Psychology as an empirical science beyond common sense reasoning

¶ … temptation of the uneducated to believe that psychology and other philosophical sciences involve no more than common sense and logical thinking. While these are certainly part of psychology, the profession is also a science. This means that the scientific study of phenomena is involved, and conclusions are drawn based on the results. Psychology as a direction of study therefore involves much more than only common sense.

According to Bluedorn (2005), logic can be explained by two methods of reasoning: inductive and deductive reasoning. Reasoning can run in two opposite directions. Deductive reasoning moves from a general premise to a more specific conclusion. Inductive reasoning moves from specific premises to a general conclusion. These two methods of reasoning will produce two different kinds of results. Inductive reasoning uses as its basis particular observations from which it derives a general conclusion. The limit to this form of reasoning is that the observations used are seldom exhaustive and therefore not completely reliable.

Psychology as a scientific direction of research has very specific goals: description, prediction, causal control, and explanation (Norton, 2003-2005). While it is clear that logical reasoning is part of these elements, there is a further element to this research. Empirical psychological research entails gathering data and analyzing it to either prove or disprove a hypothesis. Common sense relies only on reasoning. Psychological research relies on the possibility of proof and the consequences of this proof. Types of psychological research include

Experiments, correlational designs, and descriptive studies. Common sense plays a role in all three types of study, although this is not the only determinant for conclusions. Reasoning probably plays the largest part in the descriptive study of psychological behavior.