ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a summary of the different assumptions that psychologists have made during the history of psychology up to the present day. Psychology is a science that makes quantitative predictions like physics or chemistry and is tested by the extent that quantitative data are consistent with the formulae that predict behaviour. It is a science that makes qualitative predictions like medicine and agriculture and is tested by statistical tests involving quantitative variables. Psychology is a science but one that is fundamentally different from natural sciences. Qualitative methods provide a systematic and replicable way of interpreting discourse, in some cases finding the hidden meaning that lies behind what people say. Psychology is not a science but is an intuitive way of understanding other people’s minds, which is made possible by shared human experience. There are significant differences between humans and animals so animals cannot form a substitute for people in the study of psychology.
