Everyday and scientific psychology: features, differences and similarities.

The human soul has been a subject of study since ancient times. The great thinkers of antiquity studied the behavior and reactions of people, but ordinary people also drew their own conclusions. They were transformed into sayings and proverbs, fairy tales and legends with deep meaning. Studying them gives an understanding of what it is everyday psychology

Personal experience, beliefs, worldview are the basis of everyday philosophy. It is formed in the process of observing the behavior of other people, as well as in an attempt to draw a conclusion about its causes and patterns. Everyday philosophy became the basis for the formation of psychological science, which became a separate branch only at the end of the 19th century.

What is everyday psychology

The concept of “everyday psychology” is often put on a par with wisdom and rich experience. When a person says that he is his own psychologist, he relies on conclusions and facts obtained as a result of his own actions, as well as on the experience accumulated by other people over many generations. This experience is transmitted through:

traditions;
beliefs;
sayings, proverbs, sayings;
parables

Knowledge

about life, about the difficulties and victories that other people had to face, allows you to understand how in most cases they acted and what results they got. This understanding can be very practical in some situations.

At the same time, everyday psychology gives the illusion that relying on the experience accumulated by others, you can correctly build a strategy for your own life. In fact, someone else's everyday

experience is not always applicable to a specific situation. Techniques that work for one person may not work for another.

Knowledge of everyday psychology helps to communicate with family, friends, strangers in everyday life.

life. But, if a person is not familiar with the patterns of functioning of the psyche, then he may experience discomfort and encounter difficult situations in communication.

In everyday psychology, all conclusions are based on reflections on a specific situation. Usually these conclusions are very superficial, because it seems that the reason for what is happening is very simple. Thus, in “wise” proverbs it is stated that:

they don’t wash dirty linen in public;
not knowing the ford, they don’t go into the water;
silence is gold;
modesty is an adornment.

A critical examination of the validity of these statements shows that they are not relevant for today's life. Similar attitudes were formed in ancient times under the influence of vivid mental manifestations. They were influenced by:

emotional states - affects, fear, frustration, anxiety;
personal characteristics - high or low degree of stress resistance, hard work, ability to rely on one’s own strengths, truthfulness or deceit, egocentrism or altruism.

There is no systematicity in everyday psychology, since it reflects and explains only certain facets of people’s lives. This is explained by the fact that the formation of views on life took place in the absence of adequate methods for studying reality.

Everyday psychology may correspond to the narrow needs of a particular community, tied to a place or connected by family ties. Developed on the basis of personal experience, it is always practical and gives an answer to the question of what to do in a given situation. But for universal application by a large number of people, life psychology is ineffective.

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.

Scientific psychology

Psychology, as a branch of scientific knowledge, deals with the study and interpretation of the laws of the work of the human mental sphere. In scientific

psychology comes to the fore:

general patterns;
empirically proven facts;
development of research methods;
analysis of results.

Scientific psychology has a set of methods that make it possible to measure various psychological

processes, check the results.
The scientific approach is distinguished by its focus on academic knowledge and scientific thinking. All knowledge
and methods used in the work of a psychologist:

clearly structured;
rational;
are based on experiments performed and professional observation.

The task of a psychologist when working with a client or group of people is to remain as objective as possible. At the same time, a specialist can interpret the information obtained during work or an experiment within the framework of a certain model chosen by him. Such interpretations may be more or less subjective.

Scientific psychology operates with concepts that reflect the most important properties of individuals, phenomena, objects, and the relationships between them. A scientific psychologist operates with standardized terminology, and his ability to use metaphors is limited. Many concepts from scientific psychology sound the same as in everyday psychology, but they differ in meaning.

Methods for obtaining information

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.

Differences between everyday and scientific psychology

Although everyday and scientific psychology are closely related, they also have differences . Both directions are aimed at the deepest possible understanding of the human psyche, processes and phenomena caused by different mental states.

Very clearly highlighted the differences

two psychological directions Julia Gippenreiter.

Everyday psychology operates with specific knowledge, while scientific psychology operates with patterns.

To solve a specific problem in everyday psychology, a person seeks advice from other people, listens to different opinions and makes a decision. This strategy very rarely leads to real positive changes - each of the advisers, speaking about the request, relies on his own experience, but it often does not suit the other person.

If you turn to a psychologist who works on a scientific basis, then the search for a solution is carried out by the person who needs it. The psychologist does not advise or indicate what to do. He listens, identifies the causes of difficulties, helps to see the problematic situation from a new perspective, based on knowledge about the patterns of mental processes, asks questions that allow you to find the optimal solution.

The basis of everyday psychology is everyday experience, scientific psychology is based on experiments.

Daily events force a person to limit himself to observations and search for an answer to the question: “How to act to achieve a goal?” The scientific approach uses a different scheme. It includes experimental research, theory and practice. To resolve client requests, scientific psychologists use methods with experimentally proven effectiveness.

For example, it causes great discomfort to a person that, when talking with older colleagues, he blushes, becomes embarrassed, and lowers his eyes. Everyday psychology in such a situation advises looking between the eyebrows of the interlocutor during communication, and not directly into the eyes. Scientific psychology helps to find the reason for such behavior, reveals the origins of such a reaction, teaches how to cope with one’s own emotions, identify and competently use one’s own resources for effective interaction.

The main
difference between everyday psychology is that it is based on intuition, while scientific psychology is based on awareness and rationalism.

