Abstract:

The term ‘psychological literacy’ relates to an individual’s ability to apply an understanding of psychology to their everyday personal, social and work lives. Around 10 years ago a number of key academic books and articles were published and psychological literacy became a recognised term in psychology education (e.g. Halpern, 2010; Cranney & Dunn, 2011). I propose in this presentation that an understanding of psychology is relevant to develop in students across all disciplines. According to Cranney (2019), psychology as a discipline has much to offer for the public good, and the need is great, as many of the problems in society today relate to human behavior (e.g. work stress, environmental damage, obesity, addiction to technologies).

Psychology educators can support the development of a moderate level of psychological literacy for all students through dissemination of articles and outreach activities in schools and universities. In this presentation, I will review examples of ways that psychological literacy can be developed, taught and assessed across all disciplines by drawing on a meta-analysis of publications from the last ten years. One of the main sources used to demonstrate examples is a compendium of case studies, covering many practical activities (Taylor & Hulme, 2015). For example, if students have opportunities to acquire and reflect on metacognitive capacities, they will be better able to connect psychological science to solutions in their personal and professional lives. Similarly, knowledge regarding the biological basis of stress can help students to understand why and how different techniques work to alleviate stress.

Further inter-disciplinary discussion and development is suggested among educators, to identify valid and reliable measurements to evaluate activities designed to develop psychological literacy across disciplines in schools and universities.

Keywords:

Psychological literacy, inter-disciplinary, training, meta-cognition, applied psychology, societal issues.