{billy stanton}

Throughout our existence, people have always examined others' behaviors. We typically do this for many reasons, such as wanting to predict others, or understanding how to behave around them in ways that benefit them (for example, in teaching). But instead of relying solely upon observation, what if we could turn to something already proven, something that could tell us what we need to know about others? Both common sense, created by Thomas Paine, and Psychology are vastly differing in their offerings, yet may provide the answers that we seek. While common sense may provide a quick, generalized answer to us through the form of inductive reasonings, it is psychology which tends to go further in depth, exploring more specific, yet validated answers through the use of deductive reasonings. Psychology is more than just an idea, it is taking an idea and proving it.

Science, common sense, and psychology all aim to answer questions we encounter in society by providing explanations which may be based on factual evidence, often drawn from experiments conducted by individuals or groups. So is psychology the same as common sense? Many may believe that psychology is like common sense, in that the way we behave should be common knowledge already and is “expected”. While in some cases this may be true, it generally is not. In psychology, it is extremely important that we prove our ideas via scientific experiments and deductive or inductive reasoning, to ensure that they are accurately represented and reported – rather than just making a general assumption about a way someone may act, feel, or exhibit like common sense does.

For non-science majors, it can be easy to view psychology as simply common sense. Personally, as a science major myself, I believe that explaining psychology as a reflection of common sense is far from the truth. Calling psychology “common sense” is simply a common misconception, as many things that we may believe are common sense, may only be applicable to a certain group of people. It may not even be applicable to any people.. Or even be true for that matter. To find this out, we must complete studies, to scientifically prove these ideas. In my opinion, it is extremely ignorant to generalize human behavior to an idea that has not been scientifically proven, and we must dig deeper to find accurate explanations, rather than a common idea.

Throughout time, common sense has guided me both guided me and misled me. When I was a kid, I had asked my mom to marry her. I would even go as far as to ask my dad if I could marry her when I grow up. I felt like she was perfect, as a mother should be. Growing up, I consistently wondered why I felt that way about my mother in the past, and what caused this behavior in my mind. I figured it would just be because my mom treated me nicely, and was always around for me; otherwise attributing it to simply just common sense. However, once I took a psychology class in high school, I learned that my attribution to common sense vastly differed from the actual psychological explanation, known as the Oedipus Complex, an idea explained by psychoanalytic theory, suggesting that a child may have desire for sexual involvement with the opposite sex parent, more particularly a boy's attention to his mother. This is an example from my own life where psychology provided a deeper, more accurate explanation than common sense could offer.

While psychology often provides more in-depth explanations than common sense, I believe combining the two empowers us more than relying on one alone. For example, you may start off by forming a hypothesis with an idea that is explained by common sense that is attributed to either behavior and mind, and then further researching more specific behaviors of it scientifically. This is essentially a fancy way of describing a psychological experiment, which will allow you a better understanding of a topic (now our study) that you may be curious about. Even if you decide not to combine psychology and common sense, it is still valuable to get a more in depth explanation through the usage of psychology, rather than a more generalized idea, or intuition, which may be provided by common sense ideologies.

Psychology and common sense both offer valuable insights into human behavior. Common sense, created by Thomas Paine, provides generalized answers based on everyday observations, while psychology utilizes scientific methodology and empirical studies to explore behavior more in depth. Though some may mistakenly visualize psychology as common sense, psychology relies on evidence and experimentation to uncover deeper truths that common sense will not provide. By combining the two, we can use common sense to form hypotheses and psychology to test and validate them, allowing us a more comprehensive understanding of human behavior. Ultimately, my comparison of common sense and psychology has changed how I perceive human behavior, leading to more conservative responses until I’m completely sure of how others around me operate.