Psychology emerged as an independent science in the middle of the 19th century. But a completely logical question arises: didn’t there exist psychological phenomena such as stress and neuroses before that, didn’t people communicate and conflict, didn’t there exist personal problems? Were. But this was in the nature of folk wisdom and observations. Before scientific psychology there was everyday psychology.
What is everyday psychology
Everyday psychology - facts obtained through personal observations. This is a subjective understanding of the psychological patterns and characteristics of the world. In another way, everyday psychology is called wisdom.
Sources of everyday psychology:
- everyday communication and interaction;
- Team work;
- people who meet along the path of life.
Examples of everyday psychology: rituals, traditions, folk tales, sayings, proverbs, legends, beliefs and other folk art. Many public pages on the social network VKontakte or websites on the Internet are the result of everyday psychology. That is, this is someone’s personal experience, everyday observations, the story of the life or success of this particular person. Nowadays it is fashionable to understand psychology and talk about self-improvement.
Everyday psychology has an arsenal of tools. For example, art. Through paintings, music, books we get to know the inner world of other people. Each viewer develops his own subjective idea of the author and his life. No terms or theories - only everyday psychology and personal perception. But the main method of everyday psychology is “trial and error.”
Everyday psychology is personal experience and ways of living that suit one person. This is exactly the case when we say “I do this, but it’s not a fact that it will suit you.”
Thanks to everyday psychology, a person knows how to communicate with his own parents, friends, sisters and brothers. However, without certain scientific knowledge, a person does not know how to behave with a new acquaintance. For example, children who are accustomed to manipulating their parents with the help of tears are at a loss when this technique does not work on another adult.
Good everyday psychologists are drivers, security guards, bartenders. They communicate with a large number of people every day, listen to their problems and draw appropriate conclusions.
Methods for obtaining information
There are judgments that sound convincing, but are questioned by skeptics. Those around you are attracted by brightness, persuasiveness, and novelty of expressions. They do not pay attention to the disconfirming evidence provided by experienced researchers.
There is more substantiated information among scientific concepts than among everyday knowledge. Common speculations:
- A curse placed on a family is removed by begging forgiveness from the dead.
- After the loss of a loved one, a relative will certainly suffer severe psychological trauma.
- Childhood psychotraumas can interfere with normal activities and development.
- Without maternal love, a full-fledged personality will not be formed.
What is scientific psychology
Scientific psychology is material obtained through experimentation and research. Psychology in scientific terms and theories.
Sources of scientific psychology:
- books, scientific articles and other publications;
- experiments;
- teachers and mentors passing on theoretical experience (university studies in psychology).
The basis of scientific psychology is everyday psychology. Only after noticing something in practice do scientists decide to find a scientific explanation and determine the scale of the process.
Scientific psychology provides general guidelines for interaction. For example, it is known that all people are infected by the emotions of the group; Every person’s brain reacts by increasing their mood to a forced smile. And bright colors excite the psyche of each individual, cold shades make you sad, etc. This means that you can safely use these techniques in everyday life.
Differences between everyday and scientific psychology
The scientific type analyzes the similarities and differences between the two types of psychology. But among the studies it is impossible to find a single list of differences. However, general points can be highlighted:
- Object of study. Scientific psychology studies mental processes, everyday psychology studies a specific person or condition. For example, everyday psychology says that all people are different, and scientific psychology explains this by the characteristics of the mental system (temperament).
- Generalization. Everyday psychology describes specific people and specific conditions. Often this is abstract and figurative in nature or represented by a stereotype. Scientific psychology generalizes, classifies, systematizes.
- A way to gain knowledge. Everyday psychology uses only unorganized observation and introspection. Scientific psychology uses a lot of tools: specially organized observation, experiment, tests, surveys, diagnostics and more.
- Method of knowledge transfer. Everyday psychology is transmitted mainly orally, for example, from grandmothers to grandchildren. Or through folk art. Scientific psychology is transmitted through specialized literature, textbooks, and universities.
- Facts, arguments, awareness. Everyday psychology does not provide point-by-point explanations. The person simply says that he suddenly realized something or simply knows that it works. Scientific psychology will explain why this works: what hormones are turned on, what lobes of the brain are involved, what mental property is used.
- Language. Scientific psychology operates with terms and concepts. Everyday psychology explains something “in its own words,” in a simple way.
4. Formation of psychological science. Its main stages
development.
The first systematic presentation of psychological phenomena was undertaken by the ancient Greek scientist Aristotle in his treatise “On the Soul”. But the actual scientific experimental study of mental phenomena and their patterns began essentially from the middle of the 19th century, and truly scientific psychology began to take shape even later - at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries. Conventionally, there are four main stages in the development of psychology as a science.
