Topic 1: Features of psychology as a science

Everyday and scientific psychology

Film "Lectures at Moscow State University"

Professor V.V. Petukhov about scientific and everyday psychology.

Film "Formula of Love"

Everyday psychology is always concrete and down to earth, this is its strength and weakness.

Everyday experience, everyday psychology is the basis for scientific psychology. Scientific psychology relies on everyday psychological experience, extracts its tasks from it, and at the last stage is tested by everyday experience.

The main difference between everyday and scientific psychology is the quality and nature of knowledge. Everyday knowledge and experience are usually more specific, intuitive in nature and often of a low cultural level: based on spontaneous observations, random reflections, often negative and irresponsible, highly susceptible to fashion, moods, fears and rumors, and largely irrational. Scientific psychological knowledge is thought out, generalized, rational, justified by professional observation and organized experiment.

Specificity - generality

Everyday psychological knowledge is concrete; they are confined to specific situations, specific people, specific tasks.

Waiters and taxi drivers, as a rule, are good everyday psychologists, but, as a rule, only within the framework of their profession.

Children are professors of psychology, he is one with his mother, another with his father, another with his grandmother: in each specific case, the child knows well how to behave in order to achieve the desired goal. But outside of their family, children are usually naive and helpless. Their knowledge does not extend that far.

Scientific psychology, like any science, strives for generalizations. She sets herself such tasks and moves towards these tasks, albeit gradually.

Intuitiveness - thoughtfulness

Everyday psychological knowledge is intuitive in nature. As a rule, they are acquired through practical trials and adjustments, and such a path does not require rational thinking.

For example, children gain their experience through daily and even hourly tests to which they subject adults. The experience is rich, everyone has it, but few can express it verbally.

Scientific psychological knowledge is thoughtful, rational, and completely conscious.

Cultural level

The cultural level of scientific knowledge and scientific concepts is usually higher. Everyday psychological knowledge is based on spontaneous observations, random reflections, is often negative and irresponsible, highly susceptible to fashion, moods, fears and rumors, largely irrational and often no different from superstitions.

Reasons, where did you get them from?

Fans of the tabloid press rarely ask themselves the basis for certain opinions. For example,

The advertisement uses the “25th frame effect”
Controlling your emotions is harmful
“All you need is love!” and so on -

Such judgments are presented confidently and supposedly convincingly. The brightness and novelty of a judgment, proximity to familiar points of view, often turn out to be more important circumstances than facts confirming or refuting judgments.

Is scientific knowledge subject to fashion, rumors, fears and moods? In the field of exact sciences - to a small extent, in the field of psychology - unfortunately, yes. The unofficial ban on the word “formation”, which has developed in psychology in recent decades, hardly has any objective, scientific basis. Nevertheless, in the field of psychology, scientific judgments are more justified than everyday concepts, and with the development of psychological culture they are gradually approaching the high standards of science.

Common beliefs in the psychological community that do not have a serious evidence base:

A family curse can be removed by sincerely asking forgiveness from the deceased.
Without maternal love, a full-fledged personality cannot be formed.
The loss of a loved one is a severe psychological trauma.
The consequences of childhood psychological trauma make themselves felt throughout the rest of life.
Behavioral therapy is less effective than depth therapy.

Negativity and irresponsibility - certainty, responsibility

Considering that the cultural level of the population is low and is rather at the level of a human child, the main features of the beliefs of everyday psychology are negativism and irresponsibility. Typical examples of negative and irresponsible beliefs in everyday psychology:

How you spend the New Year is how the year will turn out!
Monday is a hard day.
There is never a good morning.
Everyone thinks only about themselves.
Training doesn't help anyone.
All diseases come from nerves.

Psychologists working in the science-oriented tradition tend to be more specific and responsible in their formulations.

Verification methods

Everyday knowledge is verified by personal experience, scientifically substantiated by professional observation and organized experiment.

The essence of the experimental method is that the researcher does not wait for a combination of circumstances as a result of which the phenomenon of interest to him arises, but causes this phenomenon himself, creating the appropriate conditions. Then he purposefully varies these conditions in order to identify the patterns to which this phenomenon obeys.

Scientific knowledge is consciously systematized and accumulated.

Scientific psychology has extensive, varied and sometimes unique factual material, which is not available in its entirety to any representative of everyday psychology. This material is accumulated and comprehended, including in special branches of psychological science, such as developmental psychology, educational psychology, patho- and neuropsychology, labor psychology and engineering psychology, social psychology, zoopsychology, etc. In these areas, dealing with various stages and levels of mental development of animals and humans, with mental defects and diseases, with unusual working conditions - conditions of stress, information overload or, conversely, monotony and information hunger, etc. - the psychologist not only expands the range of his research tasks, but and encounters new and unexpected phenomena. General psychology develops through the development of special branches of psychology, and this is precisely the main Method (method with a capital M) of general psychology. Everyday psychology lacks such a method.

