Psychologization

This chapter explores the complex, reciprocal relationship between psychological, scientific knowledge, and everyday knowledge, and develops a definition of the term psychologization. Sociological and historical works examine psychologizations either as local, context-specific phenomena or as global phenomena encompassing various areas of life. While some studies equate psychologization with neoliberal subjectification and view it critically, others attempt to analyze the mechanisms that have helped psychology to spread in everyday life. This chapter develops a cultural psychological research perspective for the investigation of psychologizations. The starting point is the assumption that psychologizations are diverse, context-specific phenomena. Specifically, neoliberal, emancipatory, and conservative forms of subjectification are distinguished which can be associated with psychologizations. It is argued that psychologizations should be studied more than before in different cultures and social milieus, as well as in relation to various popularized psychological traditions, in order to empirically capture this diversity.