Everyday psychological knowledge. The difference between scientific knowledge and ordinary

In everyday life, we often use the words "psychology", "psychologist", "psychological", not always thinking about their meaning. “This person is a good psychologist,” we are talking about someone who knows how to establish and maintain contacts with people. “Such is his psychology,” we explain the interests, inclinations and actions of a person or characterize the features of his personality. Sometimes you can hear a phrase like “Well, he's crazy!”, Meaning the emotional characterization of another person as inferior or sick.

The psychological knowledge accumulated and used by a person in everyday life is called everyday psychology. They are usually specific and are formed in a person during his life as a result of observation, self-observation and reflection.

The authenticity of everyday psychology is checked on personal experience. A person applies this knowledge in interaction with other people. The need to coordinate their actions with the actions of another, to understand not only words, but also the context of the utterance, to “read” in the behavior and appearance of another his intentions and moods, makes it necessary to distinguish and fix the multifaceted manifestations of inner life.

A man is trying to explain this or that act of another by the characteristics of his inner world. To do this, compare the different actions of another person and draw conclusions about the typical properties of his soul. Thus, everyday psychology moves from observing and trying to explain a specific act to a general understanding of a person. The desire to better understand the inner world of people encourages them to compare their actions with each other and come to general conclusions. In essence, everyday psychology is a generalization of everyday psychological knowledge.

Of course, people differ in terms of psychological vigilance and worldly wisdom. Some are very insightful, but they can easily catch the mood, intentions, or character traits of a person, but with the expression of their eyes, face, gestures, posture, movements, habits. Others do not have such abilities, less sensitive to understanding the behavior, internal state of another person. Moreover, life experience is far from being such an important factor. It has been noted that there is no strong correlation between psychological insight and a person’s age: there are children who are well-versed in the psychological qualities of other people, and there are adults who have poor understanding of the internal conditions of people.

The source of everyday psychology is not only the person’s own experience, but also the people with whom he directly comes into contact. The content of everyday psychology embodied in folk rites, traditions, beliefs, proverbs and sayings, aphorisms of folk wisdom, fairy tales and songs. This knowledge is passed from mouth to mouth, recorded, reflect centuries-old worldly experience. Many proverbs and sayings have a direct or indirect psychological content: “There are devils in a quiet pool,” “Soft walking, hard sleep,” “A frightened crow and a bush are afraid”, “Praises, honor and glory and a fool loves”, “Seven times measure - cut once "," Repetition is the mother of learning. "

Rich psychological experience is accumulated in fairy tales. In many of them the same heroes act: Ivan the Fool, Vasilisa the Beautiful, Baba Yaga, Kashchei the Immortal - in fairy tales; Bear, Wolf, Fox, Hare - in animal tales. Fairy-tale characters often characterize certain psychological types and characters of people encountered in life.

Many everyday observations writers collect and reflect in works of art or in the genre of moral aphorisms. Widely known are collections of aphorisms, which at one time were composed by M. Montaigne, F. Larochefoucault, J. Labruyere.

Historical excursion

Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) - French writer, politician, philosopher. Among the most famous works is the book of the essay "Experiments" (1580-1588). He lived in difficult times - Bartholomew’s night, an epidemic of plague, religious wars. However, his philosophy is lively, real, clear and life-affirming.

Francois de Larochefoucauld (1613-1680) - French moral writer. In aphoristic form he outlined philosophical observations on the nature of human nature. Laroshfuko wanted to help a person "know himself" and considered the greatest feat of friendship to open a friend's eyes to his own shortcomings.

Jean de Labruyere (1645–1696) French moral writer. In 1688 the first edition of the book "Characters, or Mores of the Present Century" was published. During the author's lifetime, she was officially reprinted nine times (1889 - the first Russian translation).

Task for reflection

Explain in your own words what psychological wisdom is expressed by the following aphorisms of Montaigne, Larochefoucault, Labruyer. Give examples of everyday observations or situations in which these aphorisms are confirmed.

Cm.: Slobodchikov V.I., Isaev E.I. Fundamentals of psychological anthropology // Human psychology: Introduction to the psychology of subjectivity: textbook, manual for universities. M.: PI Cola-Press, 1995.S. 39.

Mathematics also proceeds from ideas about numbers, forms, quantitative ratios, which begin to form already in preschool age.

But the situation is different with psychology. Each of us has a stock of everyday psychological knowledge. There are even outstanding worldly psychologists. These, of course, are great writers, as well as some (although not all) representatives of professions that involve constant communication with people: teachers, doctors, clergy, etc. But, I repeat, an ordinary person has certain psychological knowledge. This can be judged by the fact that each person to some extent can understandanother to influence on his behavior to predict his actions, take into account his individual characteristics, to helphim, etc.

Let's think about the question: what is the difference between everyday psychological knowledge from scientific? Here are five of these differences.

First: everyday psychological knowledge, specific; they are confined to specific situations, specific people, specific tasks. They say that waiters and taxi drivers are also good psychologists. But in what sense, for what tasks? As we know, often - quite pragmatic. The child also solves specific pragmatic tasks by behaving in one way with his mother, in another with his father, and again in a completely different way with his grandmother. In each case, he knows exactly how to behave in order to achieve the desired goal. But it is unlikely that we can expect from him the same insight in relation to the stranger grandmother or mother. So, everyday psychological knowledge is characterized by concreteness, limited tasks, situations and persons to which they apply.

