Year 12s: what will be the first way you research your future options? >>

Whats your FIRM for Psychology 2009 Post here!

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Meliae

I haven't even applied yet, but I worry about that sometimes. I think of it like this: psychology is the study of the mind. As we can't read people's minds directly, we can either study it through behaviour or with recent advances, through the brain. For that reason, I don't think neuroscience is really a separate subject. It's part of biology, but it's also a crucial part of psychology. I think the 'woolliness' in psychology comes because we're so far from a true understanding of the mind and brain, but that doesn't make the subject worthless. On the contrary, the fact that there's so much left to discover really attracts me to it as I want to go into research. Other sciences started out like that too, with unreliable, inexact methods which developed over the years.

I've chosen unis and courses which I think will be the most science-y and least woolly because that's what I want from psychology, but I do sometimes wonder if it's really the right subject for me as I've always preferred arts although I have been warming to the sciences this year.

i have a similer dilemma of the arts against the sciences but to actually think about it psychology can at times be very humanistic thus has a touch of the arts.

Reply 61

ciuchy

hi
My firm is Worcester. Anyone else going there?

Reply 62

isitjustme...

Aston.

And, as for Milgram's study, many of the participants were having nervous breakdowns and begging to be allowed to leave, to which the response was, 'the experiment requires you to continue'. A small percentage refused to do so and walked out. The confederate was crying out in pain, moaning and eventually stopped making any noise at all after shocks that would be lethal were administered. The experiment was repeated several times, in several different locations with different authority figures with similar results. In the studies where the percentage of participants that went to the highest voltage were lower, the perceived authority of the experimenter was also lower, i.e shabbily dressed or the location of the experiment was not as prestigious. They were aware of what they were being asked to do, and did so anyway due to adherence to authority.

To dismiss this study completely based on criticisms of ecological validity is absolutely ridiculous.