Citation

Dietz PE, Cooke G, Rappeport JR, Silvergleit IT. Behav. Sci. Law 1983; 1(2): 77-84.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1983, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1002/bsl.2370010210

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Questionnaires designed to measure the perceived value of technical terminology for psycholegal reports were completed by 67 judges, 78 forensic psychiatrists, and 126 forensic psychologists. Judges were asked for ratings of the degree to which each term aids their understanding, and clinicians were asked for ratings of the likelihood that they would use each term in a report for the court. Rank-ordered ratings of the 45 terms were highly correlated among the three respondent groups, suggesting that forensic clinicians are generally aware of the problem of using incomprehensible psychojargon. Empirical ratings can be helpful in distinguishing between comprehensible and incomprehensible psychojargon for psycholegal use.

Language: en