Psychology's credibility and respect gap problem

Rodney Dangerfield

Psychology's Issue of Credibility

Over the course of more than a century, the field of psychology has gained a great deal of prominence and validity in the mainstream practice of health provision. Many healthcare providers perceive mental health as having equal importance to physiological health. However, even with its permeation of mainstream society, psychology continues to suffer from a problem of impression. Such is to say that, as iconic comedian Rodney Dangerfield so famously proclaimed of himself, psychology is a field which gets no respect. This, as our discussion below will show, is simultaneously a result of perception and practice.

With respect to both, psychology's status as a social science makes it inherently subject to a wide variance of schools of thought, perspectives and ideological points of origin. As point of fact, during the early development of psychology, it was perceived as less a science than a philosophical endeavor to understand the human mind. The prevailing influence of Sigmund Freud is demonstrative of this. Freud is renowned for his creativity, his insight and his boldness but is equally decried for the frequent absence of empiricism or scientific process in his experimental work. His work would simultaneously advance psychology in popular culture and damage its future reputation in the scientific community.

Today, psychology is often derided for a similar lack of empiricism, though ironically this criticism now comes more typically from within the field. So is this demonstrated in the article by Nicolosi (2005), which reports on an APA conference in which association members worried over the lack of empiricism in current psychological research. According to Nicolosi, prominent psychology community leaders have expressed concern that more often than not political imperatives drive research outcomes rather than the research itself. In other words, far too many experimenters begin their experiments with the preconceived intent to yield a particular set of findings and, as a consequence, will typically find experimental ways to reinforce them. This Nicolosi article quotes a senior member of the APA, who asserted, "When we speak in the name of psychology we are to speak only from facts and clinical expertise,' he explained. If psychology speaks out on every social issue, 'very soon the public will see us as a discredited organization -- just another opinionated voice shouting and shouting.'" (Nicolosi, p. 1)

Quite indeed, the biggest challenge facing psychology's credibility is the invasion of political motive. The Nicolosi article indicates that, for instance, the highly charged debate over gay marriage has penetrated the field of psychology and that both sides of the debate are guilty of experimental subversion in the interest of political objective. Regardless of the social importance of such political objectives as advancing civil rights, we can see that the aims of psychology are undermined by the deprivation of properly controlled research.