Scientific psychology, like any science, seeks to generalizations. For this she uses scientific concepts. Concept development is one of the most important functions of science. In scientific concepts, the most essential properties of objects and phenomena, general relationships and relationships are reflected. Scientific concepts are clearly defined, correlated with each other, linked into laws. For example, in physics, thanks to the introduction of the concept of force, I. Newton was able to describe with the help of three laws of mechanics thousands of different concrete cases of motion and mechanical interaction of bodies. The same thing happens in psychology. You can describe a person for a very long time, listing in everyday terms his qualities, character traits, actions, relationships with other people. Scientific psychology seeks and finds such generalizing concepts that not only economize descriptions, but also behind a conglomerate of particulars, which allow one to see general trends and patterns of personality development and its individual characteristics. One feature of scientific psychological concepts should be noted: they often coincide with everyday ones in their external form, that is, simply put, they are expressed in the same words. However, the internal content, the meanings of these words, as a rule, are different. Worldly terms are usually more vague and ambiguous.

Second the difference between everyday psychological knowledge is that they are intuitive character. This is due to a special way of obtaining them: they are acquired through practical tests and adjustments.

A similar method is especially clearly seen in children. I have already mentioned their good psychological intuition. And how is it achieved? Through daily and even hourly trials to which they subject adults and which the latter are not always aware of. And in the course of these tests, children discover from whom it is possible to “twist the ropes”, and from whom it is impossible. Teachers and trainers often find effective ways of education, training, training, following the same path: experimenting and vigilantly noting the slightest positive results, that is, in a sense, “going to the touch”. Often they turn to psychologists with a request to explain the psychological meaning of the techniques they have found.

In contrast, scientific psychological knowledge rational and quite conscious. The usual way is to put forward hypotheses verbally formulated and test the consequences that follow logically.

Thirdthe difference is ways knowledge transfer and even in most transmission options. In the field of practical psychology, this possibility is very limited. This directly follows from the two previous features of everyday psychological experience - its specific and intuitive nature. The profound psychologist F.M. Is life experience transmitted from the older generation to the younger? As a rule, with great difficulty and to a very small extent. The eternal problem of “fathers and children” consists precisely in the fact that children cannot and do not even want to adopt the experience of fathers. Every new generation, every young man has to “cones” himself to gain this experience.

At the same time, in science, knowledge is accumulated and transmitted with great, so to speak, efficiency. Someone has long compared the representatives of science with the pygmies who stand on the shoulders of the giants - outstanding scientists of the past. They may be much shorter, but they see further than the giants, because they stand on their shoulders. The accumulation and transfer of scientific knowledge is possible due to the fact that this knowledge crystallizes in concepts and laws. They are recorded in the scientific literature and transmitted using verbal means, i.e., speech and language, which, in fact, we began to do today.

Four the difference lies in the methods of obtaining knowledge in the fields of everyday and scientific psychology. In everyday psychology, we are forced to limit ourselves to observation and reflection. In scientific psychology, these methods are added experiment.

The essence of the experimental method is that the researcher does not wait for a set of circumstances, as a result of which a phenomenon of interest arises, but causes this phenomenon himself, creating the appropriate conditions. Then he purposefully varies these conditions in order to reveal the patterns to which this phenomenon obeys. With the introduction of the experimental method into psychology (the discovery of the first experimental laboratory at the end of the last century), psychology, as I already said, took shape in an independent science.

Finally, fifththe difference, and at the same time the advantage, of scientific psychology is that it has a vast, diverse and sometimes unique factual material, inaccessible in its entirety to any carrier of everyday psychology. This material is accumulated and comprehended, including in special branches of psychological science, such as developmental psychology, pedagogical 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 defects and diseases of the psyche, with unusual working conditions - stress conditions, information overloads, or, conversely, monotony and information hunger, etc., - The psychologist not only expands the scope of his research tasks, but also faces new unexpected phenomena. After all, consideration of the operation of any mechanism under conditions of development, breakdown, or functional overload from different angles highlights its structure and organization.

So, summarizing, we can say that the development of special branches of psychology is a Method (capitalized method) of general psychology. Of course, everyday psychology is deprived of this method.

Psychological phenomena, properties and conditions

The human psyche is complex and diverse in its manifestations. Usually there are three large groups of mental phenomena, namely:

1) mental processes, 2) mental states, 3) mental properties.

Mental processes - a dynamic reflection of reality in various forms of mental phenomena.

Mental process - this is the course of a psychic phenomenon that has a beginning, development and end, manifested in the form of a reaction. It should be borne in mind that the end of the mental process is closely related to the beginning of a new process. Hence the continuity of mental activity in a state of wakefulness.

Mental processes are caused by both external influences and irritations of the nervous system, coming from the internal environment of the body.

All mental processes are divided into cognitive - these include sensations and perceptions, perceptions and memory, thinking and imagination; emotional - active and passive experiences; strong-willed - decision, execution, volitional effort; etc.

Mental processes provide the formation of knowledge and the primary regulation of human behavior and activity.

In complex mental activity, various processes are connected and constitute a single stream of consciousness, providing an adequate reflection of reality and the implementation of various types of activity. Mental processes proceed with different speed and intensity, depending on the characteristics of external influences and personality conditions.

Under mental state one should understand the relatively stable level of mental activity that has been determined at this time, which manifests itself in an increased or decreased activity of the individual.

Every person experiences various mental states on a daily basis. In one mental state, mental or physical work is easy and productive, in another it is difficult and ineffective.

Mental states have a reflex nature: they arise under the influence of the situation, physiological factors, the course of work, time and verbal influences (praise, censure, etc.).

The most studied are: 1) a general mental state, for example, attention, manifested at the level of active concentration or distraction, 2) emotional states, or moods (cheerful, enthusiastic, sad, sad, angry, irritable, etc.). Interesting studies are available about a special, creative, state of personality, which is called inspiration.

The highest and stable regulators of mental activity are personality traits.

Under mental properties a person should understand sustainable education, providing a certain qualitatively-quantitative level of activity and behavior typical of a person.

