Everyday and scientific psychology: what is the difference, how are they related?

They say that bartenders and taxi drivers are excellent psychologists. Yes, this is partly true, but then they are everyday psychologists. They communicate a lot with different people; extensive life experience allows them to better understand society and give advice. However, their advice and judgments are not always fair from a scientific point of view. You and I have to understand everyday and scientific psychology, their differences and relationships, and define both types.

Everyday psychology: what is it

This is knowledge that is accumulated and used in life. Everyday psychology includes someone’s reasoning, observations, and conclusions regarding a specific situation. For example, children are great at manipulating their parents, but they don't know how to do it with all people.

Everyday psychological knowledge is distinguished by the following:

• always specific;
• intuitive;
• tied to certain conditions, situations, participants.

This type is usually called wisdom.

Features of everyday psychology, what characterizes it:

• conclusions are often irrational;
• most often there is an erroneous generalization;
• judgments are based on fears and personal experiences;
• judgments are subject to moods, fashion, rumors;
• everyday knowledge is based on random situations and reflections;
• the cultural level of everyday psychology is low, it is mundane, often mixed with superstitions.

Another specific characteristic of everyday psychology is that people present their “discoveries” with confidence. They call themselves psychologists, teachers, mentors. Bloggers and Instagrammers are the most striking example of everyday psychology. They are confident that they are right, they will grab the top ranks in the discipline or come to some conclusions based on personal experience, and then pass it off as the ultimate truth. They give ready-made schemes and advice that do not help everyone. So the next time you come across something like this, I recommend being very careful and not believing everything that a “natural psychologist” or an amateur psychologist says. Brightness, novelty, closeness to the majority opinion does not mean that the information is correct.

Wisdom or subjective understanding of the world

The peculiarities of everyday psychology are that observations depend on personal experience, incidents occurring around the individual. A person subjectively understands the features of the world, psychological patterns. Another name for everyday psychology is wisdom.

There are three sources of development of this branch of psychology:

1. Joint activities with other people.
2. Communication with others.
3. New acquaintances, relationships.

To show his life through wisdom, the subject can use different tools:

• music;
• books;
• paintings.

They help others feel the inner world of the author. The most striking examples of experienced psychologists are individuals whose work involves constant communication.

Scientific psychology: what is it

This is data that is accumulated through research and is used both in theory and in practice, that is, in life. The discipline arose in the 19th century, but life's wisdom accumulated along with the development of society.

Specifics of scientific (academic) psychology, its difference from everyday psychology:

1. The first is science. The second is someone’s views, the results of reflection, analysis, introspection, and social interaction.
2. Scientific information is closely related to statistics, mathematical calculations, experiments, experiments.
3. Scientific data is always rationally summarized and explained. They are carefully verified, confirmed, and do not depend on the emotions or moods of an individual subject or society. They are objective and impartial. As a rule, they are distinguished by a higher cultural and intellectual level.
4. Facts from science are relevant for the entire society; they take into account the specifics of certain conditions and the differences of individuals.

Next, let's look at the characteristics of everyday and scientific psychology in comparison.

The view of science

To begin with, it is important to understand the definition of psychology as such. So, psychology is a complex science, it explores one of the most mysterious and complex mechanisms in nature - the human psyche

In this regard, this scientific discipline requires attention, depth of research, as well as special working methods.

Throughout the 20th century, this science gained momentum, developed, and found more and more new methods for studying humans. The professional view of many theorists has helped this science become one of the most influential in our time. The theoretical aspect within its framework is extremely important, because the theory gives general ideas about the world and man, which exist in almost every science.

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In the process of long-term experiments, collection and analysis of theoretical and practical data, scientific or academic psychology was formed, the main features of which are as follows:

1. Generalizations. This sign suggests that conclusions are drawn not on the basis of what one specific person experienced, but on the basis of many experiments and observations. And when a certain fact, a certain behavioral reaction manifests itself in similar circumstances in a larger number of samples, a certain conclusion can be drawn based on detailed analysis and generalization.

2. Rationalization. Scientific psychology gains knowledge through experimentation and detailed reflection on its results. Data must be rationally explained, and a cause-and-effect relationship between phenomena must be traced.

