Everyday life psychology: methodology, history and perspectives

Abstract

The current situation in the knowledge is characterized by the different expectations of global transformations, more gazing into modernity and the anticipation of approaches, some of which can be described as the everyday life psychology. In this area, the psychological science strives, on the one hand, to respond to new challenges in the course of rebuilding and reinventing research strategies, and on the other – to use tested methods of anthropological sciences in order to find a man lost for the study of certain mental processes, functions and leading activities. The everyday life psychology claims to historical human life and integrity. It studies the subjective representation of the world of its life in the present, so one way or the other cultural and historical epoch. This article discusses the everyday life psychology as a special research area, and its formation is considered in connection with the general evolution of the social sciences and humanities. The everyday life was initially the subject of multidisciplinary research. The ideology and methodology of the study of everyday life evolved here as a general scientific paradigm of socio-humanitarian knowledge, which showed its own peculiarities in different research areas. Thus, throughout the twentieth century arose the everyday life anthropology, the everyday life history, the everyday life sociology, the everyday life semiotics, etc. A similar trend of increasing interest in the everyday life took place in literary criticism and in art criticism that was partly due to the spirit of postmodernism that democratized knowledge and mixed different genres, high and low, sacred and profane. It is argued that the everyday life psychology has two analytical perspective: firstly, such approaches have already appeared in the history of psychology, but under other names; secondly, its modern updated meets not only the challenges of the present time, but also the general logic of the development of social sciences and humanities, humanizing society and revealing the significance of the everyday person.