Psychology is a subject that, by its very nature, can be sure to hold interest in at least some way to everybody. Psychology covers such a wide range of topics that it is inevitable that research conducted by many psychologists will have some application in the real world and to real people, whether it is to do with stress management, social situations, child-rearing or a whole host of other subjects.
Much of what is studied in Psychology can be used in a practical way as well as a means of furthering our understanding of the mind and how it works. It is for this reason that it could be argued that psychology ought to be written to cater for the ordinary people of the world as well as those trained in understanding it, such as ourselves. If what is learned through studying psychology is not written in a way that laymen can understand, much of it may as well be going to waste.
That said, there are many areas of psychology that if we were to try and make it understandable for the masses, would lose its credit as scientific research. For example, look at neuropsychology. We were told at the beginning of one of our neuropsych modules to look at some papers in this area at the start of the course to see how much of it we could understand – for me, as well as most others, the abstracts for the studies we looked at meant absolutely nothing. By the end of the course, things were much more understandable which goes to show that some things simply are not understandable by laypeople. Common knowledge on some areas of psychology is so sparse or misinformed that it would not be possible for scientists to write what they need to and make it understandable.
In conclusion, there is no reason for psychology research to be reported in anything but scientific language. Those who wish to learn of the results and implications from studies can do so through a number of means that are designed to cater to those without specialist/expert knowledge on the subject. There are so many sources for information written specifically to educate laypeople that there is no reason whatsoever to “dumb down” psychology generally – is that not the purpose of education?
joestatsblog 
You make some very good points here. I especially agree with the idea that psychology shouldnt be dumbed down fo the masses, as far as im concerned those with a true interest will make the effort to understand scientific jargon and stats. If something in psychology is interesting to someone they will read up on articles in journals for more detail, and the language will alter to suit the detail. So the public should expect a higher level of difficulty in understanding.
If i was aguing for the other side, id say that making psychology more accessible to the public would highlight important issues in our field and possibly lead to more interest (and research funding) from a wider audience.
Great blog overall, really enjoyed it š
I very much agree that psychology should be in no way “dumbed down” to accomodate everyone, but the information should be available to those who would like it. You mentioned not even remotely understanding the abstracts we were presented with for neuropsychology; perhaps this is something that could be altered within research reports? Let’s face it; if people with no prior psychology education want to know the significance of a study, they needn’t look past the abstract. I can’t imagine them attempting to decipher F statements and ANOVA’s in the results section for themselves. If more simplistic terms were used in the abstract, and maybe increase the measly word count limit, the findings of the study would be more readily available to more people. I don’t believe this dumbs down the scientific research we are aiming for; the rest of the report would be the same and set out just like the oh-so-wonderful APA guide tells us.
If psychology’s main aim is to be recognised as a science and benefit those within society, then more people need to know about it, and I think this could be an interesting and effective (?) way of doing so. Anyone disagree? Good blog, enjoyed reading it š
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There are many statements in your blog that I agree with. Psychology is a broad subject and if it was to be understandable for the laypeople why do we bother studying it?!. People are so complicated and attempting to understand them therefore can not simply be something that everybody will be able to comprehend. A lot of assumptions about how people work have been made. A popular statement is “Just Believe in Yourself, and You’ll Succeed!”. This is a generalization believed by many people and this characteristics are often displayed and portrayed in movies and applied in today’s Western society. But it has been assumed that there is a misunderstanding where correlation and causation have been confused. The suggestion arises if self-esteem was interpreted correctly.
http://www.cracked.com/article/85_6-bullshit-facts-about-psychology-that-everyone-believes/
This would be the concern of the scientist to discover significant meaning in how and why people experience self-esteem. It shows that science is not easily understood and needs experts to reveal findings to the public.
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You made some really good and interesting points. I agree that psychology in general should not be dumbed down so that everyone can understand it. There is already material out there for those who find psychology interesting but aren’t really up for learning properly and is more of just a hobby. Pop psychology such as http://www.psychologytoday.com and self help books and other such things give “tasters” of psychology in easily understandable terms. I believe that those who want to learn psychology will do their upmost to research and further understand the jargon and topics to be able to understand the level which is currently written. It is very unlikely that a random Joe Bloggs on the street is going to be interested on the N170 effect, more likely just things on conformity maybe and quite freudian things which is available already.
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