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What are the goals of Psychology? They are to describe, understand, predict and control behavior (Coon & Mitterer, 2010). While it comes to human behavior, predicting is a bit objectionable. Controlling is totally offensive. This implies total threat to personal freedom and the idea that somebody manipulates your behavior is repugnant.(Coon & Mitterer, 2010; Robbins, 2005). Many consider that psychology is a crude science, but there is no surety that nobody has already acquired the formulas for all human behaviors. Maybe, in somebody's notebook or laptop, 'how to operate a human' manual is there already. Some conspiracy theory suggests that we are already controlled. Our televisions are the greatest hypnotizers, they suggest, and we are the consumers directed by somebody who wants us to consume. Are we becoming the biological androids?
Keywords : understanding, prediction, control, brainwash, manipulation, ethics
Best and Kahn (2006)point out the problems with the human researches. No two human subjects are similar in emotions, feelings and behaviors; no person is temporally consistent; psychological research itself causes some effects; and Psychology is not as mature a science as Physics. Dwivedi (2009) mention that there is the lure among investigators to anthropomorphize about humans and to use their preferred statistics rather than pertinent one. Unlike physical sciences, there is difficulty in measurement of concepts in social science as they are abstruse, if not consensual.(Kline, 2005). Singh (2009) says the problems with measurement are its indirectness, incompleteness, relativity and the errors creeping in. He says most psychological variables are not directly observable. Any attempt to measure a psychological variable is partial, so measurement can be dubitable. Somebody scoring zero in a test does not mean the person has no attribute being measured, it is to be compared relatively. Measurement in behavioral sciences is not pure. Some uncontrolled factors always defile measurement and they are called errors. The behavioral sciences are not sciences but just the attempt to make them so.
The 'theory of everything' is nowhere near the sight but that doesn't mean it is not already in some laptops or notebooks of an experienced scientist or a prodigious student; it also does not mean it is not in the making. Rather call it the 'theory of everyone' while we talk about Psychology....