3. No restrictions - this means that the data obtained through scientific experiments is applicable to a large number of people

For example, data on the fatigue of schoolchildren, how attention functions and what is the maximum number of objects we can hold in short-term memory - all this is consistent for most of the general population

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4. Reliance on various methods. As you know, scientific psychology has a fairly large range of different methods - from content analysis to psychological experiment. When using various methods for studying the psyche and its mechanisms, data is checked in order to identify variables that influence the experiment and create the necessary conditions for research.

• Observation is long-term monitoring of the manifestation of certain signs in those observed in natural and sometimes specially created conditions.
• A survey is a collection of information from a large number of people using questions, the answers to which are processed and grouped.
• Tests are a method of quantitative and qualitative assessment of a person’s mental processes, his behavioral and emotional reactions. With the help of tests, you can assess both a person’s mental and intellectual abilities, as well as the level of his anxiety or creative abilities.
• Experiment - this method is aimed at studying specific mental phenomena in certain, specially created and controlled conditions. Almost any experiment serves to confirm or refute a theory or hypothesis.

5. Systematization of knowledge is a theoretical approach. Everything that science receives in the course of research and experiments is systematized, analyzed, on the basis of which certain conclusions are drawn. And it must be said that in order to systematize any knowledge or come to a certain conclusion, it takes a lot of time, sometimes several years.

6. The main features of the scientific approach are the presence of a single glossary and the use of a single terminology. Psychology as a science has a clear system of terms that describe certain states and processes. And this, in turn, eliminates discrepancies when one concept is replaced by another.

7. Use of mathematical statistics methods for data processing. They avoid unreliability, subjectivity, and eye-catching conclusions.

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The relationship between everyday and scientific psychology is obvious - one explores practice and accumulates experience, the other tests everything through experiment. But we should never forget that everyday psychological knowledge is not scientific, which means that it cannot always be applied by one person or another and be effective.

If we recall all the stages of the development of psychology as a science, we can say that this knowledge largely began with the use of the method of introspection, when the scientist observed himself and his subjective experiences. Based on this, many conclusions and conclusions were made.

Comparison of everyday and scientific psychology

“Take my advice,” says your friend. “I want to share my experience to help others overcome this difficult situation,” says the blogger. In both cases we are dealing with amateurs, not professionals. The key difference between everyday and scientific psychology is that the first is private, concrete. What helped one person may be completely useless to another, and may even harm a third. This is not the only difference in directions. Let's look at them in more detail, and also talk about the connection between the directions.

Differences between everyday and scientific psychology

The two types differ in the nature of knowledge, content and methods of transferring experience. Let's look at the basics:

1. The amateur type is the experience of one person, with all its nuances. Psychological knowledge is chaotic and based on intuition. The individual receives them by chance. The experience of science is always systematized, obtained through special experiments, extensive in application, and reflects general laws and patterns.
2. Amateur knowledge lives only in the sphere where a person received it, only in the life of this person. An individual can convey his knowledge orally or in writing to other people, but still it will only be his experience, his guesses, his considerations. Traditions, rituals, sayings, aphorisms, folk wisdom, proverbs - all these are examples of storing amateur psychology. Often several sources of information contradict each other. For example, for every proverb you can find an “anti-proverb”: “Teaching is light, not teaching is darkness”, “Live forever, learn – you will die a fool.” Information from science is passed down from generation to generation, it is taught in universities, it is stored in books. Scientific knowledge is constantly deepening and expanding.
3. Amateur conclusions are tied to the situation, specific conditions and time. Using them is very problematic, not every person is suitable for this or that wisdom, and the advice of strangers does not always work. Science is not tied to time and conditions; it is methods, techniques that always work. And if special conditions are needed, then this is always said.

Thus, while one type describes certain phenomena in a versatile and chaotic manner, the other explains them through terms, concepts, definitions, patterns, and cause-and-effect relationships.

