Psychological Literacy and Learning for Life

Abstract

There is a growing motivation within the higher education sector to ensure that undergraduate programs produce graduates who are employable, and who contribute to society. Within psychology, the developing concept of psychological literacy has been utilized to meet this agenda, and psychology curricula are increasingly focused on teaching students to apply psychology to meet their personal, professional, and societal goals. In this chapter, we introduce the related concepts of psychological literacy and psychologically literate citizenship, and review some of the salient literature. We suggest that teaching for psychological literacy provides the opportunity to enhance students’ scientific literacy, critical thinking, employability, and global citizenship, and we present some practical ways in which educators around the globe have taught their students to become psychologically literate, drawing on case studies as well as published literature. Finally, we explore the lessons we have learned from our review of the relevant literature and of these practices, and offer a critical perspective on the current state of the discipline, in terms of psychology education. In recognizing and valuing the opportunities presented by the framework of psychological literacy, we suggest that we need to reflect upon the nature of psychology and its position as a discipline, and to develop our own psychological literacy. In particular, we must grow our respect for diversity and inclusive practices, and be collegiate in further developing and disseminating our thinking and practices around psychological literacy. We hope that this chapter will provoke a continued discussion of the ways in which psychological literacy can promote students’ “learning for life,” and will serve as a call to action for the psychology education community to further develop our thinking and practices in this field.