What is the difference between hard science and soft science and where does psychology fit?

Answer 1

Hard sciences are characterized as relying on experimental, empirical, quantifiable data, relying on the scientific method, and focusing on accuracy and objectivity. Chemistry, physics, and psychology are examples of hard sciences

Soft sciences are less quantifiable and considered more subjective. The "Social Sciences" such as history and political science are obvious examples.

Sociology would be considered a soft science. However, psychiatry and neural science would be considered hard sciences.

Answer 2

The difference between what are described as hard sciences such as chemistry and physics, and soft sciences such as psychology or economics, is that with a hard science you can get very precise, mathematical descriptions of how things happen; you can predict exactly how many grams of a specific chemical will be produced in a specific chemical reaction, or the exact velocity with which the bullet emerges from the rifle, and so forth. In a soft science, it turns out that every person is different and every situation is different, and even if you have general guidelines which describe how things happen - for example, if a person's parent dies, that person feels unhappy - the predictions are not precise and do not apply in all situations. Most people are unhappy when their parent dies, but some are not, and even those who are unhappy are not all equally unhappy; some are much more unhappy than others. And then there is the question of what exactly can be done about this unhappiness, which again varies by individual. So it's all a bit vague.

Answer 3

Psychology is classified as a soft science.

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Psychology may be a 'soft science' generally speaking, but psychology researchers do practice the scientific method. This includes using experiments, control groups, and random sampling.

What makes it a 'soft science' is the fact that no grand theory in psychology has been proven in the same way that say, gravity has. It's difficult to find universal truths in psychology. It's also difficult to test a hypothesis directly, we can't measurecognitivedissonance by weighing the person experiencing it, in fact we can't even ask "hey dude, are you suffering fromcognitivedissonance?"So we are left with coming up with 'clever techniques' to try to coax the knowledge of thistheoreticalcognitive state out of participants.

There are many variables that go into thecognitivedissonance effect, and it isimpossibleto control for them in a real world setting. It is also next to impossible to produce cognitivedissonancein a lab (controlled) setting.

Psychology usesqualitativemethods to try and attain knowledge about subjects,qualitativemethods are 'soft science'. The collection of thesequalitativedatum can be organized and very scientific, but still the nature ofqualitativeresearch is conjecture and real world chaos.

Keep in mind, that Einstein's theory of relativity was not a hard science when he came up with it, he had no way to test his theory. No method by which to accept or reject hishypothesis, so therefore he was practicing soft science.