In his research on popular representations of psychoanalysis in France, Serge Moscovici observed that different and even contradictory modes of thinking about the same issue often co-exist.
In contemporary societies people are "speaking" medical, psychological, technical, and political languages in their daily affairs.
By extending this phenomenon to the level of thought he suggests that "the dynamic co-existence—interference or specialization—of the distinct modalities of knowledge, corresponding to definite relations between man and his environment, determines a state of cognitive polyphasia".
[4] In their study on modernization processes in the educated middle-class of the city of Patna in India, Wolfgang Wagner, Gerard Duveen, Matthias Themel and Jyoti Verma showed a similar behaviour with regard to mental health.
Respondents in the study were more likely to mention traditional ideas about treatment in private and family contexts while displaying "modern" psychiatric reasoning in the public.