Talk:Popular psychology

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L. Ron Hubbard

L. Ron Hubbard is listed here as a proponent of popular psychology. I disagree with this characterization for the important reason that almost every other person on the list presented their claims as either supported by established psychology or at least not contradictory to established psychology. Hubbard was explicitly trying to establish his claims as supplanting all established theory on the workings of the mind. To me, this takes him out of the realm of popular psychology; however, I wanted to get opinions of others on the subject. Thoughts? -- Antaeus Feldspar 17:08, 10 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Removing for reasons stated above. -- Antaeus Feldspar 19:46, 10 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Antaeus, I disagree with you. My disagreement arises, I think, in a different viewpoint on the meaning of the word "psychology." Let me make an analogy to philosophy. If I had the philosophy that philosophy was just a bunch of crap, that would still be a philosophy. I wouldn't be able to escape philosophizing, however I tried. Similarly, if we say that "psychology" means "a theory on the mind" be it established or no, I think that we would have to agree that Hubbard's theories fall within the definition of "psychology" even if they are not within "established psychology." In sum, I think he should be included because he fulfills two criteria: (1) He has a theory on the mind and on human behavior, and (2)It is not recognized by the "established" psychology as beng legitimate. In other words, though his psychology may be unlike other pop psychology in its hostility to established psychology, it is still heterodox, and it would still be best described as a psychology. Amulekii 06:48, 4 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Examples of pop psychology theories and movements

I think we should offer a brief list of examples of pop psychology movements and theories. Anyone have an opinion? Mr Christopher 17:23, 20 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

==cites== it is kind of common knowledge that the codependency movement is grounded in the spiritualism of the 12 steps of alcoholics anonymous but I obviously owe the article some citations. I'll get those this week. Mr Christopher 21:11, 20 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Is NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) also a form of Pop Psychology? Or at least, it bases many of its claims on pop psychology, as far as I understood.

POV changes

Mr Christopher, introducing negative things about co-dependency and 12-step programs into multiple articles is pov-pushing. We need to think through these changes. And NPOV verifiable reliable sources are needed. FloNight ^talk 08:47, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hey guys here's the deal, my codependency addition lacks supporting evidence. I have a considerable amount of supporting data but I am cleaning up a few other articles I have contributed to right now and I will be out of town for a while, so finding the time to improve/contribute this article is something I may lack for a few weeks. Rather than leave my (unsupported) codependency entry to this article I have removed it for the time being. When I get some time I'll return and I'd like to discuss the inclusion of various pop psychology trends and movements in current and recent history(including codependency). This is a good article and I hope to make some worthwhile contributions to it Mr Christopher 16:22, 23 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Plea for improvement

My impression of this article is that it is written by a knowledgeable person or persons in a condescending manner. Apparently pop psychology is a set of ideas applied unprofessionally that amount to little more than fads.

First, remember that professional psychologists also have some susceptibility to the flavour of the decade, just as academics in any discipline are.

Second, the author is implying that the ideas and developments of psychology are of no use except when they are applied by professionals. Can application by professionals be the only benefit of this amazing discpline? I don't believe it. When a schoolboy tells a teacher that he is being abused at home, that kid is benefitting from the support and insights of psychology, which publicly exposed the horrors that can occur between close family members.

I challenge the author(s) to come up with some good examples of pop psychology, and to consider how those ideas, unacademic as they are, have helped or hindered the average person. The examples such as "sour grapes" are not pop psychology, they are naive psychology. Give us non-psych people some real examples.

And as for the neutrality issues, can't somebody make it an objective fact? -- as in, "this issue is in debate; some people see it *this* way, and others *that* way." Don't let petty POVs deprive us of an informative article on this important topic.

[Section above added by User:Davidmack at 14:33, 1 August 2006 ]

This additon to the talk page was made about five months ago and there has been no discussion. I will make some bold cuts and try restoring this article to a little bit of NPOV. I am taking this on as it was written by someone who did not think much of pop psychology and clearly did not know a lot about the organizations and people listed in the article. I will take a cut and join User:Davidmack in his plea that this page get cleaned up. Alex Jackl 03:55, 20 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I just did my best quick but nsufficient attempt to clean up this article. Someone please do some work with it. I got it a little closer to NPOV but it still reads like original research and needs a NPOV cut. Thanks! Alex Jackl 04:13, 20 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Much improved

SOme good work has been done on this article. Much improved. Alex Jackl 05:45, 14 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

WikiProject class rating

This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 04:22, 10 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Derogatory or Dismissive term?

The word "derogatory" is correctly used, but I think that "dismissive" more accurately captures how the term "pop psychology" is used. "Derogatory" seems too strong, as would "pejorative."Pgm8693 (talk) 22:44, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Critical information

Here's an interesting article titled Perils of pop philosophy by Julian Sanchez for anyone looking to extend the critical information in this article. I am a little busy to add the information myself; so leaving a quick note in the talk page. - Nearfar (talk) 01:33, 6 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]