Each mental property is formed gradually in the process of reflection and is fixed in practice. It, therefore, is the result of reflective and practical activity.

The personality properties are diverse, and they need to be classified in accordance with the grouping of mental processes on the basis of which they are formed. So, we can distinguish the properties of intellectual, or cognitive, volitional and emotional activity of a person. For example, we give some intellectual properties - observation, flexibility of mind; strong-willed - determination, perseverance; emotional - sensitivity, tenderness, passion, affectiveness, etc.

Mental properties do not exist together, they are synthesized and form complex structural formations of the personality, which include:

1) the life position of the individual (a system of needs, interests, beliefs that determines the selectivity and level of human activity); 2) temperament (a system of natural personality traits - mobility, balanced behavior and tone of activity, characterizing the dynamic side of behavior); 3) ability (a system of intellectual-volitional and emotional properties that determines the creative abilities of a person) and, finally, 4) character as a system of relations and ways of behavior.

In addition to the individual psychology of behavior, the circle of phenomena studied by psychology also includes relations between people in various human associations - large and small groups, collectives.

To summarize the above, we will present in the form of a diagram the main types of phenomena that are studied by modern psychology (Fig. 2, Table 1).

In fig. 2 the basic concepts through which the phenomena studied in psychology are defined are designated. Using these concepts, the names of twelve classes of phenomena studied in psychology are formulated. They are listed on the left side of the table. 1. In its right part are examples of specific concepts characterizing the corresponding phenomena 1.

Fig. 2. General concepts by which the phenomena studied in psychology are described

Everyday psychology

Psychological knowledge and their types

The first chapter describes the scope of psychological knowledge as a whole, shows their specificity in everyday, scientific, and practical psychology, as well as features of psychological knowledge contained in works of art and in various types of irrational psychology.

The world of psychological knowledge

Psychology is knowledge about the psyche as an inner world of people, about the psychological reasons that explain their behavior. Under mental phenomena understand the facts of internal subjective experience. Among these facts include a variety of manifestations of mental (mental) human life:

cognitive mental processes (sensation, perception, representation, imagination, thinking, speech, memorization, preservation, reproduction);
emotional phenomena (anger, contempt, disgust, fear, joy, sadness, surprise, anxiety, stress, sympathy, antipathy, love, friendship, hate);
Different aspects of the regulation of activities (needs and motivation, attention);
mental states (inspiration, stress, fatigue, adaptation);
mental properties of a person (temperament, character, abilities, self-awareness, a person’s self-image, his self-esteem and self-esteem, level of claims, a number of other personal characteristics);
mental phenomena that characterize a person’s interpersonal relationships (interpersonal perception, sympathy, antipathy, compatibility, conflicts, friendship, love, suggestibility, leadership, psychological climate).

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

everyday psychology
scientific psychology
practical psychology,
art,
irrational psychology.

Everyday psychology

The psychological knowledge accumulated and used by a person in everyday life is called “everyday psychology”. Οʜᴎ are usually specific and are formed in a person in the process of his life as a result of observation, self-observation and reflection.

The reliability of everyday psychology is tested on the personal experience and the experience of people with whom a person is in direct contact. This knowledge is passed from mouth to mouth͵ recorded, reflecting the centuries-old worldly experience. Rich psychological experience is 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 prominent people, by virtue of their wisdom and ability to generalize, are also of great value.

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

The features of this knowledge are concreteness and practicality. For everyday psychological knowledge is characterized by fragmentation. Such knowledge is intuitive.

Οʜᴎ characterized by accessibility and clarity. In this type of knowledge, the inaccuracy of the concepts used is manifested. Knowledge of everyday psychology is characterized by reliance on life experience and common sense.

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

Any science has as its basis some everyday, empirical experience of people. For example, physics relies on the knowledge we acquire in everyday life about the motion and fall of bodies, about friction and energy, about light, sound, heat, and much more. Mathematics also proceeds from ideas about numbers, forms, quantitative ratios, which begin to form already in preschool age.

But the situation is different with psychology. Each of us has a stock of everyday psychological knowledge. There are even outstanding worldly psychologists. These, of course, are great writers, as well as some (although not all) representatives of professions that involve constant communication with people: teachers, doctors, clergy, etc. But, I repeat, an ordinary person has certain psychological knowledge. This can be judged by the fact that each person to some extent can understand the other, influence his behavior, predict his actions, take into account his individual characteristics, help him, etc.

Let's think about the question: what is the difference between everyday psychological knowledge from scientific? I will name you five such differences.
First: everyday psychological knowledge, specific; they are confined to specific situations, specific people, specific tasks. They say that waiters and taxi drivers are also good psychologists.

But in what sense, for what tasks? As we know, often - quite pragmatic. The child also solves specific pragmatic tasks by behaving in one way with his mother, in another with his father, and again in a completely different way with his grandmother. In each case, he knows exactly how to behave in order to achieve the desired goal. But it is unlikely that we can expect from him the same insight in relation to the stranger grandmother or mother. So, everyday psychological knowledge is characterized by concreteness, limited tasks, situations and persons to which they apply.

Scientific psychology, like any science, seeks generalizations. To do this, she uses scientific concepts. Concept development is one of the most important functions of science. In scientific concepts, the most essential properties of objects and phenomena, general relationships and relationships are reflected. Scientific concepts are clearly defined, correlated with each other, linked into laws.

For example, in physics, thanks to the introduction of the concept of force, I. Newton was able to describe with the help of three laws of mechanics thousands of different concrete cases of motion and mechanical interaction of bodies. The same thing happens in psychology. You can describe a person for a very long time, listing in everyday terms his qualities, character traits, actions, relationships with other people.

