Should psychology be written for the layman or should science be exclusively for scientists?

As both psychology and science progresses as a whole, more and more terms are coined everyday. This ever increasing classification creates the nonsensical universe of jargon that we all know and love today. Sure, these terms all have their uses within the relevant context, but without a background knowledge into that specific field, often these terms might as well be wrote in another language. I for one have read several articles with terms and jargon I have never remotely heard of before, nor can I even begin to comprehend. But to what extent should academics compensate their findings to those without a complete understanding in their field?

All psychological terms, or even words in general, have been devised and given meaning at one point or another. As the world and society have progressed however, these words and their meanings have become ever more complex. Think back to when you were a child studying English in primary school. Teachers used to assess your reading ages by giving you a large list of words and asking you to read them out. The further you got down the list, the more difficult the words became to say. Now although you were not asked what the meaning of these words were, there was still an increase in the technicality of the task at hand, and a level of expertise (in the case saying words) was needed. This is the same case with psychology. We have all come across basic concepts such as Freud’s psychoanalytical theory, and behaviourism as a whole, same is the case with debates such as nature vs nurture. These are simply the words at the start of the list, and just like the list, a certain level of understanding and expertise is needed.

A perfect example of this leap of understanding was presented to my while my brother stayed for the weekend. I shown him an article with the title “NMDA processes mediate anterograde amnesia of contextual fear conditioning induced by hippocampal damage: Immunization against amnesia by context pre-exposure.” His response? “What the hell?” He had no idea at all what the title even meant, let alone any of the implications involved with this study. But let’s be honest for a second, does he actually care? Sure, if he had some genuine interest in amnesia caused to the hippocampus then yes maybe he would, but unless he had some background knowledge in this area then the likelihood of him caring that he can’t understand the research is very low.

This is definitely a point that needs to be considered within this argument. There may be too much jargon and terms within psychology today, but it is because of this advancement and forwarding in research that the terms become more complex. If an individual can’t grasp basic concepts beforehand, then why would they need to understand something more complicated? Just like everything, when presented in the right context and the right circumstances, everything makes sense. This is why psychology is fine being presented scientifically, because the only people that will care about the majority of the implications found are scientists themselves.