Psychology of Everyday Life: Re-Approaching Social Science

Abstract

The general line of critiques of academic psychology focuses the lack of relevance of theory for the analysis of everyday life. Especially, Psychology contributes little to the analysis of the challenges that derive from individualization, pluralization and differentiation of the social world. However, the subject is affected by these tendencies of modernity in its daily life. Due to the unbroken authority of the nomologic-experimental paradigm in psychology, the daily life, challenges and sufferings in modern society are not a legitimate object of research. To bring the subjective side of social changes into the vision of psychological theory, the concept of »psychological situation« introduced by Kurt Lewin is theoretically unfolded in this article regarding three general dimensions: In the first place, the life world must become the starting point for the analysis of the psychological situation as a realm of experience, which is predetermined by the structure of opportunities and constraints of daily life. Secondly, the comprehension of the subjective sense becomes important to understand the way in which the individual reflects its world- and self-relation. Thirdly, the needs and interests, which are on stake in the daily life, must be analyzed under the concept of action. Finally, a psychology of everyday life, that is an integrated part of social science, is concretized by the proposed subject-integration-model. The individual challenged by the differentiation of life forms has to accomplish its own »individual integration« into society by gaining practical influence on the social situation.