Scientific psychology seeks and finds such generalizing concepts that not only economize descriptions, but also behind a conglomerate of particulars, allow one to see general trends and patterns of personality development and its individual characteristics. One feature of scientific psychological concepts should be noted: they often coincide with everyday ones in their external form, that is, simply put, they are expressed in the same words. However, the internal content, the meanings of these words, as a rule, are different. Worldly terms are usually more vague and ambiguous.

Once high school students were asked to answer a question in writing: what is a person? The answers were very different, and one student answered like this: "This is what should be checked according to the documents." I will not talk now about how the concept of "personality" is defined in scientific psychology - this is a difficult question, and we will specially deal with it later, at one of the last lectures. I can only say that this definition is very different from the one proposed by the mentioned student.

Second difference everyday psychological knowledge is that they are intuitive. This is due to a special way of obtaining them: they are acquired through practical tests and adjustments. A similar method is especially clearly seen in children. I have already mentioned their good psychological intuition. And how is it achieved? Through daily and even hourly trials to which they subject adults and which the latter are not always aware of. And during these tests, children discover from whom it is possible to "twist the rope", and from whom it is impossible.

Teachers and trainers often find effective ways of education, training, training, going the same way: experimenting and vigilantly noting the slightest positive results, that is, in a sense, "going to the touch." Often they turn to psychologists with a request to explain the psychological meaning of the techniques they have found.
In contrast, scientific psychological knowledge is rational and fully conscious. The usual way is to put forward hypotheses verbally formulated and test the consequences that follow logically.

Third difference consists in ways of transferring knowledge and even in the very possibility of transferring it. In the field of practical psychology, this possibility is very limited. This directly follows from the two previous features of everyday psychological experience - its specific and intuitive nature.

The profound psychologist F. M. Dostoevsky expressed his intuition in the works he wrote, we all read them - after that we became equally insightful psychologists?
Is life experience transmitted from the older generation to the younger? As a rule, with great difficulty and to a very small extent. The eternal problem of “fathers and children” consists precisely in the fact that children cannot and do not even want to adopt the experience of fathers. Each new generation, each young man has to "cones" himself to gain this experience.

Quadruple difference consists in methods of obtaining knowledge in the fields of worldly and scientific psychology. In everyday psychology, we are forced to limit ourselves to observation and reflection. In scientific psychology, an experiment is added to these methods. The essence of the experimental method is that the researcher does not wait for a set of circumstances, as a result of which a phenomenon of interest arises, but causes this phenomenon himself, creating the appropriate conditions.

Then he purposefully varies these conditions in order to reveal the patterns to which this phenomenon obeys. With the introduction of the experimental method into psychology (the discovery of the first experimental laboratory at the end of the last century), psychology, as I have already said, took shape in an independent science.

Finally, fifth difference and at the same time, the advantage of scientific psychology lies in the fact that it has vast, diverse, and sometimes unique, factual material that is not available in its entirety to any bearer of everyday psychology. This material is accumulated and comprehended, including in special branches of psychological science, such as developmental psychology, pedagogical 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 defects and diseases of the psyche, with unusual working conditions - stress conditions, information overloads, or, conversely, monotony and information hunger, etc., the psychologist does not only expands the scope of its research tasks, but also faces new unexpected phenomena. After all, consideration of the operation of any mechanism under conditions of development, breakdown, or functional overload from different angles highlights its structure and organization.

I will give a short example. Of course, you know that in Zagorsk we have a special boarding school for deaf-mute children. These are children who have no hearing, no vision, no vision and, of course, initially no speech. The main "channel" through which they can come into contact with the outside world is touch.

And through this extremely narrow channel, in conditions of special education, they begin to know the world, people and themselves! This process, especially at the beginning, is very slow, it is developed in time and can be seen in many details through a “temporary magnifying glass” (a term used to describe this phenomenon by famous Soviet scientists A. I. Meshcheryakov and E. V. Ilyenkov).

Obviously, in the case of the development of a normal healthy child, much goes too quickly, spontaneously and unnoticed. Thus, helping children under the cruel experiment that nature has set upon them, help organized by psychologists in conjunction with defectologists, turns simultaneously into the most important means of understanding the general psychological laws - the development of perception, thinking, personality.

So, summarizing, we can say that the development of special branches of psychology is a Method (capitalized method) of general psychology. Of course, everyday psychology is deprived of this method.

Now that we have seen a number of advantages of scientific psychology over everyday psychology, it is appropriate to raise the question: what position should scientific psychologists take in relation to the carriers of world psychology? Suppose you graduated from university, became educated psychologists. Imagine yourself in this state. Now imagine next to you some wise man, not necessarily living today, some ancient Greek philosopher, for example.

This sage is the bearer of centuries-old thoughts of people about the fate of mankind, about the nature of man, his problems, his happiness. You are the bearer of scientific experience, qualitatively different, as we have just seen. So what position should you take in relation to the knowledge and experience of the sage? This question is not idle, it will inevitably sooner or later arise before each of you: how should these two kinds of experiences relate in your head, in your soul, in your activity?

I would like to warn you about one erroneous position, which, however, is often occupied by psychologists with great scientific experience. "The problems of human life," they say, "no, I don’t deal with them. I do scientific psychology. I understand neurons, reflexes, mental processes, and not the" torment of creativity. "

Does this position have some basis? Now we can answer this question: yes, it does. These some reasons are that the mentioned scientific psychologist was forced to take a step into the world of abstract general concepts during his education, he was forced, along with scientific psychology, figuratively speaking, to drive life in vitro * "to tear apart" mental life "into parts" .

But these necessary actions made him too impressed. He forgot for what purpose these necessary steps were taken, which way was supposed to go further. He forgot or did not bother to realize that the great scientists - his predecessors introduced new concepts and theories, highlighting the essential aspects of real life, then suggesting to return to its analysis with new means.

