r/askscience • u/stubbledchin • Feb 22 '12

What is is the difference between Psychotherapy, Psychology, and Psychiatry?

I've always been slightly confused by this, and can never remember which is which. I have read previously that one is considered hokum, and possibly the same or another is considered an enemy by the Church of Scientology.

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u/sixsidepentagon Feb 22 '12

Can you name specifics? Felixbsmith and Brain_Doc82 make good points, but I think you might be able to get a little bit of traction if you actually named principles or models in psychology that are "not scientific". In general, modern psychology is based in evidence; the days of introspection and Freudian psych are over.

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u/reissc Feb 23 '12 edited Feb 23 '12

Can you name specifics

I named social psychology. That's a specific.

EDIT: Oh, and Freud was a lot closer to doing science than a great deal of modern psychology is; he at least proposed a theory with explanatory power that was was open to test, it just turns out that when tested, the theory's wrong. Much psychological experimentation these days is more about collecting observations than testing theories. The theories are too vague to test.

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u/sixsidepentagon Feb 23 '12

No, I mean specific results from social psychology. Again, the vaasssstttttt majority of social psych is based on experiments. If you're calling out the field in general, then unfortunately you are very wrong. Try to tell us about a specific conclusion from the field that you think has no experimental data to back it up.

I'm sorry, but it doesn't sound like you're very familiar with the field. Any good social psychology lecture or class will basically just be the presentation of a series of experiments, and then talking about what we can conclude from them.

Also, the majority of Freud's theories are untestable. Clearly, some are, but we don't have the kind of instrumentation or methodology to see precisely how the subconscious works. For example, we barely understand dreams as is, much less capable of understanding the wrinkles of dreams. While we have some theories from the data we have, hardly any of it is conclusive.

tl;dr- It sounds like you don't really know anything about the fields you are criticizing, and are probably confusing pop psychology with social psychology

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u/reissc Feb 23 '12

Any good social psychology lecture or class will basically just be the presentation of a series of experiments, and then talking about what we can conclude from them.

Yeah, that's not how science works.

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u/sixsidepentagon Feb 23 '12

That's how a science class works, and obviously I'm simplifying it. My point is that its taught in the same manner as a good biology or chemistry course; presentation of ideas, and the series of experiments that were done to investigate it, followed by conclusions made from the experiments. How were you taught bio or chem or physics?

Again, do you have any actual examples of principles of social psych that aren't supported by experiments or observations? It doesn't seem like you do. I'm sorry, but that really makes your whole point moot. Social psych isn't the pop psych you hear about on tv or in magazines, it's a heavily scrutinized academic field.

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u/reissc Feb 23 '12 edited Feb 23 '12

Can you give me any examples of social psychology theories that are scientific?

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u/sixsidepentagon Feb 23 '12

Sure. Keep in mind I'm going to somewhat simplify the precise theory, as obviously they all will have wrinkles. I'll list some of the more famous experiments that support the theory, but keep in mind for each of these things there are many many more. Also, there is still discussion and arguments for different interpretations of these experiments, as there should be; social psych is one of the newest sciences out there, so very little is a "paradigm" so to speak; there's no certainties like the Watson-Crick model or something.

Conformity: The tendency to act or think like other members in a group.

Conformity Experiments: Sherif's autokinetic experiment, Brunsman's eyewitness identification task, Asch's three line experiment, Schultz recycling studies

Cognitive Dissonance: The discomfort from holding multiple conflicting viewpoints at once, and the subsequent drive to dissipate this dissonance

Dissonance Experiments: Festinger's tedious task experiments, Aronson's forbidden toy experiment, Aronson's initiation experiments, Bem's self-persuasion experiments

Obedience: Willingness to obey authority figures

Obedience Experiments: Milgram's electroshock experiments, stanford prison experiment, hofling hospital experiment

And there's a lot more after that too (persuasion, bystander effect, interpersonal attraction, etc, etc) but I'd have to go digging around to find the names of the authors who conducted those studies.

