Psychological science belongs in serious discussions of scientific literacy. Our field has a major impact on the lives of individuals and on society. The general psychology course is a prime setting for squaring our discipline within the broader scientific community. General psychology may be the only psychology course, or even college-level science course, that many of our students will ever take. Thus, our discipline is well-suited for taking on the challenge of promoting scientific literacy. Scientific literacy entails the ability to understand terminology and concepts in science. Furthermore, a critical element of scientific literacy is what some have termed “civic scientific literacy”: the ability understand the role of scientific knowledge in influencing personal, social, and institutional affairs. A practical measure of civic scientific literacy is to assess whether students can understand basic media reports of scientific findings. In this work I examine the terms and concepts of psychological science that students are most likely to encounter in the media, and to develop in instrument that measures student knowledge of this information.