1st Edition

Psychology Exposed Or the Emperor's New Clothes

By Paul Kline Copyright 1988
    174 Pages
    by Routledge

    174 Pages
    by Routledge

    Originally published in 1988, in this personal review of the state of academic psychology, Paul Kline draws attention to the way in which his peers at the time studiously avoided such threatening matters as human feelings and emotions, unconscious ‘complexes’ – in short anything that could be called the human psyche. His erudite, amusing, and provocative text outlines the crucial influence of the development of scientific method before examining key experiments within cognitive psychology and cognitive science, psychometrics, social psychology, and animal behaviour. Is most of experimental psychology trivial, redundant, and irrelevant? The academic subject cannot continue to ignore its critics, he argued, and must solve its problems by means of radical solutions. Whether they support or refute Professor Kline’s arguments, students and professionals alike will still enjoy this original book.

    Preface.  1. The Problem  2. What the Scientific Method is and Why Psychologists use it  3. The Discoveries of Cognitive Psychology: Models of Memory. Are They of Any Value?  4. Psychometrics: Measuring the Soul or Rendering it to Ashes?  5. Attitudes, Attributions, and Group Processes in the Laboratory and Beyond  6. Cognitive Science: Electrons or Human Beings?  7. Animal Psychology  8. A Way Ahead.  Bibliography.  Index.

    Biography

    Paul Kline