• Question from:Jack

Is psychology a real science (equivalent to biology, chemistry, or physics)?

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  • University of Bristol
  • Posts: 2,462

Very definitely yes. Understanding animal and human behaviour is an enormous field of great importance to science. Almost all of the best universities in the world have psychology departments and offer under- and post-graduate degrees in the subject.

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  • Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Beijing, China
  • Posts: 237

It's often said that psychology is somewhere in between the natural sciences (like physics and biology) and the social sciences (like sociology and economics). After all, you can approach psychology by studying the structure and function of the nervous system, or by studying human or animal behaviour. Studies of the nervous system tend to draw on the methods and mindset of the natural sciences, while studying behaviour (in the case of humans) can be more like doing research in the social sciences. In my opinion both the natural and social sciences are perfectly real - they just involve different subject matter, and therefore need to use different approaches.