just read jobo’s comment on the last post where i ranted about that article i read in the independent. it is a problem with the public perception of psychology as a subject, but i don’t think people are given much chance to form a complete picture of it all. the only stuff i see getting exposure is the pop psychology stuff that just seems like common sense to everyone.
a couple of years ago i was at a conference on fmri and the last person to speak was a journalist who had made it her business to report on scientific endeavours. she was there to tell us all that we should make ourselves and our work more accessible to the media, so that what we do can be reported to the public. someone in the audience put their hand up and said that whenever the media get hold of any results from experiments they sensationalise them and write that the cure for whatever has been found. obviously that’s unacceptable and this is why people are so wary of publicising their findings anywhere other than scientific journals. the journalist’s answer to this? scientists should just deal with it because the media aren’t prepared to change. that’s part of the problem.
also, i think a big bit of it is that a lot of results from experiments just aren’t that exciting for anyone other than psychologists. generally speaking every experiment adds a tiny bit of knowledge to the pot that gets supported, opposed or added to by future experiments. it’s a slow process that i guess isn’t really worth reporting back on until things gather momentum. that’s quite linked to the first point though really. i think i have lost my way with this comment, don’t really know where i am heading with it anymore. that’s what you get for stopping for an ice cream break half way through. ah well, it was worth it.