The history of science, including psychology, knows many examples of how a scientist in the small and abstract saw the big and the vital. When I.V. Pavlov first registered the conditioned reflex Department of saliva in a dog, he said that through these drops we will finally penetrate the pangs of human consciousness. The outstanding Soviet psychologist L. S. Vygotsky saw in "curious" actions such as tying a knot in memory as ways to master a person's behavior.

You will not read about how to see the reflection of general principles in small facts and how to move from general principles to real life problems. You can develop these abilities in yourself, absorbing the best samples contained in the scientific literature. Only constant attention to such transitions, constant exercise in them can form your sense of "beating of life" in scientific studies. Well, for this, of course, it is absolutely necessary to possess everyday psychological knowledge, possibly more extensive and deeper.

Respect and attention to everyday experience, its knowledge will warn you from one more danger. The fact is that, as you know, in science one cannot answer one question without ten new ones arising. But new questions are different: "bad" and correct. And it's not just words. In science, of course, there have existed whole directions that have come to a standstill. However, before finally ceasing to exist, for some time they worked idly, answering the "bad" questions that raised dozens of other bad questions.

The development of science resembles a movement through a complex maze with many dead ends. To choose the right path, you need to have, as they often say, good intuition, and it arises only in close contact with life. Ultimately, my idea is simple: a scientific psychologist must be both a good everyday psychologist. Otherwise, he will not only be of little use to science, but will not find himself in his profession, simply put, he will be unhappy. I would really like to protect you from this fate.

One professor said that if his students learned one or two basic thoughts for the entire course, he would consider his task completed. My desire is less modest: I would like you to learn one thought already in this one lecture. This thought is as follows: the relations of scientific and everyday psychology are similar to the relations of Antei and the Earth; the first, touching the second, draws its strength from it.

So, scientific psychology, firstly, is based on everyday psychological experience; secondly, it extracts its tasks from it; finally, thirdly, at the last stage he checks.

excerpts from the book Hippenreiter Yu.B. "Introduction to General Psychology"

But the situation is different with psychology. Each of us has a stock of everyday psychological knowledge. There are even outstanding worldly psychologists. These, of course, are great writers, as well as some (although not all) representatives of professions that involve constant communication with people: teachers, doctors, clergy, etc. But, I repeat, an ordinary person has certain psychological knowledge. This can be judged by the fact that each person to some extent can understand the other, influence his behavior, predict his actions, take into account his individual characteristics, help him, etc.

Let's think about the question: what is the difference between everyday psychological knowledge from scientific? I will name you five such differences.

First: everyday psychological knowledge, specific; they are confined to specific situations, specific people, specific tasks. They say that waiters and taxi drivers are also good psychologists.

Once high school students were asked to answer a question in writing: what is a person? The answers turned out to be very different, and one student answered like this: "This is what should be checked according to the documents." I will not talk now about how the concept of “personality” is defined in scientific psychology - this is a difficult question, and we will deal with it specially later, in one of the last lectures. I can only say that this definition is very different from the one proposed by the mentioned student.

Second difference everyday psychological knowledge is that they are intuitive. This is due to a special way of obtaining them: they are acquired through practical tests and adjustments. A similar method is especially clearly seen in children. I have already mentioned their good psychological intuition. And how is it achieved? Through daily and even hourly trials to which they subject adults and which the latter are not always aware of. And in the course of these tests, children discover from whom it is possible to “twist the ropes”, and from whom it is impossible.

In contrast, scientific psychological knowledge is rational and fully conscious. The usual way is to put forward hypotheses verbally formulated and test the consequences that follow logically.

The profound psychologist F. M. Dostoevsky expressed his intuition in the works he wrote, we all read them - after that we became equally insightful psychologists?

Is life experience transmitted from the older generation to the younger? As a rule, with great difficulty and to a very small extent. The eternal problem of “fathers and children” consists precisely in the fact that children cannot and do not even want to adopt the experience of fathers. Every new generation, every young man has to “cones” himself to gain this experience.

And through this extremely narrow channel, in conditions of special education, they begin to know the world, people and themselves! This process, especially at the beginning, is very slow, it is deployed in time and can be seen in many details through a “temporary magnifier” (a term used to describe this phenomenon by famous Soviet scientists A. I. Meshcheryakov and E. V. Ilyenkov).

So, summarizing, we can say that the development of special branches of psychology is a Method (capitalized method) of general psychology. Of course, everyday psychology is deprived of this method.

I would like to warn you about one erroneous position, which, however, is often occupied by psychologists with great scientific experience. “The problems of human life,” they say, “no, I don’t deal with them. I do scientific psychology. I understand neurons, reflexes, mental processes, and not the "pangs of creativity."

Does this position have some basis? Now we can answer this question: yes, it does. These some reasons are that the mentioned scientific psychologist was forced to take a step into the world of abstract general concepts in the process of his education, he was forced, along with scientific psychology, figuratively speaking, to drive life in vitro * to “tear apart” spiritual life “to pieces” .

You will not read about how to see the reflection of general principles in small facts and how to move from general principles to real life problems. You can develop these abilities in yourself, absorbing the best samples contained in the scientific literature. Only constant attention to such transitions, constant exercise in them can form your sense of “beating of life” in scientific studies. Well, for this, of course, it is absolutely necessary to possess everyday psychological knowledge, possibly more extensive and deeper.

Respect and attention to everyday experience, its knowledge will warn you from one more danger. The fact is that, as you know, in science one cannot answer one question without ten new ones arising. But new questions are different: “bad” and right. And it's not just words. In science, of course, there have existed whole directions that have come to a standstill. However, before finally ceasing to exist, for some time they worked idly, answering the "bad" questions that raised dozens of other bad questions.

