The Basis of Critical Psychology

Qualitative vs. Quantitative Inquiry in Psychology

In endeavor to make psychology as science the psychology research embraced the hard science of experiments and statistical analysis. In this process the mainstream method totally became ignorant about qualitative research methods. It perceived and treated people to be manipulated and to control behavior rather than value human diversity and to study behavior in a less tidy real world and the peoples injustices and their voices in a participatory democratic approach as a qualitative method to study psychology. The quantitative methods can be used to expose inequality and there fore to accept the importance of qualitative research methods in to psychology. However narrowly focused hypotheses will ignore the consequences of injustice applying the mainstream psychological methods and it can be detrimental to the individuals and for the society. In the contemporary psychological field the positivist methods or the quantitative methods are dominant even though feminist thinkers have introduced to some extent the qualitative methods in to the psychological field. However the researchers have to face

many obstacles like satisfying skeptical finding resources, hard-nosed dissertations and hiring committees and editors who lack experience in qualitative research methods. In addition, the mainstream psychological methods research does not emphasize ethics as opposed to critical psychology. In effect, in the current psychological methods it is crucial to incorporate ethics and qualitative methods to fully describe human condition than the current obsession with quantitative methods alone which may have unintended consequences for the individual and to the wider society particularly the oppressed groups in society.

Ethics in Psychology

In the current psychological profession ethics mainly satisfy the interests of psychologists. For example, power and control in professional interaction is held by the psychologists. As well, the professional ethics is regulated by professional bodies with little input from the public. At large moral ethics in normally concerned of individual ethics but not social ethics and issues of oppression, discrimination, exploitation and inequality. They ignore perpetuation of power inequalities as well as deleterious effects of labeling people. The critical psychology denounces the notion of sciences as ultimate good, denounces legitimized power inequalities and denounces ethics codes that use the lowest-common denominator values or individual values. This stance by critical psychologists has many benefits as well as challenges.

Conclusion

As discussed above critical psychology is very different from mainstream psychology. The difference arises because of the different methods of research as well as to the differences in the psychological issues concerned and the qualitative methods used in tandem with quantitative methods in studying psychological phenomenon in a real world situation than positivist methods of inquiry alone in mainstream psychology. In addition,

the critical psychology is value laden and its purpose is to improve social oppression and well being than to control the behavior of individuals or to manipulate the individuals and label them. In addition, its theories are from not only from psychology but from sociological theories such as from feminists and other sociological theories and they are concerned about social psychology than the mainstream psychology. It is a new field of psychology. However, it tries to address issues which are neglected by the mainstream psychology and to address unintended consequences of their methods and practices on individuals and in some group’s particularly oppressed groups and disadvantaged groups in society.