At the basis of any science there is some everyday, empirical experience of people, because each person has his own stock of vital psychological knowledge. There are also outstanding everyday psychologists - great writers, clergy, and they can also include doctors, teachers, i.e. representatives of those professions who constantly communicate with people. Ordinary people also have some psychological knowledge, judging by the fact that each person is to some extent able to understand another, influence his behavior, take into account individual characteristics and provide assistance.

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.

Differences between everyday and scientific psychology

The presence of everyday psychology raises the question of its relationship with scientific psychology. In addition to academic interest, this question also has practical meaning. Human life is permeated with psychological connections and relationships, so if everyday psychology exists in some specific forms, then people are its carriers. And if this is so, then it is quite possible to assume that by learning the psychological lessons of everyday life, people become or do not become psychologists.

One can name a number of differences between everyday psychological knowledge and scientific psychology:

• Knowledge of everyday psychology is specific, dedicated to a specific situation, specific people. For example, a child in a family, solving specific pragmatic problems, knows exactly how to behave with one or another parent in order to achieve the desired goal.
• Scientific psychology strives for generalizations, like any science. To achieve results, scientific concepts are used, and their development is the most important function of science. Scientific psychological concepts have one feature, which is their frequent coincidence with everyday concepts, i.e. expressed in the same words, but the internal content is still different;
• Everyday psychological knowledge is intuitive in nature, which depends on the method of obtaining it. The result is achieved mainly through practical trials. Children have well-developed psychological intuition, acquired by the tests to which they subject adults every day and hourly. As a result, it turns out that children know very well who they can “twist the ropes” from. Teachers and trainers can follow a similar path, finding effective ways of education and training;
• Scientific psychological knowledge is distinguished by its rationality and awareness. The scientific path consists of putting forward verbally formulated hypotheses and testing the consequences arising from them;
• Methods and possibilities for knowledge transfer. This possibility is limited in the field of practical psychology, which follows from their specific and intuitive nature of everyday psychological experience. The life experience of the older generation is passed on to the younger generation to a small extent and with great difficulty, so the problem of “fathers and sons” will be eternal. Each new generation, in order to gain this experience, is forced to “pull their weight” on their own;
• Scientific psychological knowledge is accumulated and transmitted with a high efficiency, because it is crystallized in concepts and laws and recorded in scientific literature. Their transmission occurs through verbal means - speech and language;
• The method of acquiring knowledge in everyday psychology is based on observation and reflection;
• An experiment is added to the scientific methods in psychology, and the researcher no longer waits for a coincidence of circumstances, but causes this phenomenon himself, creating the appropriate conditions for it. The introduction of the experimental method allowed psychology to take shape as an independent science;
• The advantage of scientific psychology is that it has diverse, extensive, and sometimes unique factual material, which cannot be said about the medium of everyday psychology.

Conclusion

Thus, the development of special branches of psychology is a method of general psychology; everyday psychology does not have such a method, but nevertheless, scientific and everyday psychology are not antagonists, cooperating, they complement each other.

A comparative analysis of everyday and scientific psychology in a condensed version is shown in the table below.

Everyday psychology

Psychological knowledge and its types

The first chapter characterizes the sphere of psychological knowledge as a whole, showing its specificity in everyday, scientific, practical psychology, as well as the features of psychological knowledge contained in works of art and in various types of irrational psychology.

World of psychological knowledge

Psychology is knowledge about the psyche as the inner world of people, about the psychological reasons that explain their behavior. Mental phenomena are understood as facts of internal subjective experience. These facts include various manifestations of a person’s mental (mental) life:

• cognitive mental processes (sensations, perception, representation, imagination, thinking, speech, memorization, preservation, reproduction);
• emotional phenomena (anger, contempt, disgust, fear, joy, sadness, surprise, anxiety, stress, sympathy, antipathy, love, friendship, hatred);
• Various aspects of activity regulation (needs and motivation, attention);
• mental states (inspiration, stress, fatigue, adaptation);
• mental properties of a person (temperament, character, abilities, self-awareness, a person’s ideas about himself, his self-esteem and self-respect, level of aspirations, a number of other personal characteristics);
• mental phenomena characterizing human interpersonal relationships (interpersonal perception, sympathy, antipathy, compatibility, conflicts, friendship, love, suggestibility, leadership, psychological climate).

