Psychology >>>> Subjective and objective opinion

Subjective and objective opinion.

In the age of the total flow of information, it is extremely important to receive this information from reliable sources in its original form, and not processed by many minds and sometimes distorted in its essence. How to distinguish between reliable information and unreliable, but very similar to the truth? First of all, it is necessary to distinguish between subjective opinion and objective opinion.

Living in a completely objectively existing world, described by the laws of physics, chemistry, mathematics, biology, astronomy and other sciences, people evaluate the world around them differently.

Each person, living life, forms his own idea of it on the basis of the rules laid down earlier in his personality (rules of behavior in society, rules of upbringing, rules of good taste) and on the basis of correctly or incorrectly formed abilities for a logical assessment of events falling into his field of view and objects.

In addition, a person's assessment of the surrounding world is strongly influenced by the sense organs, which are regulated by higher nervous activity, and with all the universality of physiology for all people, they still have differences: for each person - their own (color perception, tactile sensations, smells, sounds).

The emotional sphere of a person's life also brings a certain color to the overall assessment of the surrounding reality. In other words, each person sees and feels life in his own way and forms his own opinion about what is happening around him.

On the other hand, the species commonality of people makes them listen to general tendencies in opinion (public opinion), and the stereotyped thinking sometimes does not make it possible to deviate from the assessments of the circumstances of life and conclusions that have similarities, recognized by most people, based on the same stereotypical thinking. This is how a person's subjective opinion about the surrounding life, surrounding people, surrounding objects, surrounding events is formed.

It does not matter how and in what form the opinion is received: read, heard, seen in a photo or video, drawn, and so on. An opinion that is not supported by reliable facts will always be subjective.

But what is responsible for the credibility of an opinion?

In contrast to subjective opinion, there is an objective opinion, which is formed in a completely different way:

on the basis of their own experiments and experiences, supported by the laws of science, and not on the basis of their own feelings or data received from third parties;
based on expert assessments of people working according to certain standards and confirming the results of their activities with the help of standards, as well as having an unbiased opinion;
on the basis of scientific research and a correct (logical) assessment of the circumstances that led to a particular outcome;
on the basis of reconciling the reliability of the information received with its original source, and not with the final conclusions made on the basis of one subjective opinion or on the basis of the majority of subjective opinions, which transform the initial data, changing them as a result beyond recognition.

In other words, an objective opinion is an opinion obtained as a result of working with a primary source that generated a situation or created an object of interest for assessment.

But you should not rely on the objectivity of the opinion expressed by the majority of people, each of whom thinks and feels subjectively.

For this reason, when expressing an opinion, in other words: putting your thoughts into words or broadcasting them in any other way that people can understand, they clarify that:

give their own assessment of what is happening (I think ..., I am sure ..., I have an opinion or impression ... it seems to me that ..., in my opinion ... and so on),
give an assessment of what is happening from the words of other people or a specific person (in the opinion of such and such ..., after reading the information there ..., referring to the opinion of a group of people, when "everyone says that ...", quote the person literally with all punctuation marks and reference source and the like),
give an assessment based on the opinion of experts in this field, where there is an experimental and documented scientific opinion (scientists said that ..., discoveries have been made in science that ... something is peculiar to a person ... that is recorded and scientifically justified, and so on ).

This allows you to understand whether the opinion is formed by the person himself, or he conveys someone's subjective opinion or relies on objective scientific assessments.

Very often subjective opinion replaces objective information, which leads to the loss of the true value of the transmitted information. And the value of information depends on its reliability. Unreliable, distorted information has no practical usefulness, but it can be a misleading factor (for example, deliberately) and prompting to commit erroneous actions.