In what ways has the use of statistics in psychology helped to sustain Essay

In what ways has the use of statistics in psychology helped to sustain notions of objectivity and determinism - Essay Example That is why would-be psychologists, wrote Jock Abra, lacking mathematical skills has a tough row to hoe, holding that the clinicians should be trained as scientists particularly demonstrating abilities in statistics, in order to be able to comprehend, evaluate, and, if occasion warrants, conduct research. (p. 102) While it is acknowledged that psychology is a science it is not considered as an exact one. (Cowles 2000, p. 21) Determinism – an ideal connected with the struggle for certain knowledge - upholds the propositions of the natural sciences as it more demonstrate the order of the universe better than psychology as a social science. B.F. Skinner (1953), underscores the necessity of assuming order in nature: We cannot apply the methods of science to a subject matter which is assumed to move about capriciously. Science not only describes, it predicts. It deals not only with the past but with the future†¦ If we are to use the methods of science in the field of human affairs, we must assume that behavior is lawful and determined. (p. 6) Fortunately, determinism could coexist with probabilistic thinking. Probabilistic thinking was used as a means toward objectivity in the classical sense of separating the experimenter from his knowledge. Such was the role of inferential statistics as a mechanization of the experimenter’s inference from data to hypothesis. (Gigerenzer 1987, p. 12) According to Raymond Nickerson (2004), the appearance of objectivity was promoted by eliminating the need for an experimenter’s judgment through the application of mechanical statistical procedures to the interpretation of data, hence, statistics became a means for the mechanization of inductive inference. (p. 271) The significance of all these is that statistics maintains the objectivity of psychology as an experimental science. In light of all these, one can say that statistics is more than just a tool in psychology. It validates the field