Word.ws English Dictionary

armchair psychology

armchair psychology noun: the practice of giving psychological advice, or speculating about a person's mental health, without any qualification to do so.

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.
    • "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 7
    • 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...1980, Kwasi Wiredu, Philosophy and an African Culture, Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 164

Examples of armchair psychology in a sentence

  • This might sound like armchair psychology, but the matter is somewhat more complicated than that.1980, Kwasi Wiredu, Philosophy and an African Culture, Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 164:
  • 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 35:

Origin of armchair psychology

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

Questions about armchair psychology

What does armchair psychology mean?
Armchair psychology means the practice of giving psychological advice, or speculating about a person's mental health, without any qualification to do so.
How do you use armchair psychology in a sentence?
This might sound like armchair psychology, but the matter is somewhat more complicated than that.
What part of speech is armchair psychology?
Armchair psychology is a noun.

Words near armchair psychology in the dictionary

  1. armchair criticisms
  2. armchair critics
  3. armchair linguistics
  4. armchair psychologist
  5. armchair psychologists
  6. armchair psychology
  7. armchair quarterback
  8. armchair quarterbacks
  9. armchair tick
  10. armchair ticks
  11. armchair traveller

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: armchair psychology (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “armchair psychology.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/armchair_psychology. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.