Meanings
- informaluncommonuncountableThe practice of giving psychological advice, or speculating about a person's mental health, without any qualification to do so.
Of course, needless to say, Plato's own claims are based completely on armchair psychology, not empirical psychology.
2022, Noël Carroll, Classics in Western Philosophy of Art: Major Themes and Arguments, Hackett Publishing Company, →ISBN, page 352 more examples
"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.
1937, William Clark Trow, Introduction to Educational Psychology, Houghton Mifflin, →ISBN, page 7This 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]
1980, Kwasi Wiredu, Philosophy and an African Culture, Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 164
Origin
From armchair (unqualified or uninformed yet giving advice) + psychology; or a back-formation from armchair psychologist.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
armchair psychology. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/armchair%20psychology
“armchair psychology.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/armchair%20psychology. Accessed November 5, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “armchair psychology,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/armchair%20psychology.
Source: armchair psychology on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.