So, scientific psychology, firstly, is based on everyday psychological experience; secondly, it extracts its tasks from it; finally, thirdly, at the last stage he checks.

excerpts from the book Hippenreiter Yu.B. "Introduction to General Psychology"

Source:
Everyday psychology
Any science has as its basis some everyday, empirical experience of people. For example, physics relies on the knowledge we acquire in everyday life about the movement and fall of bodies, about
http://www.modo-novum.ru/psiholog/znanie5.htm

Everyday psychology

Everyday life of a person is permeated with many psychological connections and relationships that create the basis for the emergence of the so-called worldly psychology.

The basis of everyday psychology is joint activity, communication and real relationships between people. The source of everyday psychology is always those people with whom we are in direct contact.

Everyday psychology permeates all forms of art. For many people, paintings, literary and musical works, theatrical performances are an important, and sometimes the main way of knowing a person’s inner world.

Differences in everyday and scientific psychology.

In psychological works, there are a number of differences between scientific and everyday psychology. Here are the main ones.

1. Differences in the object of scientific and everyday psychology, i.e. differences in who and what becomes the source of psychological knowledge. The object of everyday psychology are specific people with whom we directly touch in everyday life.

The object of scientific psychology has historically changed and includes the diverse manifestations of the human psyche.

2. The difference in the level of generalization of knowledge. The knowledge of everyday psychology is confined to specific people and specific situations; they are poorly generalized and situational; often expressed figuratively and metaphorically. Knowledge of scientific psychology is distinguished by its generality, it fixes the facts and patterns of behavior, communication, interaction of people and their inner life. They are expressed in concepts that reflect the essential and permanent properties of the human psyche.

3. Differences in the methods of obtaining knowledge. Everyday knowledge in human psychology is acquired through direct observation of other people and self-observation. Scientific psychology uses a whole arsenal of methods to gain new knowledge: focused observation, experiment, tests, etc. The material obtained in scientific psychology is generalized, systematized, presented in logically consistent concepts and theories.

4. Differences in the ways and means of transferring knowledge of everyday and scientific psychology. In everyday psychology, the transfer of knowledge is carried out by transmitting from one person to another, more often from older to younger. Scientific and psychological knowledge is verified and ordered in scientific theories, described in scientific works. There are socially developed and fixed methods and forms of replenishment, preservation, reproduction and transfer of scientific and psychological knowledge: research institutes, educational institutions, scientific literature, etc.

A comparison of the possibilities of everyday and scientific psychology shows the significant advantages of the latter for human studies professions. But at the same time, neglect of everyday psychology is unacceptable. The generalized and scientifically expressed experience of the joint activity of people acquires its significance only when it is “passed through” internal experience, when it has become a personal asset.

Source:
Everyday psychology
5.3. Everyday and scientific psychology about man
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Petukhov V

SUBJECT AND OBJECTIVES OF PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE AND PRACTICE

Petukhov V.V., Stolin V.V. Psychology. Method. decree. M .: Publishing house of Moscow State University, 1989.S. 5-11, 18-21.

Key Terms: scientific psychology, everyday psychology, human psychology, psyche, consciousness, introspection method, behavior, objective method, activity, unity of consciousness and activity, branches of psychology, psychotherapy.

When characterizing any science, it is necessary to clarify its theoretical foundations, the subject of study, show research capabilities, practical applications of the results. We begin our acquaintance with psychological knowledge by analyzing the very term “psychology”. This term, formed from the Greek words psyche - soul, psyche and logos - knowledge, comprehension, study has several meanings.

So, in its first literal meaning, psychology is knowledge about the psyche, a science that studies it. The psyche is a property of highly organized living matter, a subjective reflection of the objective world, necessary for a person (or animal) to be active in him and to control his behavior. The field of psychological is wide and diverse: this is a reflection of the simplest animals of those individual environmental properties that are significant for the search for vital substances, and conscious representations of the complex relationships of the natural and social world in which a person lives and acts. Consciousness is usually called the highest form of the psyche, necessary for the organization of social and individual life of people, for their joint work.

In the second, most common sense, the word "psychology" is also referred to the psychic, "mental" life itself, thereby highlighting a special reality. If the properties of the psyche, consciousness, mental processes usually characterize a person in general, then the characteristics of psychology are a specific individual. Psychology is manifested as a set of typical for a person (or groups of people) ways of behavior, communication, knowledge of the world, beliefs and preferences, character traits. Thus, emphasizing the differences between people of one age or another, professional, gender, they say, for example, the psychology of a schoolboy, student, worker and scientist, female psychology, etc.

It is clear that the general task of psychology is the study of both the psyche of the subject and his psychology.

Having distinguished psychology as a special reality and as knowledge about it, we note that the concept of “psychologist” - the owner of this knowledge - is also ambiguous. Of course, first of all, the psychologist is a representative of science, a professional researcher of the laws of the psyche and consciousness, the characteristics of psychology and human behavior. But not all psychological knowledge is necessarily scientific. So, in everyday life, a psychologist is a person who “understands the soul,” who understands people, their actions, experiences. In this sense, in fact, each person is a psychologist, regardless of profession, although more often they are called true experts in human relations - prominent thinkers, writers, and teachers.

So, there are two different areas of psychological knowledge - scientific and everyday, everyday psychology. If scientific psychology arose relatively recently, then everyday psychological knowledge has always been included in various types of human practice. In order for the general characteristic of psychology as a special scientific discipline, it is convenient to compare it with everyday psychology, to show their differences and interconnections.