Stage I (IV century BC - mid-17th century AD) psychology as the science of the soul. They tried to explain all the incomprehensible phenomena in human life by the presence of a soul: sleep, dreams, trance states, mastery of magical skills (for example, success in hunting), death, etc. At this stage, psychology was pre-scientific, since it did not have its own research methods, but used the philosophical method of logical reasoning.
Stage II (mid-17th century - mid-19th century) - psychology as the science of consciousness. Arises in connection with the development of natural sciences. The ability to think, feel, sense, desire is called consciousness. The main method of studying mental phenomena is considered to be a person’s observation of himself (the method of introspection) and the description of facts. Philosophical discussion ceases to be the only tool of knowledge.
Stage III (mid-19th century - mid-20th century) - psychology as a science of behavior.
Since the 60s XIX century a new period in the development of psychological science began. At this time, many different “psychologies” arise with their own principles and language; Initially, they interacted with difficulty, most often existing in opposition to each other (at the present stage, these movements - in their current versions - often strive, if not to unite, then to borrow methods, concepts, etc.). This period is often called a period of open crisis in psychology. There is a transformation of the subject of psychology; ideas about the “soul” and “consciousness” turn out to be insufficient. During this period, not only theoretical, but practical psychology was born.
Stage IV (mid-20th century to the present) psychology as a science that studies facts, patterns and mechanisms of the psyche Until the middle of the 20th century, a large number of competing incompatible and even incomparable paradigms were formed in psychology, which realized potentially logically possible versions of understanding the subject and method of psychology. This was a unique situation in the history of science. No other discipline has seen so many different paradigms collide. The state of psychology during this period represented a stage of open crisis, which continues to the present day and is characterized by diversity and competition of paradigms. A productive way out of the crisis does not consist in the dominance of any one paradigm, not in the merging of logically difficult to compatible paradigms, but in the evolutionary process of the psychological community developing a consensus opinion about the basic scientific values, principles, subject and method of psychology.
Similarities between scientific and everyday psychology
The similarity between scientific and everyday psychology is that they help people understand each other. The result of combining two areas of psychology is practical psychology.
What does the unification of scientific and everyday psychology look like:
- The study of the influence of a group on an individual and individuals on a group (psychology of management and leadership).
- Determining the features of interaction between two groups or two people.
- The study of human uniqueness, behavioral characteristics (personality psychology).
Practical psychology begins with everyday observation and ends with scientific study. And at the third stage, on the contrary, the put forward theoretical hypothesis is tested on special cases in everyday life, the breadth of its application is noted.
Everyday and scientific psychology are important to each other. These are mutually complementary types. Everyday psychology is everyone’s personal experience. Scientific psychology is the generalized experience of the entire society. But is it really possible to draw general conclusions about the laws of society without knowing the psyche of each individual? And it is also impossible to understand systematic knowledge without experiencing it personally in practice. Can a teacher only follow the material written in the textbook, ignoring the environmental conditions and characteristics of the very children with whom he interacts? So, in essence, we are talking about theoretical and practical psychology.
Peculiarities
The doctrine of the inner component of man as a certain form of everyday knowledge arose a long time ago, almost simultaneously with the birth of human society. The accumulation of life-long knowledge and everyday experience subsequently became the foundation for the emergence of the science of psychology, based on scientific facts.
Thus, everyday psychology is knowledge accumulated in the processes of life and used in life. It includes idle reasoning, human observations, personal conclusions regarding a certain situation. For example, kids are great at manipulating close adults, but such actions do not work with strangers.
Below are the features of everyday psychology:
– irrationality of conclusions (almost always conclusions are made by people intuitively);
– limited and erroneous generalization (often people mistakenly reduce all such circumstances to one typical situation, for example, if a person dresses informally, then his grandmothers, relaxing under the porches, automatically classify him as criminal elements);
– beliefs are based on subjective experiences, fears;
– judgments are determined by rumors, moods, fashion;
– knowledge is based on chance circumstances, reflections;
– insufficient cultural level of the considered variant of psychology, down-to-earth judgments often mixed with superstitions.
Another characteristic of everyday psychology is that people present their “discoveries” as truth. People are usually convinced that they are right, considering themselves the best psychologists, competent teachers, and knowledgeable mentors. The clearest example of this is bloggers or well-known hosts of popular “soap” TV shows. They present information not as personal fabrications, but as a single and immutable fact. They are convinced that they are right, although their knowledge is superficial, and their conclusions are based solely on their own experience, which is always subjective, therefore the information they bring to the masses cannot serve as a guide or behavioral pattern for all people.
