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Psychological literacy: proceed with caution, construction ahead

Overview of attention for article published in Psychology Research and Behavior Management, August 2016
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About this Attention Score

  • In the top 25% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • Good Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (76th percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (80th percentile)

Mentioned by

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10 X users
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1 Google+ user

Citations

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19 Dimensions

Readers on

mendeley
63 Mendeley
Title
Psychological literacy: proceed with caution, construction ahead
Published in
Psychology Research and Behavior Management, August 2016
DOI 10.2147/prbm.s88646
Pubmed ID
Authors

Douglas D Murdoch

Abstract

Psychological literacy is the ethical application of psychological skills and knowledge. This could benefit individuals in their personal, occupational, and civic lives and subsequently benefit society as a whole. We know that psychology has a wide-ranging impact on society. The potential benefits of a psychologically literate citizenry in improved parenting, better business practices, enlightened legislation, and many other areas make this a desirable goal. It has been proposed that this should become the primary goal of an undergraduate psychology education to benefit the majority who do not go on to graduate school and even those who only take a few psychology courses. This idea has significant merit and warrants further investigation and development. However, there are major concerns that need to be addressed. First, what are uniquely psychological skills and knowledge? Many of the skills psychology undergraduates acquire are generic to university and not specific to psychology. Second, psychology can be as harmful when misapplied as it can be beneficial when ethically applied. Third, psychology departments will need to address pragmatic as well as ethical issues, including issues of competency, boundaries, accountability, and confidentiality. Fourth, the available empirical evidence to direct such efforts is primarily at the anecdotal, case example, and pilot study stages. Significant improvements are needed in measuring psychological literacy, choice of outcome measures, and research methodologies before these advantages can be realized in an empirically supported manner. Currently, best practices in the undergraduate curriculum are the mindful and purposeful design of courses and experiential opportunities. It is proposed that psychological literacy is best conceptualized as a meta-literacy and that it should become a goal of psychology undergraduate education but not necessarily the goal.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 10 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 63 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
India 1 2%
Canada 1 2%
Unknown 61 97%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Ph. D. Student 12 19%
Student > Bachelor 7 11%
Professor > Associate Professor 5 8%
Lecturer 3 5%
Student > Postgraduate 3 5%
Other 12 19%
Unknown 21 33%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Psychology 20 32%
Social Sciences 5 8%
Nursing and Health Professions 3 5%
Neuroscience 3 5%
Medicine and Dentistry 3 5%
Other 3 5%
Unknown 26 41%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 7. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 21 August 2016.
All research outputs
#5,193,886
of 25,576,275 outputs
Outputs from Psychology Research and Behavior Management
#176
of 780 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#87,907
of 381,680 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Psychology Research and Behavior Management
#3
of 10 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,576,275 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done well and is in the 79th percentile: it's in the top 25% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 780 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 11.4. This one has done well, scoring higher than 77% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 381,680 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done well, scoring higher than 76% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 10 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has scored higher than 7 of them.