This topic addresses the following key issues:

1. Comparative characteristics of everyday and scientific psychological knowledge.

2. Specific features of psychology as a natural and human sciences.

3. Branches of psychology and its applied tasks.

4. Forms of cooperation of scientific and everyday psychology in real life and activity.

Comparison of everyday and scientific psychology: a general characteristic of psychology as a science

The fundamental condition for the existence of man is a certain conscious representation of the world around him and his place in it. The study of such ideas related to certain properties of the psyche, the ways people behave, is necessary for the proper organization of life in any society, although it is not an ordinary, special task in everyday practice. It is no accident that in ancient teachings about man his knowledge was combined with the development of cultural norms of social and personal life. Knowledge of specific psychological laws allowed people to understand each other, to control their own behavior.

In the history of culture - philosophical, moral and ethical texts, artistic creation - there are many wonderful examples of a detailed description of individual psychological characteristics, their subtle understanding and analysis.

Possible examples. 1. The empirical description of human individuality in the work of one of the thinkers of Ancient Greece Theophrastus, “Characters” (L., 1974), became classic for European culture: in the aggregate of everyday actions of people, their typical psychological portraits are determined, which are based on special character traits and communication with by other people.

2. A collection of everyday psychological observations in the Eastern classics - “Zazuan” (lit. “mixture”, “notes on different things”, see Zazzuan. Sayings of Chinese writers IX-XIX centuries. 2 ed. M., 1975): succinct and witty typical situations causing various emotional states are highlighted.

The interest in ancient descriptions of individual characters is understandable today, because their owners are well recognized in everyday life, despite the change in historical eras and living conditions. It is significant that everyday knowledge about the character (and temperament) was generalized in the form of a fairly rigorous system, the classifications of which were created by the “cooperation” - through the ages — by representatives of various specialties.

A typical example. The classification of temperaments, proposed back in Ancient Rome by the doctor Hippocrates, includes the following types: cheerful and sociable sanguine, pensive, slow phlegmatic, brave, quick-tempered choleric, sad melancholic. Initially, its basis was not psychological characteristics, but the predominance in the human body of one of four fluids: blood (sangwa), mucus (phlegm), bile and black bile (chole and melancholy). Subsequently, the types received a psychological interpretation thanks, in particular, to the work of Kant and Stendhal, the philosopher and fiction writer, who determined these convenient forms of describing individuals in different ways and on different empirical examples. It is interesting that this classification in our century received new justifications in the works of physiologists and psychologists (I.P. Pavlov, G. Aizenk).

Psychological knowledge is included in many areas of human practice - pedagogy, medicine, art. Nevertheless, these areas are rightly considered "outside" or "pre-scientific." The emergence of psychology as a special scientific discipline is associated with the formation of one's own conceptual apparatus and methodological procedures.

The main difference between scientific psychology and everyday psychology is that for the last field of research activity is almost infinite, then with the advent of scientific discipline there is a sharp narrowing, a restriction recorded in a special language. A scientific psychologist loses to study (not always irrevocably) whole layers of worldly experience, but the restrictions introduced create new advantages. So, in Wundt, the exact substantive definition of an object difficult to study is connected with the ability to operatively, using simple methodological procedures in a special experimental situation, select its elements, reproduce them under given conditions, measure (and, therefore, use quantitative methods to process the obtained data), to identify the relationships of these elements and, ultimately, to establish the patterns to which they obey.

With the restriction of the subject and the emergence of special methods for its research, the others are also connected, as are the significant differences between scientific and everyday psychologies: 1) where and how are psychological knowledge acquired 2) in what forms they are stored and 3) due to which they are transmitted, reproduced.

The experimental results also differ: scientists often have to abandon their own ordinary ideas, "not believing their eyes."

It should be noted that in the first scientific descriptions of psychic phenomena, researchers drew on their personal experience. However, the main value of these descriptions is not only their insight and detail, but that they turned out to be successful generalized schemes for setting research tasks.

A typical example. One of the first “textbooks of psychology” written by Wundt’s pupil, American psychologist and philosopher W. James (1842-1910) is widely presented material of everyday (including author) psychological experience, as well as general models of his scientific understanding, still relevant .

2. The vast experience of everyday psychology is preserved and exists in accordance with the types of practices from which he received and which he discovers. It can be ordered in traditions and ceremonies, folk wisdom, aphorisms, however, the grounds for such systematizations remain concrete, situational. If situational conclusions contradict one another (for example, there is hardly a proverb to which it is impossible to find another, the opposite in meaning), then this does not bother everyday wisdom, it does not need to strive for uniformity.

Scientific psychology systematizes knowledge in the form of logical consistent positions, axioms and hypotheses. Knowledge is directedly accumulated, serve as a basis for expanding and deepening the patterns found, and this is precisely due to the presence of a special subject language.

One should not understand the exact definition of the subject of scientific psychology as a limitation of its research capabilities. For example, scientific psychology is actively invading everyday experience, rightly claiming a new development of social factual material. It is logical, therefore, the constant requirements to accurately use the available conceptual apparatus (and only it), this protects the experience from "clogging" with worldly associations.

A typical example. The scientific rigor of the outstanding Russian physiologist and psychologist I.P. Pavlov, who forbade his employees to speak of experimental animals, is logical: the dog "thought, remembered, felt." A correct study of animal behavior involves interpreting the results only in terms of scientific theory, in this case, the reflex theory of higher nervous activity developed at the Pavlovsk school.

3. Ordinary psychological knowledge, it would seem, is easily accessible. The advice of experienced people, refined aphorisms of thinkers contain clots of worldly experience. However, it is not easy to take advantage of this experience: ordinary knowledge does not record the real conditions in which it was obtained, but these conditions are decisive when trying to use what is known by another person in a new situation. Therefore, so often the mistakes of fathers are repeated by their children. Own experience, commensurate with its capabilities and specific conditions, has to be experienced and accumulated again.

