Why do academic psychologists dislike pop psychology books when billions are sold each year?

Many academic psychologists hold negative, skeptical and stereotypical views about popular psychology books, even though there have been few formal investigations into these materials to understand their content, construction, purposes, or their author’s credentials.

In this innovative dissertation, case study methodology was employed to compare popular and scholarly books so that the popular psychology debate could be resolved. 12 books on the topic of Attention were analyzed for their level of accuracy for referenced material and factual statements and many other measures such as book construction, page numbers, number of amazon reviews and google citations, quality of referencing, writing style, and level of usefulness and self-help potentiality.

This project’s findings has implications for the public at large who rely on these materials to better understand themselves and each other, and for educators, librarians and journal editors and students who may presently disqualify useful materials without fully understanding them. It also will assist many readers with improving their research and writing skills.

DEBRA LYNNE KATZ completed this manuscript while completing her doctorate at University of West Geogia.
She is the author of several popular published books and peer reviewed articles.
Her website is: www.debrakatz.com