The position of a scientific psychologist in relation to everyday psychology

What should be the position of a scientific psychologist in relation to the bearers of everyday psychology? The development of science resembles moving through a complex labyrinth with many dead-end passages. To choose the right path, you need to have, as they often say, good intuition, and it arises only with close contact with life. We need to sensitively respond to the demands coming from life and strive to ensure that scientific developments enter into life, improve the psychological culture of people, and form a healthier and more positive everyday psychology. A scientific psychologist must at the same time be a good everyday psychologist, and to be more precise, a practical psychologist.

What is everyday psychology

Conventionally, every person is a psychologist. The quality of his life will depend on how competently and skillfully he is able to analyze the personalities of other people, influence them and build relationships with them.

Everyday psychology is represented by a set of different views, beliefs, convictions, proverbs, aphorisms, sayings and similar creations of the people. Thus, it stores the experience of generations.

Our idea of reality, present life, people arises thanks to our own experience and knowledge that someone shared with us. It is worth considering that our perception of reality cannot cover all its completeness and versatility. Our own views, beliefs and opinions limit us to certain limits. We look at the world around us as if through a small window, while everyday psychology gives us richer grounds for understanding. However, we should not forget the fact that everyday psychology is situational.

It is also necessary to take into account that the experience of each person is valuable precisely because it takes into account all the subtleties and nuances of the current situation for the microcosm of the one who then broadcasts his own impressions and conclusions. Therefore, it will be more useful.

The importance of everyday knowledge should also not be underestimated. They help us in everyday life to make the most optimal decisions for us, protect us from annoying mistakes and allow us to achieve maximum benefits. Therefore, everyday experience is invaluable to a person. If he does not listen to him, he will learn at the cost of his own losses and failures.

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 studies 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 from scientific experiments are 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.

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.

Everyday or pre-scientific psychology

If we talk about psychology as a form of everyday knowledge, then it appeared along with human society. Worldview in everyday or pre-scientific psychology grew out of the everyday practice and life experience of primitive man. By interacting with each other, people learned to distinguish mental qualities hidden in behavior. Behind the actions performed, the motives and characters of people were guessed.

Psychological knowledge arose in the process of understanding specific situations. The content of this knowledge was limited to the conclusions that could be drawn by analyzing simple events, and the reasons underlying them were easily traced. People recorded all the conclusions made in proverbs and sayings, for example, “repetition is the mother of learning,” “measure seven times, cut once,” “if you don’t know the ford, don’t go into the water,” etc.

What is certain is that pre-scientific psychology could not rise to a holistic assessment of existence and was limited only to a symbolic explanation of its individual fragments. The psychological knowledge of primitive people corresponded to a non-systematic, fragmented worldview that arose and existed in conditions of underdevelopment of rational methods of mastering reality. It is called topocentric because the content was limited to knowledge only of the place where the clan or tribe lived. And yet, covering all spheres of life of primitive man, this knowledge could be quite extensive.

Modern psychologists believe that the emergence of this knowledge was caused by such obvious manifestations of the human psyche as:

Dreams;
Mental states such as joy, fear, sadness, etc.;
Mental qualities - benevolence, hostility, cunning, all of them are manifested in the communication of people.

The phenomena that ancient people observed and, making attempts to explain them, led to the conclusion that the soul can leave the human body. At the moment of death, it leaves the body forever. This is how the most ancient and widespread doctrine of the transmigration of the soul from one body to another appeared in India.

This does not mean at all that ordinary forms of psychological knowledge, despite their simplicity, turned out to be false. Some of these ideas have retained their significance to this day and have entered the treasury of modern psychological science:

Everything psychological exists within man;
The soul remains to live forever and does not die with the person.

The immortality of the soul today appears differently compared to the ancient Egyptians, who believed that the soul of a deceased person turns into a bird and lives on his grave.

Eternity, the immortality of the soul, according to the ideas of modern man, is associated with good deeds performed by him during his life. Even Seraphim of Sarov (1754-1833) argued that if you save yourself, then thousands around you can be saved.

The idea that appeared to primitive man about the eternity of the soul, thus, continues to live in the public consciousness today, albeit in a slightly different form.

Psychology had to begin with the idea of the soul, believed the domestic psychologist L.S. Vygotsky. This idea became the first scientific hypothesis of ancient man and a huge achievement of thought.

The position of the psychologist in relation to everyday knowledge

Scientific research often resembles the movement of a blind kitten through a maze. Often a seemingly progressive line of thought turns out to be wrong. However, one’s own instincts and intuition often help one take those grandiose, revolutionary steps. You shouldn’t break away from current reality, getting bogged down in dry scientific facts and dogma.

Dear blog readers, what do you think about everyday psychology and how does it differ from scientific psychology? Leave feedback or comments below. This will be very useful for someone!