Mental phenomena can be conscious or unconscious. Psychological knowledge as knowledge about the human mental world can have different sources. The five basic types of psychological knowledge differ in methods of obtaining, features of construction, methods of expression and justification, as well as criteria of truth:

1. everyday psychology,
2. scientific psychology,
3. practical psychology,
4. art,
5. irrational psychology.

Everyday psychology

Psychological knowledge accumulated and used by a person in everyday life is called “everyday psychology”. Οʜᴎ are usually specific and formed in a person during his life as a result of observations, introspection and reflection.

The reliability of everyday psychology is tested on personal experience and the experience of people with whom a person is in direct contact. This knowledge is passed on from mouth to mouth, written down, reflecting centuries of everyday experience. Rich psychological experience has been accumulated in fairy tales. Many everyday observations are collected by writers and reflected in works of art or in the genre of moral aphorisms. The everyday observations of outstanding people, due to their wisdom and ability to generalize, are also of great value.

The main criterion for the truth of knowledge of everyday psychology is its plausibility and obvious usefulness in everyday life situations.

The features of this knowledge are specificity and practicality. Everyday psychological knowledge is characterized by fragmentation. Such knowledge is intuitive.

Οʜᴎ are characterized by accessibility of presentation and clarity. Knowledge of this type reveals the inaccuracy of the concepts used. Knowledge of everyday psychology is characterized by reliance on life experience and common sense.

Everyday psychology - concept and types. Classification and features of the category “Everyday Psychology” 2017, 2018.

Psychology emerged as an independent science in the mid-19th century. Before the advent of scientific justifications for stress, nervous breakdowns, and outbursts of emotions, people had a preconceived interpretation of these phenomena. They became the basis for starting serious research. Everyday and scientific psychology are interconnected branches of one science.

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.

The main manifestations of wisdom include fairy tales, beliefs, legends, fables, proverbs, sayings, traditions, and rituals. People who have had a lot of life experiences often share them on social networks.

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.

Understanding the world through experiences and experiments

This branch of psychology includes materials that were obtained as a result of research and experiments. Referral Sources:

• practical experiments;
• scientific publications;
• individuals who can convey theoretical experience (teachers).

The basis for starting new research is everyday psychology. When scientists notice something unfamiliar in practice, they begin to look for a rationale, an explanation.

Main differences between psychological branches

Any aspiring psychologist should know the main differences between these industries. Many experienced researchers highlight their list of differences. Having analyzed their opinions, several different points can be identified:

1. Ways to obtain new data. To scientifically explain facts, experts use various tools. Everyday experience is gained only through one’s own observation.
2. Object of study. The scientific direction studies psychological processes in general, the everyday one - exclusively for one individual.
3. Options for transmitting information. To convey wisdom gained from personal experience, a conversational method or through a creative approach is used. To obtain scientific data, it is necessary to study the relevant documents, textbooks, and articles.
4. Language features. Wisdom is conveyed through simple expressions and words. When describing official materials and documented information, certain terms and concepts are used.
5. Options for explaining events. The everyday direction implies a lack of point-by-point explanations regarding individual situations. The scientific approach describes what senses are involved in different processes, what hormones play a role, what mental properties are involved.
6. Scientific psychology generalizes data and applies it to individuals or groups of people. Wisdoms are the experience of one person.

Are there similarities between psychological trends and what do they consist of?

The main similarity of the directions is the opportunity to help people interact with each other. After combining, the practical part of psychological science is obtained. It manifests itself in several ways:

• the study of interactions between two people or two groups;
• identification of unique character traits and behavior options of an individual;
• study of the influence of the individual on society and vice versa.

These two directions complement each other.

Subjective and objective observations

These two concepts perfectly characterize two psychological directions. For example, everyday information relates only to one person, situations from his life. If he has a lot of experience in communicating with a certain group of individuals (family, friends), then when he leaves this circle, the knowledge may become useless.

The scientific direction summarizes the data obtained, identifies individual grounds, and creates a clear scheme to explain to society.

Intuitive feelings and proven facts

The development of wisdom is built on experienced events, moments, and observation of acquaintances. If an individual sees how someone else acts in a given situation, he can draw appropriate conclusions and act further on a subconscious level. However, it is quite difficult to explain to others how he acts in such situations.

Scientific information is described simply, dryly, without water. The data is clear to anyone, there is a verbatim explanation of complex terms. The information covers only the topic for which an answer is needed.