The relationship between everyday and scientific psychology (briefly)

You probably already guessed that both types are closely interrelated. Examples of connections and relationships:

• professional research is based on life experience (someone noticed something and decided to substantiate it, identify general patterns, find solutions);
• psychological science takes its tasks from everyday experience;
• The final test of scientific knowledge is the test of life experience.

Does science influence life? Undoubtedly. This is what we usually call practical psychology. We are talking about all the techniques, methods, trainings that we use in life to improve it. All scientific psychological research arises against the background of current problems of society. People suggest what they need - psychologists try to help. According to this, three types can be roughly distinguished: everyday, scientific and practical psychology. The latter combines the other two types.

Most psychologists who have received appropriate training relate to both types. Someone chooses only the theoretical part, but even in this case he is faced with everyday problems of people, because without this it is impossible to put forward and test a hypothesis. For this, everyday observation is used. In psychology, this is one of the methods that involves testing a hypothesis or research results in real conditions (not laboratory ones).

Thus, the specificity of scientific and everyday psychology is as follows: there is a need for everyday psychological knowledge for the development of psychology as a science.

Knowledge about life

So, it is important to understand that everyday psychology is far from science, it is a kind of synthesis of people’s knowledge about life, about themselves, the quintessence of experience, observations and experiences. Of course, conclusions drawn on the basis of subjective experience can hardly be objective and acceptable to others

Everyday psychology, its main features and characteristic features:

1. Specificity and down-to-earthness. Everyday psychology tends to talk about specific people and the situations in which they find themselves; it relies on the subjective experiences of specific people. Usually, as an example, they give you stories that happened to some person who found himself in a certain situation and made certain conclusions for himself (naturally, this conclusion will be relevant and useful for him, but it is not a fact that this knowledge can be widely applicable and used other people).

2. Intuitive nature of knowledge. The peculiarities of everyday psychology are that it relies on intuition, on subjective feelings, and usually no one seeks to check their feelings or try to think about them. This is most often the main limitation of intuitive knowledge - it is almost impossible to explain it to another person, “I just realized something.”

3. Insufficient depth of knowledge. People make conclusions superficially, without examining certain motives, emotions or behavior of other people. As a rule, a conclusion is made quickly, without checking its reliability (this is where fears, beliefs, proverbs, superstitions come from, when people try to follow certain rules just because someone said so; following fashion or relying on popular books or articles lives here , which do not carry any scientific knowledge).

4. The main method is observation. Most of us make conclusions about something based only on periodic, short-term observation, which is not at all consistent with its scientific counterpart. As a result, this leads to a superficial perception of reality, since everything is verified only through personal experience, and, as we know, such a method is extremely subjective and limited.

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5. Everyday psychology does not have a common terminology. The life experience of many people is connected with different times, eras, states, so everyone tends to describe this or that state “in his own words,” into which he puts his own meaning, which only he fully understands. This often leads to misunderstandings and substitution of concepts.

Such knowledge can be presented very confidently and openly, you can be convinced that a given method or point of view is correct, because it is written so in a magazine or because everyone does it. You can also be assured that this postulate has been tested by personal experience. For example, a person celebrated the New Year in a bad mood and the whole next year was not going well for him, after which he carries this knowledge to his friends as a dogma.

It is important to understand that not every person has inner instinct, insight, the ability to notice details and generate everyday psychological knowledge. Therefore, it is always worth remembering that not all other people’s knowledge can be useful for you, but sometimes you can listen and communicate with different people in order to have an idea about a certain phenomenon or learn about someone else’s experience, knowledge of which may be useful

Everyday and scientific psychology: briefly connections and differences

Once again we summarize all of the above in the form of a table. So, here’s how everyday psychology differs from scientific psychology:

The types have something in common, but at the same time they have many differences. The amateur type is the experience of a person or an entire society. The scientific type is a discipline, science as it is.

Two relevant problems compare everyday and scientific psychology. Firstly, there is often a substitution of concepts; people try to pass off their observations as scientific laws and teach others about life (bloggers, Instagrammers, graphomaniacs, etc.). Secondly, professional psychologists lose a huge part of the topics to study. Scientific consideration limits the possibilities of studying objects and phenomena; concepts create rigid boundaries beyond which one cannot go.