Folk psychology, or commonsense psychology, is the natural capacity to explain and predict the behavior and mental states of other people. Processes and items encountered in daily life such as pain, pleasure, excitement and anxiety use common linguistic terms as opposed to technical or scientific jargon.
Folk psychology and analogy are linked. The easiest way to describe something is through references to familiar items. In this way, the union between analogy and folk psychology was inevitable.
Traditionally, the study of folk psychology has focused on how everyday people—those without formal training in the various academic fields of science—go about attributing mental states. This domain has primarily been centred on intentional states reflective of an individual's beliefs and desires; each described in terms of everyday language and concepts such as “beliefs”, "desires”, “fear”, and “hope".
Read more about Folk Psychology: Contention
Famous quotes containing the words folk and/or psychology:
“Babies are beautiful, wonderful, exciting, enchanting, extraordinary little creatures—who grow up into ordinary folk like us.”
—Doris Dyson. quoted in What Is a Baby?, By Richard and Helen Exley.
“Idleness is the beginning of all psychology. What? Could it be that psychology is—a vice?”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)