Far-fetched and thought-out facts

Human wisdom is often devoid of evidence. Therefore, the cultural aspect of scientific knowledge is higher.

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:

1. A curse placed on a family is removed by begging forgiveness from the dead.
2. After the loss of a loved one, a relative will certainly suffer severe psychological trauma.
3. Childhood psychotraumas can interfere with normal activities and development.
4. Without maternal love, a full-fledged personality will not be formed.

Irresponsibility and responsibility in directions

Everyday psychology most often manifests itself in irresponsibility and aggressiveness. The most striking manifestations of such beliefs are the following statements:

1. Diseases arise from nerves.
2. Everyone thinks only about themselves.
3. There is no point in attending trainings - they are useless.
4. Monday is a hard day.
5. How you celebrate the New Year is how you will spend the year.
6. There is never a good morning.

Psychologists who study life situations do not exclude the veracity of such judgments. They take moments from life and try to give people more knowledge to improve their cultural level.

Everyday and scientific psychology are two directions that complement each other. People gain life experience from incidents and consolidate it by reading books, articles, publications, and documents. Researchers are constantly collecting new information to summarize, systematize, and convey it to the masses.

Useful video

The video covers in detail the topic of scientific and everyday psychosomatics of pregnant women.

Psychology as a certain form of everyday knowledge arose a very long time ago, almost with the advent of human society. The accumulation of everyday experience later served as the basis for psychology oriented toward scientific thinking. Everyday and scientific psychology are distinguished by their versatile approach, cultural level and degree of organization.

Everyday knowledge and all accumulated experience are the results of spontaneous observations, while scientific knowledge is built on the conclusions of professionals made during organized experiments.

The real relationship between everyday and scientific psychology

The concept of “everyday psychology” includes the acquisition of psychological knowledge through introspection, viewing various life situations or during interaction with surrounding people or the environment. In pre-scientific psychology, a person’s perception of the world was determined by his daily activities and accumulation of experience. One could guess about the mental characteristics and characters of other people by their behavior and actions.

The contrast between everyday and scientific psychology in obtaining psychological knowledge openly demonstrates the main differences between the disciplines. In everyday psychology, this was associated with reflection on specific events. The conclusions could be drawn quite simple, since finding the cause of what was happening did not seem so difficult. They are reflected in popular proverbs. For example: “If you don’t know the ford, don’t go into the water,” “Another person’s soul is in the dark,” or “A smart person doesn’t say everything he knows, and a stupid person doesn’t know everything he says.”

Everyday psychology was limited to explanations of individual fragments of existence, therefore there was no systematicity in people’s psychological knowledge. Their worldview was significantly influenced by the lack of appropriate ways to study the surrounding reality. But even despite the topocentric content of knowledge tied to the place where the human community lived - a clan or tribe, they could be very relevant and significant.

Their origin, according to modern psychologists, was due to the following manifestations of the psyche:

• emotional states - affect, fear, frustration;
• dreams;
• character traits - hard work, independence, truthfulness or greed, selfishness.

The idea of ​​the soul, which arose among primitive people, is still relevant and alive in the public consciousness. This is the first scientific hypothesis and a huge achievement of thought.

Unlike everyday scientific psychology, scientific psychology is most focused on studying and understanding the general laws of life, takes into account facts obtained experimentally, and develops methods for systematic observations, modeling, and document analysis. Scientific psychology has ways of measuring mental phenomena, the results of which can be verified.

Everyday and scientific psychology: comparison of characteristics

Human life consists of various interconnections and relationships, with mental ones making up the clear majority. It can be assumed that people are carriers of everyday psychology. They gain constant experience from various situations; they know how or not how to use its capabilities. The relationship between everyday and scientific psychology is of genuine interest to many modern people who are interested in the characteristics of individual behavior in various societies. Everyday psychology has a number of differences from scientific psychology.

Among them, for example, are the following:

In everyday psychology, a transition is made from observation and explanation of specific actions to a generalized understanding of human behavior and thoughts. Scientific psychology is characterized by a rational approach, the use of abstract scientific categories, and high intellectualism.

Everyday and scientific psychology cannot be opposed to each other.

Modern psychologists draw their ideas from everyday psychology, recognized as the initial stage of the study of psychological phenomena and processes, as well as rational knowledge of the world.

Video lecture on everyday and scientific psychology