If Einstein's paper on Special Relativity were proven wrong there would be quite a stir. Is there such a paper in psychology carrying such weight? Or even a central idea?
All of the central ideas in psychology are actually cribbed from philosophy (very selectively and almost never with attribution because you know, we're doing "science"; biased toward material that can be wrenched into guidance for "positive outcomes" that get the grants and TED talk invites), while all the data is extraordinarily messy, mantled under mouldering traditions of associating ones product with the group protection of a figurehead "school" (i.e. so-and-so's Biopsychoturbochemo Model) highly resistant or essentially unsuited to normalization, and of course unrepeatable in any rigorous sense.
The biggest difference between psychology, (alongsid its armed infantry counterpart psychiatry,) is that unlike math or physics or chemistry, which are all intrinsically descriptive, psychology is concerned with how to change behavior that has not yet happened. Not to describe phenomena that already exist but have not been encountered or formally described yet.
The biggest difference between psychology, (alongsid its armed infantry counterpart psychiatry,) is that unlike math or physics or chemistry, which are all intrinsically descriptive, psychology is concerned with how to change behavior that has not yet happened. Not to describe phenomena that already exist but have not been encountered or formally described yet.