enquiry of psychology and the study of child development. Digital technology can become the future of both crosses cultural and psychological experiments so that the empirical aspect of the discipline is more concrete.

Therefore in the chosen issue of interest which is related to a child of element and child compliance, the new ways of future research ideas are related to more empirical research, a diverse amount of samples and the consideration of both the mother and the father been taking the samples for the research. Other disciplinary works especially in the field of science and empirical research in science can be incorporated into cultural studies and psychology so that the hypothesis is more concrete. The above-stated limitations are not fulfilling the whole potential of developmental and forensic psychology. Forensic psychology can have several improvements in the mean improvement it can have in the future is to reduce the risk of a future criminal offence. If these limitations are kept in mind then they can be new methods of psychology and psychology Can also have more influence on social sciences. It can also help in the evaluation of child psychology as well as cross-cultural studies. The figure psychology can also be merged with the exploration of human diversity and this can be possible if the digital tools of psychological research are improved.

References

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https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2018-24736-005

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