Should psychology be written for the layman?
Posted on: February 19, 2012
Psychology is a diverse and fascinating topic that can not only be of interest to scientists but to people who have no specific knowledge of the subject. Psychological research can have real world applications and so it can be argued that it should be written for the layman as well as professionals in the field.
When there has been a major advance into medical research it is written up and reported in a way that other medical associates can understand. They do not simplify medical terminology such as “p53-negative tumor, derived cell lines, wild-type p53, extensive apoptosis”. If people who had no knowledge in the medical field wanted to understand this then they would be required to learn and further their knowledge – isn’t this what education is for? Not everyone knows everything, but if you want to know more than the average Joe than you need to research and learn it. Medical terminology is around for a reason – specific terms are needed to differentiate from the usual everyday lexis. Psychology, like medicine, is a professional field and therefore shouldn’t research also be presented in this specialized way?
Yes psychological research has real world applications…after all the field of psychology is a way of exploring human behavior and feelings, that is real world enough right? And of course every researcher strives for external validity; they want to be able to apply their findings to the population. Therefore surely the research should be written for the layman as it can be helpful to them? Developmental research for example can be helpful for mothers who want to identify behaviors in their children.
However, psychology has proved to be controversial for many years…many do not think that it is a field that can be classed as remotely scientific. So if researchers already have such a tough time convincing other professional fields that it is scientific is it such a good idea to write it in layman terms? Yes doctors have extremely important roles in society but it cannot be said that psychologists do not. If a man comes back for war with severe injuries a doctor would give him treatment to help him get better, however a psychologist would also counsel the patient so that he is able to come to terms with not only the impact his injuries had on him but the impact of war itself. Surely these two roles have equal importance to this man’s life.
In conclusion psychology should not be written in layman terms in journals and publications of research…it should be kept scientific in terms of literature. If people want to be able to understand psychological terms they should look into it and further their knowledge like you would have to for any other specialized subject. Not all of psychological literature will be hard to understand, just certain terms may be ambiguous to the everyday reader and surely if you are interested enough to begin reading the literature you should make the time to understand it…even if these means doing a bit of extra research!
3 Responses to "Should psychology be written for the layman?"
February 22, 2012 at 6:29 pm
I agree with you completely. Like you said with your medical example, if you don’t understand the complex jargon in another science, you simply have to do more research around the area. Psychology is a professional subject and therefore should remain professional by being written in a scientific manner, which of course will involve it’s own lexis. But there are plenty of layman psychology books already out there, and even online. For the average person, these are what they would usually want to read and not psychology journals – if they were that interested in research findings I’m sure they would take the time to research what a word or a theory meant. I feel that there’s a fine line between writing in layman terms and over simplifying something that definitely should not be simplified (memory and the brain, for example), and agree that psychological research and literature should remain scientific.
prpnw 
February 22, 2012 at 2:12 pm
You rasie some interesting points in this blog. Thrass and Sanford (2000) state that when writing up a piece of physcholoical research there are three points to take into consideration: describing, explaining and understanding concepts from a standpoint of emipircal investiagtion. Theobald (2011) claims that scientific theories need to be validated by empirical evidence, so if psychology needs to write it’s literature from an empirical standpoint then surely it is considered a science and therefore should be written scientifically? Thrass and Sanford also claim that when it comes to writing physchologically we have out own rules and exceptions for writing. These principles include writing plainly, conciseness and clarity of language, evidence based reasoning and use of APA format. By this they mean that psychological literature is written in a formalscientific manner that is plain and straightforward. That the literature should be able to make connections between empirical evidence, theories and conclusions. The literature needs to base it’s arguments on empirical evidence and that the paper is formatted accordingly to the APA. With all this in mind it would seem that psychologists own set of rules used for writing up research reports follows a scientfic manner. So to conclude I aggree with you 100% on this, psychology should be written scientifically and if people wish to understand what the paper means then they should read further into the subject so that they understand.