Intuition is the ability to process information unconsciously, without resorting to logical thinking and evidence. If in everyday psychology conclusions are based on intuition, then in scientific psychology this phenomenon can also be used. At the same time, psychologists always test intuitive guesses using the experimental method and conduct analysis

obtained results, look for logical connections.

Knowledge in scientific psychology is transmitted by forming a base of terms and using them in specialized literature. In everyday psychology, the possibility of transferring knowledge is limited.

Briefly

This difference can be explained if we remember how “life experience” is transmitted.
The ratio
of knowledge that representatives of older generations can share with younger ones is much less than the amount that younger ones master during their studies. Scientific knowledge is accumulated in the form of clear terms, definitions, laws. They are transmitted through scientific literature.

The basis for scientific knowledge is a large amount of factual material. No man has such a large volume of material as science.

All the nuances that distinguish everyday psychology from scientific

th, do not put these two directions in opposition to each other. Everyday psychology has great potential, but the problem is that information from other people (in the form of advice, recommendations) is effective only for them and often does not apply to the situations in which other people find themselves. The importance of everyday psychology is that, like scientific psychology, it can make you think and rethink mental phenomena and events.

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.

The similarity between the scientific and everyday directions of psychology

Everyday and scientific psychology

are similar in that they help a person better understand himself and those around him. In practical psychology, the principles of both are used.

Main characteristics,

distinguishing the direction in which the everyday and scientific approaches are applied:

everyday observation and study by scientific methods are used;
a theoretical hypothesis is put forward, then it is tested in natural everyday situations;
the psychologist records the breadth of use of the feature being studied.

The synthesis of two directions is widely used in studying the influence of a group on an individual and the relationships between group members.

The use of methods of scientific and everyday psychology helps to identify intergroup and interpersonal methods of interaction, determine behavioral characteristics,

unique personality characteristics.

Both directions - everyday and scientific psychology - complement each other. If everyday life accumulates the experience of one person, then scientific knowledge about the patterns of functioning of the psyche of many people is generalized.

Irina Sherbul

Verification methods

Everyday knowledge proves its validity only over time, and what loses its relevance is gradually forgotten. In addition, their correctness is confirmed by personal experience, and not by scientifically regulated experiments.

In science, the researcher purposefully models the necessary conditions, rather than waiting for a favorable combination of circumstances. This allows you to study in its entirety the phenomenon of interest by changing the characteristics of the experimental environment.

Due to the fact that scientific knowledge is accumulated and information about a particular object or phenomenon is systematized, it becomes complex and diverse. The resulting material continues to be comprehended and analyzed, becoming fertile ground for its expansion and the emergence of new scientific disciplines.

General psychology develops through the improvement and enrichment of its individual branches. Everyday knowledge does not have a single system and such features.

Structure of mental phenomena

Mental processes

Mental conditions

Mental properties

Cognitive Sensation, perception, representation, memory, imagination, thinking, speech, attention

Elation, depression, fear, vigor, etc.

Direction, temperament, abilities, character

Emotional excitement, joy, indignation, anger, etc.

Strong-willed

making decisions, overcoming difficulties,

struggle of motives, managing one’s behavior

Mental processes

act as primary regulators of human behavior. Ps processes have a definite beginning, course and end, i.e. have certain dynamic characteristics, which include parameters that determine the duration and stability of the mental process.

On the basis of mental processes, certain states are formed, knowledge, skills and abilities are formed.

In turn, mental processes are divided into three groups: cognitive, emotional and volitional.

Cognitive mental processes include mental processes associated with the perception and processing of information. These include sensation, perception, representation, memory, imagination, thinking, speech, attention. Thanks to these processes, a person receives information about the world around him and about himself

Have you noticed that some events remain in your memory for a long time, while others you forget about the next day, and other information may go unnoticed by you. This is due to the fact that any information may or may not have an emotional connotation, i.e.

may or may not be significant. Therefore, along with cognitive processes, emotional mental processes are distinguished as independent ones.

We have the right to believe that if a certain event or phenomenon evokes positive emotions in a person, then this has a beneficial effect on his activity and condition, and, conversely, negative emotions complicate activity and worsen the person’s condition. However, there are exceptions.

For example, an event that causes negative emotions increases a person’s activity and stimulates him to overcome the obstacles that have arisen.

Such a reaction indicates that for the formation of human behavior, not only emotional, but also volitional mental processes are important, which clearly manifest themselves in situations related to decision-making and overcoming difficulties.

Sometimes they are identified as an independent group - unconscious processes. It includes those processes that occur or are carried out outside the control of consciousness.

Mental processes are closely interconnected and act as primary factors in the formation of mental states.

Mental conditions

characterize the state of the psyche as a whole. They have their own dynamics, which are characterized by duration, direction, stability, and intensity.

At the same time, mental states influence the course and outcome of mental processes and can promote or inhibit activity.

Mental states include such phenomena as elation, depression, fear, and vigor.

The next class of mental phenomena - mental properties of personality -

characterized by greater stability and greater constancy.

Under the mental properties of personality

It is customary to understand the most significant personality characteristics that provide a certain quantitative and qualitative level of human activity and behavior. Mental properties include orientation, temperament, abilities, character. The level of development of these properties, as well as the peculiarities of the development of mental processes and the prevailing (most characteristic of a person) mental states determine the uniqueness of a person, his individuality.

The phenomena studied by psychology are associated not only with a specific person, but also with groups.

Mental phenomena associated with the life of groups and collectives are studied in detail within the framework of social psychology.

Thus, the subject of psychology is the psyche and mental phenomena of both one specific person and mental phenomena observed in groups and collectives.

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.