Advantages/Disadvantages of the Scientific Method

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A disadvantage of the scientific method is that it lacks external validity, meaning that the findings in a lab cannot be generalised to a real life setting, and this is a disadvantage as the results could be different in real life.An example would be Loftus and Palmer, who used video tapes of car accidents in their research about EWT and how memory is affected by the wording of the question. As they were only shown video tapes, the participants weren't subject to emotion as they would have been in a real life accident,and emotion has been shown to play a part in memory, making the validity of the findings questionable Another disadvantage is that the scientific method also lacks internal validity, such as research bias and dans characteristics, and this is a disadvantages because it may become an extraneous variable in the research which influences the outcome. an example would be Bennett levy and Marteaus research on why animals are feared, in which they used questionnaires that had leading questions such as how 'slimy'they thought an animal was, ANOTHER disadvantage of the scientific method is that it focuses on the similarities rather than differences between people and establish general rules of behaviour -nomothetic and this is a disadvantage as it misses out on the richness of human individuality, such as gender culture age and other differences. Carl rogers said that the scientific method takes out the humanity out of the situation,such as with mental disorders,and more subjective methods may be more appropriate and carry higher validity One final disadvantage is that the scientific method is reductionist, in that it reduces the behaviour to it simplest from and misses out other potential explanations in its desire to establish cause and effect, this is a disadvantage as other perfectly valid explanations are ignored and this results to an incomplete

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