Do you use these 50 terms in psychology writing?

Psychology and psychiatry often study phenomena that are “open concepts,” which necessitates precision in the language used to describe the phenomena. This is the argument posed by the authors of a recent paper that describes 50 terms that are commonly used in psychological and psychiatric scientific literature and that the authors believe are incorrectly used.

The 50 terms are broken down into 5 broad categories. Some of these terms apply to scientific literature in general and are not specific to psychology and psychiatry.

To see the full description of when and why the authors believe each term shouldn’t be used, see the original manuscript.

Inaccurate or Misleading Terms

  1. A gene for
  2. Antidepressant medication
  3. Autism epidemic
  4. Brain region X lights up
  5. Brainwashing
  6. Bystander apathy
  7. Chemical imbalance
  8. Family genetic studies
  9. Genetically determined
  10. God spot
  11. Gold standard
  12. Hard-wired
  13. Hypnotic trance
  14. Influence of gender/social class/education, etc.
  15. Lie detector test
  16. Love molecule
  17. Multiple personality disorder
  18. Neural signature
  19. No difference between groups
  20. Objective personality test
  21. Operational definition
  22. p = 0.000
  23. Psychiatric control group
  24. Reliable and valid
  25. Statistically reliable
  26. Steep learning curve
  27. The scientific method
  28. Truth serum
  29. Underlying biological dysfunction
  30.  

    Frequently Misused Terms

  31. Acting out
  32. Closure
  33. Denial
  34. Fetish
  35. Splitting
  36.  

    Ambiguous Terms

  37. Comorbidity
  38. Interaction
  39. Medical model
  40. Reductionism
  41.  

    Oxymorons

  42. Hierarchical stepwise regression
  43. Mind-body therapies
  44. Observable symptom
  45. Personality type
  46. Prevalence of trait X
  47. Principal components factor analysis
  48. Scientific proof
  49.  

    Redundant Terms

  50. Biological and environmental influences
  51. Empirical data
  52. Latent construct
  53. Mental telepathy
  54. Neurocognition