The goal of this article is to promote clear thinking and clear writing among students and teachers of psychological science by curbing terminological misinformation and confusion. To this end, we present a provisional list of 50 commonly used terms in psychology, psychiatry, and allied fields that should be avoided, or at most used sparingly and with explicit caveats. We provide corrective information for students, instructors, and researchers regarding these terms, which we organize for expository purposes into five categories: inaccurate or misleading terms, frequently misused terms, ambiguous terms, oxymorons, and pleonasms. For each term, we (a) explain why it is problematic, (b) delineate one or more examples of its misuse, and (c) when pertinent, offer recommendations for preferable terms. By being more judicious in their use of terminology, psychologists and psychiatrists can foster clearer thinking in their students and the field at large regarding mental phenomena.
(2) Antidepressant medication
(4) Brain region X lights up
(8) Family genetic studies
(9) Genetically determined
(14) Influence of gender (or social class, education, ethnicity, depression,
extraversion, intelligence, etc.) on X.
(17) Multiple personality disorder
(19) No difference between groups
(20) Objective personality test.
(21) Operational definition
(23) Psychiatric control group
(25) Statistically reliable
(26) Steep learning curve
(27) The scientific method
(29) Underlying biological dysfunction
(34) Splitting
Ambiguous Terms
(38) Reductionism
Oxymorons
(39) Hierarchical stepwise regression
(43) Prevalence of trait X
(44) Principal components factor analysis
(45) Scientific proof
Pleonasms
(46) Biological and environmental influences
(47) Empirical data
(48) Latent construct
(49) Mental telepathy
(50) Neurocognition
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