Goals of Psychology

Do you think the 4 goals of psychology can help or hurt humanity? Support your position.
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Let’s take a closer look through discussion and research (both sides of the argument), which you can draw on for your final argument. This response is also attached as Posting 136276.doc.

RESPONSE:

1. Do you think the 4 goals of psychology can help or hurt humanity? Support your position.

The four goals of psychology are:

1. Description: Gather information and find facts
2. Explanation: create hypothesis, research and test the hypothesis, and construct theories
3. Predictions: What will an organism do? What will it think or fell?
4. Control: Seek to influence or control behavior in helpful ways. http://www.hempfieldarea.k12.pa.us/webdir/Bertani/Ch.1.htm

It perhaps has the potential to do both. The goals define and aid understanding of human behavior that lend itself to cause and effect; so when the scientific method is applied accurately, it can lead to information that increases knowledge and understanding of important human phenomenon e.g., diseases, est. Clinical practice not based on science can also be dangerous. In other words, theories come out of goals of psychology, which are scientifically validated. These help humanity. For example, there is also concern from researchers about a perceived scientific gap between empirically based practices. Exponents of evidence-based approaches to psychological practice say that “over the past several decades, the fields of clinical psychology, psychiatry, and social work have borne witness to a widening and deeply troubling gap between science and practice” and “less and less of what researchers do finds its way into the consulting room, and less and less of what practitioners do …