armchair psychology

English

Etymology

From armchair (unqualified or uninformed yet giving advice) +‎ psychology; or a back-formation from armchair psychologist.

Noun

armchair psychology (uncountable)

1. (informal, uncommon) The practice of giving psychological advice, or speculating about a person's mental health, without any qualification to do so.
   • 1937, William Clark Trow, Introduction to Educational Psychology, Houghton Mifflin, →ISBN, page 7:

     "Armchair psychology" is the somewhat derisive term which is sometimes applied to speculations concerning the nature of the mind based on one's own experience and introspections and accepted as true for mankind in general.

   • 1980, Kwasi Wiredu, Philosophy and an African Culture, Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 164:

     This might sound like armchair psychology, but the matter is somewhat more complicated than that. Psychology studies the facts of observable mental life or, if you like, behaviour. Transcendental epistemology, on the other hand, studies what is presupposed of the human mind by the possibility of the synthetic a priori mode of knowing. [author's italics]

   • 2022, Noël Carroll, Classics in Western Philosophy of Art: Major Themes and Arguments, Hackett Publishing Company, →ISBN, page 35:

     Of course, needless to say, Plato's own claims are based completely on armchair psychology, not empirical psychology.