“Biology, ecology, dermatology, and psychology all have a noticeable similarity – ‘ology’ is a suffix that determines whether a subject is considered to be within the general field of science or not. This particular suffix can be defined as the ‘study of,’ which means that psychology can also be defined as something which is ‘the study of’ something. This means it can be considered as a science subject,” former psychology teacher Mr. Archer stated. Specifically, psychology is the scientific study of mental processes. 

The key point to acknowledging that psychology is science is understanding the empirical method. As Mr. Archer continued to explain, “In any scientific endeavor, you are trying to see if there is a cause and effect relationship between things. In the study of mind and behavior, you are doing the same thing. You measure interactions and put together studies that check whether there is a cause and effect relationship between two factors. This method applies to all fields of science, and psychology also utilizes the empirical method. Some may argue that behavior or emotion cannot be measured; however, through the empirical method Psychology could be considered to be an objective subject as it utilizes many scientific procedures.” 

Former AP Psychology student Betty also agreed that the study of the mind could be objective. “I think Psychology is science, because in class we learned about concepts about the brain which relate to biology.” She continued to share her experiences and the knowledge that she gained from her class. “We also learned about various experiments, which science commonly deals with. Since every concept we learned about was backed up by experiments and scientific and statistical data, I think that psychology is a science subject.” 

Pavlov’s Classical Conditioning, the Stanford Prison Experiment, and the Milgram Experiment are textbook examples of investigations in the study of mind and behavior. In these experiments, the empirical method was used to measure and observe a person’s actions and words, which reinforces Betty’s idea that psychology is an objective study.

It would be arduous to argue that psychology is not a science when considering that psychology perfectly fits the criteria to be a science. Despite the opposing arguments suggesting that social science is pseudoscience, the fact that this field utilizes empirical methods and is connected with various studies of science – such as biology – strongly debunks the claims that psychology is a fake science.