Since the conception of psychology, the question Is Psychology a science subject, is remains debatable. For answering this question we need to understand the nature of psychology, its background, origin, and its progress.
What is Psychology?
Psychology can be defined as the scientific study of behavior.PSychologists measures various attributes of behavior either in the laboratory or under field conditions. This work may involve measuring the eye movement of infants when first exposed to a naval stimulus/input, recording the heart rate of people under stress, counting the number of trials required to condition a monkey to perform a task. In all these measurements data is collected and with statistical methods, inferences/conclusions will be drawn.
The Early Psychology
The field of psychology is derived from the subject of philosophy. The roots o psychology can be traced to the great philosophers of ancient Greece. The most famous of them are Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. These all Philosophers posed fundamental questions about mental life. These questions are:
What is consciousness?
Question of free choice
Meaning of life
What are body and mind?
Are our minds and body are connected?
Does the mind operate the body or body is operating the mind?
These deal with the nature of mind and mental processes. Cognitive perspective was questioned and analyzed that in those days. In early times debates were conducted about human psychology. Early philosophers believed that knowledge and understanding could be accessed through critical reasoning, discussion, and introspection.
The beginning of scientific Psychology
From the introduction of psychology subject, researchers continued to be interested in the functioning of both the mind and the body. They used observation methods to prove their own views. Scientific psychology is usually considered to have begun in the late 19th century when Wilhelm Wundt established the first psychological laboratory at the University of Leipzig in Germany in the year 1879.
Wilhelm Wundt’s view was that mind and behavior could be a subject of scientific analysis like other chemicals/matters. Wundt’s own research was concerned primarily with the senses, especially vision, but he and his co-workers also studied attention, emotion, and memory.
How did Wilhelm Wundth conduct experiments?
Wundt relied on introspection to study mental processes. Introspection refers to observing and recording the nature of one’s own perception thought and feelings. Examples of introspection include people’s reports of how heavy they perceive an object to be and how bright a flash of light seems to be.
The introspection method was inherited from philosophy, but wundt added a new dimension to the concept. Pure self-observation was not sufficient, it had to be supplemented by experiment.
Criteria for a science subject
Any subject which fulfills the required condition will be called a science subject. The prime requirement is objectivity, it refers to the fact that if two or more persons independently study a particular event, both of them to a greater extent, should arrive at the same conclusion.
For example, if John and Sam measure the length of the table using the same measuring device, it is likely that both would arrive at the same conclusion about its length.
Psychology a science debate – Limitation of Psychological Research
Psychological testing may involve the assessment of individual differences. There are some general problems faced by psychological measurement. Psychologists have constructed different types of tests for the assessment of various human characteristics such as intelligence, aptitude, personality, anxiety, interest, values, attitudes, educational achievements, etc. The measurement of these attributes have some limitation :
1. Lack of True Zero Point:
In physical sciences, measurements do start from zero. For example, if you want to measure the length of the table, you can measure it starting from zero and can say it is 3feet long. Psychological measurements do not have a true zero point.
For example, no person in this world has zero intelligence. All of us have some degree of intelligence. What psychologists do is that they arbitrarily decide a point as zero point and proceed further. As a result, whatever scores we get in psychological studies, are not absolute in nature; rather, they have relative value.
In some of the studies, ranks are used as scores. For example, on the basis of marks obtained in online tests, the teacher arranges the students in order like 1, 2,3,4….and soon. The problem in such type of assessment is that the difference between first and second rank holders may not be the same as is the difference between the second and third rank holders.
Out of 50, the first rank holder might score 48, the second 47, and the third 40., the difference between the first and the second rank holders is not the same as is the case between second and third rank holders. This also illustrates the relative nature of the psychological measurement. 
2 Relative nature of psychological tools
Psychological tests are developed keeping in view the salient features of a particular context. For example, a test developed for urban students may contain items that demand familiarity with the stimuli available in the urban setting-multistoried buildings, airplanes, metro railways, etc.
Such a test is not suitable for use with children living in tribal areas who would be more at ease with items that describe their flora and fauna. Similarly, a test developed in Western countries may or may not be applicable in the Indian context. Such tests need to be properly modified and adapted keeping in view the characteristics of the context in which they are to be used.
3 Subjective Interpretation of Qualitative Data
Data from qualitative studies are largely subjective since they involve interpretation on the part of the researcher as well as the person providing data. The interpretations may vary from one individual to the other. Each judge will score differently for the same subject.
10 reasons why psychology is a science
1 Psychologists who engage in research work more like other scientists.
2 They draw conclusions that are supported by data.
3 They design and conduct experiments or studies under controlled conditions like other scientists.
4 The purpose of psychological research is to develop general principles about behavior and mental processes like other disciplines.
5 Other subject focuses on quantitative attributes like length, mass, height, pressure, etc, whereas psychology focuses on qualitative attributes like motivation, personality, perception, anxiety, etc.
6 Psychology assumes that all behavioral phenomena have causes that can be discovered if we can collect data systematically under controlled conditions.
7 Psychologist aims to is to know the cause and effect relationship.
8 Statistical methods used in psychology as other subjects
9 The psychology field has its own other branches as like other subjects
10 Psychological tests are valid and reliable tools as other subject tools.
So yes psychology is a science subject.
Is psychology a science subject or art subject?
Psychology studied behavior, experiences, and mental processes. Psychology has its roots in philosophy. However, modern psychology developed because of the application of scientific methods to study different phenomena. These statements support psychology as a science subject because it uses scientific methods to prove hypotheses.
Psychology is also recognized more as a art subject because it studies the behavior of human beings in their socio-cultural contexts. Psychology as a social science discipline focuses on humans as social beings. Psychology as a social science focuses on individual differences and communities in relation to their socio-cultural and physical environment.
Does psychology count as a science?
Psychologists who are doing research work draw conclusions based on uncollected data. The process of conducting any experiment is the same as other science. Several independent branches of psychology have emerged that try to use psychological theories, principles, and facts to diagnose and resolve problems related to different settings
Is psychology a science or art subject?
Psychology studied behavior, experiences, and mental processes. Psychology has its roots in philosophy. However, modern psychology developed because of the application of scientific methods to study different phenomena. These statements support psychology as a science subject because it uses scientific methods to prove hypotheses.
Psychology is also recognized more as a art subject because it studies the behavior of human beings in their socio-cultural contexts. Psychology as a social science discipline focuses on humans as social beings. Psychology as a social science focuses on individual differences and communities in relation to their socio-cultural and physical environment.
Does psychology count as a science?
Psychologists who are doing research work draw conclusions based on uncollected data. The process of conducting any experiment is the same as other science. Several independent branches of psychology have emerged that try to use psychological theories, principles, and facts to diagnose and resolve problems related to different settings
Is psychology a science or art subject?
Psychology studied behavior, experiences, and mental processes. Psychology has its roots in philosophy. However, modern psychology developed because of the application of scientific methods to study different phenomena. These statements support psychology as a science subject because it uses scientific methods to prove hypotheses.
Psychology is also recognized more as a art subject because it studies the behavior of human beings in their socio-cultural contexts. Psychology as a social science discipline focuses on humans as social beings.
Psychology as a social science focuses on individual differences and communities in relation to their socio-cultural and physical environment. Psychology subject also chosen as side subject in humanities.https://psychologybank.com/can-psychology-be-chosen-as-the-side-subject-with-humanities/
Does psychology count as a science?
Psychologists who are doing research work draw conclusions based on uncollected data. The process of conducting any experiment is the same as other science. Several independent branches of psychology have emerged that try to use psychological theories, principles, and facts to diagnose and resolve problems related to different settings