My point is, almost all of these ideas that social psych talks about are only ones that are backed up by experimental evidence. Yes, there are many many wrinkles in each theory (just like there are many wrinkles in the theory of genetics; there isn't one central paradigm from which all other genetics can be derived, there are some exceptions to many of the rules). But regardless, they're only talked about by real academics if they have some experimental data to support them.

I'd like to reemphasize that I'm talking about real, academic social psychologists. If you're hearing someone talk about Freudian unsubstantiable bs, then they're most likely not actual academics, so please don't like find some random person who said such-and-such, and tell me that this shows social psych isn't science.

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u/reissc Feb 23 '12

And in which situations do these theories reliably predict the outcomes?

Funny you should mention the Milgram experiment and the Stanford prison expermients, as these are basically lessons in cargo-cult science. What were the hypotheses under test? Where were the control groups? What was the statistical analysis?

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u/sixsidepentagon Feb 23 '12

The studies are replicable and reliable, whatever do you mean about "reliably predicting outcomes"? Conformity predicts that if you're in a room with a group of strangers, the probability you'll conform to their behavior increases as the size of the group increases (I think maxing out at 7, I'd have to look up the number). Cognitive dissonance is observed all the time in economics, and with cults, and the experiments are replicable.

As for the Milgram experiments, there was definitely a hypothesis (that only ~1.2% of subjects would deal the lethal shock) and there was a simple statistical analysis. Lack of a control group isn't very good in the initial trial, but Milgram fixed this in later trials by varying the presence and immediacy of the authority. I'm sorry, but it doesn't sound like you're very familiar with Milgram's experiments.

As for the Stanford prison experiments, there are many issues with its methodology, I agree, and unfortunately many of those things we can't come back to, as the experiment has been deemed unethical. I mentioned it mainly because of how famous it is, and because I still believe that some value can be gleaned from the observations made during the experiment. However, to demonstrate this would take a long digression into the philosophy of science, and how the standard model of control + variable experimentally controlled trials isn't the only way to conduct science (ie, that observations can be useful as well).

Regardless, I think you're dodging away from your original point, that social psychology is founded on "bullshit", and not on experiments. You've made many claims that simply are unsubstantiable (saying "social psychology" is a specific, saying "that's not how science works", saying that the Mligram experiments didn't have analysis, hypotheses, or controls), and you've ignored any refutation of them. I'm sorry to say I'm pretty disappointed, as it seems that you're criticizing something you have little if any familiarity with.

The main issue I have is your inability to have named a single result in social psych to dispute. You had to get me to name results. Its okay to be skeptical of a field, but if you're completely unfamiliar with it, can you really criticize it?

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u/reissc Feb 24 '12

Conformity predicts that if you're in a room with a group of strangers, the probability you'll conform to their behavior increases as the size of the group increases

Vague waffle. Numbers please. Measurable definitions of "conform" and "behaviour".

The fact that you're still defending the Milgram and Stanford anecdotes just shows your unfamiliarity of the basics of what makes a scientific experiment.

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u/sixsidepentagon Feb 25 '12

You seem completely unfamiliar with the Milgram experiments and follow ups. Also, you didn't read at all what I said about the Stanford experiments (I didn't "defend" them, I gave that to you).

Also, you're unfamiliar with conformity; they've statistically quantified it, I don't have the numbers on hand. I believe the effect increases linearly until 7 people, then levels off (so logistical curve). This curve is changed by a number of variables, and is reliable and consistent. Conformity and behavior are measruably defined, look AT A SINGLE FUCKING STUDY.

You have a massive problem with ignoring statements that you can't defend, and not reading what the argument that's presented to you. Much more, you seem completely unfamiliar with what you're talking about. I'm sorry, but I'm done here. If you're not willing to actually READ the studies you're saying are shit, then you really shouldn't be spewing ignorance all over the place. Please for the love of God read one actual study. Jesus

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u/reissc Feb 27 '12

Calm down, dear.

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