PS390 Study Guide - Final Guide: Psych
Document Summary
Psychological practice is interconnected w epistemology and ontology. If psychologists assume humans act like machines, their scientific/professional practice will emphasize control, manipulation, technologies, adaptation to environment + will neglect emancipatory potential. If one conceptualizes humans as meaning-making agents embedded in sociopolitical contexts, then practice will call attention to human agency and will foster emancipation. Psychological practice has involved abuses perpetrated by the powerful (using intelligence testing as a means to control immigration into us, applying psychological techniques to extract info from suspected terrorists) Like hume, psychologists have insisted that facts (what is) and values (what ought to be) should remain distinct yet mainstream psych is as guided by certain values, beginning w the value of value-neutrality, as any other social institution. Lack of reflection on the values that guide research maintains the disciplinary and societal status quo. In any science that claims social relevance, the domains of is and ought are intertwined, a symbiosis that evokes ethical-political responses.