Another thing is the experience of scientific psychology. Although it is not as extensive as everyday, it contains information about the conditions necessary and sufficient for the reproduction of certain phenomena. The knowledge obtained is ordered in scientific theories and transmitted through the assimilation of generalized, logically related provisions, which serve as the basis for putting forward new hypotheses. Thanks to the development of an experimental approach, scientific experience contains facts inaccessible to everyday psychology.

Branches of psychology, forms of cooperation between scientific and everyday psychology

The connection of scientific psychology with practice is characterized by the accuracy of the formulation of applied problems and methods for their solution. As a rule, such tasks were generated by difficulties arising in non-psychological fields, and their elimination went beyond the competence of the respective specialists. We also note that applied industries could appear independently (including in time) from the formation of general psychological science.

The branches of psychology can be distinguished by several criteria. Firstly, by the fields of activity (in particular, professional), the needs of which are being served, that is, by what a person does: labor psychology, engineering, pedagogical, etc. Secondly, by that. who exactly performs this activity is its subject and at the same time the object of psychological analysis: a person of a certain age (child and age psychology, groups of people (social psychology), a representative of one or another nationality (ethnopsychology), a patient of a psychiatrist (pathopsychology), etc. e. Finally, the branches of psychology can be determined by specific scientific problems: the problem of the connection of mental disorders with brain lesions (neuropsychology), mental and physiological processes (psychophysiology).

In the real work of a psychologist, the scientific branches interact widely. For example, a production psychologist has knowledge of both engineering psychology (or labor psychology) and social. The psychological side of school work refers simultaneously to the fields of developmental, educational psychology. The development of practical applications of neuropsychology - first of all, the problems of rehabilitation of patients with brain lesions of a particular professional activity - requires knowledge of the psychology of work.

It is clear that a psychologist-practitioner is just an everyday psychologist. Of course, he does not always have ready-made samples of problem solving and must study, inventively use everyday experience, and yet for him this experience is conceptualized, and the tasks are quite clearly divided into solvable and unsolvable. It should be emphasized that the relative autonomy of applied industries from their general psychological foundations allows us to establish our own practical connections with other sciences - sociology, biology, physiology, and medicine.

Diverse forms of cooperation with scientific and everyday psychology, a typical example of which is a psychotherapeutic session. The therapist cannot create and transfer to the patient new ways of mastering his effective past, resolving internal conflicts. The patient builds these methods only himself, but the therapist helps, provokes their discovery and is present with him, like a doctor at the birth of a child. He clarifies the conditions of the discovery, tries to explain its laws. The results of such cooperation are, on the one hand, the full-fledged life of a healthy person, on the other, the development of the central section of psychological science - the study of personality.

Successful cases of self-therapy, independent understanding and overcoming of serious mental illnesses are possible, when scientific and everyday psychologists seem to be combined in one person.

Typical example. M.M. Zoshchenko in "A Tale of Reason" conducts a psychological analysis of the sources of his own personality crisis. He examines in detail the options for the hidden content of affective characters, dreams and conditions (the outstretched hand of a beggar, the roar of a tiger, aversion to food, etc.), then gradually determines (does not “remember”, namely, determines) the trauma suffered in early childhood, and, thanks to its conscious development, self-healing is achieved. The techniques he found and his experiences enrich the staff of psychotherapy.

Often, various therapeutic methods are based on everyday empirical rules for controlling behavior and only then get expressed in theoretical concepts.

The influence of scientific concepts and concepts on people's everyday ideas about their mental life is interesting. The means of such a presentation were, in particular, some concepts of psychoanalysis (affective “complex”, “archetype”, “internal censorship”, etc.), terms proposed to describe the emotional sphere (“stress”) of personal protective mechanisms (“compensation”, “Substitution”, “rationalization”, “crowding out”). Getting into colloquial speech, these terms receive contents that are not always related to their original meaning, but they turn out to be effective means of comprehending and even discovering (building) a person’s own individual means.

It should be noted that a scientific psychologist sometimes professionally needs to become an everyday psychologist, preparing for work with some methods of diagnosing a person, learning to correctly and fully interpret the results takes about two to three years. The practice of conducting psychological experiments is sometimes a subtle art requiring skill and intuition.

Finally, there are psychological tests where the line between scientific and everyday psychology is difficult to establish. So, the business communication manuals give specific practical advice on adequate social behavior and interaction with other people who make contacts successful. On the one hand, this is a kind of “textbooks” of everyday psychology, on the other hand, a systematic list of results that provides material for scientific research.

Thus, the position of psychological science is determined by its two multidirectional traditions. The first of them is the desire to become a natural science discipline, the second is to take the place of everyday psychology. Both of these goals are incomprehensible, but each of them gives rise to its specific tasks.

On the one hand, in comparison with everyday psychology, scientific represents a special discipline with a conceptual and methodological apparatus for studying the human mental life, the laws of its organization and development. The accuracy and regularity of fixing the experience gained, the possibility of rigorous testing and directed reproduction bring it closer to the natural sciences.

On the other hand, psychological science has features associated with the specifics of the object of study - its ability to reflect its states internally. Ordinary ideas of a person about himself, being the means and results of solving real life problems, can be stable and exist regardless of their scientific explanations. The humanitarian aspect of psychology consists not only in studying, but also in the practice of creating these ideas as ways of overcoming conflict situations, understanding and productive development of life experience.

Scientific and everyday psychology, while preserving fundamental differences, enter into the necessary mutual relations. Psychological science, the development of which, following L.S. Rubinshtein, can be represented in the form of a pyramid, is strong in its foundation. Everyday understanding of the diverse psychological reality does not disappear with the advent of special science, and is, on the contrary, a constant source of its life. At the same time, scientific achievements actively penetrate into everyday life, offering new, effective means of remembering its laws, educating and developing a person.

Scientific psychology as a whole is an attempt to realize, regularly comprehend, reproduce and improve the existing and constantly developing experience of the mental life of a modern person.