An Investigation Into Psychology's Public Image And Expert Image

American psychologists have demonstrated concern abort their public image much since thefirst organizational meeting of the American Psychological Association (APA) in 1892.American psychologists have had many investigations to study the public image of psychology.They found that few people outside academic circles appeared to have had much understandingof psychology. The public perceived psychology labs as places "for mental healing, or telepathicmysteries, or spiritistic performances". The public image of psychology what they haveinvestigated also shows that along with time's going on knowledge of pubic about psychologyalso increases. But in general, public don't know what psychologists do and what intent impactsmost psychologists expect. The investigations appeared that the pubic didn't mention mostresearch fields of psychology. The general attitude to psychology of pubic is positive;Thepublic's understanding of psychology differs largely. But what we can affirm is that the public'sunderstanding of psychology's essence is defective. Furthermore, they mostly thought that thepresent image of psychology is far from being accepted. Psychology as a science and as anoccupation always suffers from its image.Researches of psychology in our country have had experienced several decadesof years, and have much progress. In our country people talk about psychology moreand more, and all people see the functions and values of psychology. What on earththe pubic think about psychology in our country? What their attitudes to psychologyare and how they evaluate psychology of our country? Whether we have the sameproblem of public image that American psychologists have found? And what theviewpoints and attitudes of the psychologists to psychology in our country are?It's a meta-theory problem that all psychology staffs must study and confront.In our country there are not any special and systematic investigations atpresent. We used questionnaire investigation and expert interviewing to learnabout the public image and expert image of our country, in order to acceleratethe progress of psychology study in our country. Namely, explore the followingquestions.1. In our country what understandings and attitudes of psychology does thepublic possess.2. What the comprehensions and evaluations to psychology of the psychologistsin our country are.The present study includes two investigations, seeing about the previous twoproblems separately. Based the investigation, we found that the public image andexpert image possess the characteristics as following:(1)Public image of psychologyâ‘ The pubic does not understand psychology. It mainly includes that the publiccan't understand the objects of psychology study;They equate psychology withconsultation and therapy.â‘¡The public's attitude to psychology is not positive enough. On one hand,the pubic does not pay attention to psychologist's analysis to some social events,and seldom refer to knowledge and information of psychology initiatively;On theother hand, their attitudes to consultation (or consultants) are open, otherwisetheir actions are conservative.â‘¢The public affirms the merits of psychology very much. Most people haveaffirmative attitudes to the value of psychology, believing that psychology canhave positive effects and make out its contributes.â‘£The public is not satisfied to the present situation of psychology. Theyalmost thought psychology has many problems such as being not prevalence, keepingfrom living, its influence being faint, and lagging behind, etc.(2)The expert image of psychologyâ‘ Their understanding to psychology is in-depth more and more.â‘¡They thought there are many problems in the present situation of psychologyin our country.â‘¢Most of them bear positive attitudes to the future of psychology.