- anthropology 
- behavioral sciences
- economics
- human geography
- linguistics
- sociology
- media studies
- musicology
- political science
- psychology
- gender studies

Disciplines in Social science

H. Gardner imagined cognitive science as the integration of various disciplines. These disciplines, including philosophy, psychology, linguistics, anthropology, neuroscience and artificial intelligence are represented in his hexagon.

Gardner's Hexagon

Developed by Edward Titchener, a student of Wilhelm Wundt, structuralism was a school of thought that sought to understand the mind by analyzing its basic components. A key characteristic of this approach was its focus on the contents of mental processes, aiming to identify the fundamental elements of consciousness, rather than investigating the purpose or function of those processes.

Structuralism

Psychology is formally defined as the scientific study of human behavior and mental processes. It focuses on understanding how individuals act, think, and feel, along with the underlying cognitive and physiological mechanisms. As a scientific discipline, it seeks to answer fundamental questions about a wide range of human phenomena by relying on empirical evidence rather than common sense.

Psychology

The science of societies and how the individuals that make up societies interact with one another.

University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

San Jose State University

Georgetown University

Trinity College (CT)

Google

The systematic buildup of knowledge through testing hypotheses and theory.

Science

Branches of Empirical Science

Wikipedia

Spielman, R. M., Jenkins, W. J., & Lovett, M. D. (2020, April 22). Psychology (2nd ed.). OpenStax. https://openstax.org/books/psychology-2e/pages/1-introduction

OpenStax Psychology (2nd ed.) Textbook

Written content refers to any information or expression conveyed through the written word. This encompasses a wide array of formats, including but not limited to books, articles, essays, reports, blogs, newsletters, social media posts, scripts, and official documents. The purpose of written content can vary greatly, serving educational, informational, persuasive, entertainment, or documentation needs among others.

Written Content

Social Science

Involves documenting data following a series of steps and interpreting and analyzing the results to increase knowledge.

Research

Sciences can be broken up into two main categories:
- Empirical Science
- Formal Science

Categories of Science

The suffix that simply means the "scientific study of"

-ology

Psychology is classified as a science because it adopts the same general empirical approach to understanding the natural world as other scientific disciplines. Although psychology specifically focuses on human behavior and mental processes, it illustrates its scientific nature by relying on systematic observation and empirical evidence to answer questions, rather than relying on unverified claims or common sense.

Psychology as a Science

The scientific approach is characterized by three fundamental elements: it is grounded in systematic empiricism (structured observation), it addresses empirical questions (inquiries about the observable world), and it produces public knowledge (sharing findings openly). Together, these components ensure that scientific inquiry relies on objective and recorded evidence, focuses on answerable problems, and allows for community scrutiny.

Features of Science

Distinct scientific disciplines, such as astronomy, biology, and chemistry, are not united by their specific subject matter (e.g., celestial bodies versus living organisms) or by the specialized equipment and techniques they use. Instead, the fundamental commonality that ties all sciences together is their shared, general approach to investigating and understanding the natural world.

Unifying Characteristic of Sciences

Scientific research in psychology and other disciplines aims to achieve three primary objectives. The first is to describe phenomena through careful observation. The second is to predict future events by identifying systematic relationships between variables. The final objective is to explain these phenomena by determining their underlying causal mechanisms.

The Three Goals of Science

Which of the following best describes the fundamental nature of science in psychological research?

Science concerned with natural phenomena.

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