Lilienfeld, Lynn, Ruscio, and Beyerstein (2011) highlight the 50 great myths of popular psychology. We are surrounded by popular psychology, which is referred to in the news, on television, and in films. The Internet and bookshops give us access to psychological insights into understanding our lives, offering things such as self‐help options, and advice on relation
ships and addiction. Sadly, though, much of the available literature is rife with misconceptions and myths, and people become misinformed about psychology. Those proclaiming themselves as gurus and mental health experts, offering psychological advice online or on television, often dis
perse information that is full of flaws. This information is often taken on board by the general public as it fits into the broad view of human nature and is plausible.
22 All in the Mind: Psychology for the Curious
Lilienfeld et al. (2011) suggest how the following ways influence us to believe popular psychology myths.
1. Word‐of‐mouth: Incorrect beliefs about psychology are spread by ver
bal communication. The fact that we’ve heard a piece of information over and over again does not mean that it is correct. However, we often confuse a statement’s familiarity with its accuracy.
2. Selective perception and memory: Our perception of reality is altered by our biases and expectations, with our interpretations being impacted upon by our beliefs. The majority of us are unaware of distorted per
ceptions; this is termed naïve realism. Our past experiences impact upon our judgments of frequency, and we overestimate the occur
rence of things that have occurred previously.
3. Exposure to a biased sample: We are presented with a biased view of populations. One study found that 75% of mentally ill individuals depicted on television had violent tendencies, whereas in fact the actual rate of violence among such individuals is much lower. Such skewed coverage may lead ordinary people to believe that individuals with mental illnesses are aggressive and dangerous. Psychotherapists are also presented with a biased sample of the general population.
They have skewed views, for example that it is extremely difficult for an individual to quit smoking without formal psychological help, due to the chronic sample with which they interact.
4. Misleading media portrayals: The media often describes mental ill
nesses and treatments as being more sensational than they are.
Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), for example, has been depicted as dangerous and ruthless. Yet today, ECT is an increasingly safe treat
ment method.
50 great myths and why they are false
This section is based on the work of Lilienfeld et al. (2011).
Myths about the brain and perception
1. Most people use only 10% of their brain power. As discussed above, research shows that there is not a single area that can be destroyed in the brain without leaving stroke or head trauma patients with serious functioning deficits. One paper noted a Florida woman who had lost 50% of her cerebrum through oxygen deprivation and lay in a vegeta
tive state for 15 years. Such instances highlight that our whole brain is necessary for normal functioning. It is suggested that this myth is so
popular because it is comforting, as individuals may attribute their lack of success to not having full use of their brilliant brain.
2. Some people are left‐brained, others are right‐brained. Each half of the brain differs in which mental activities it can perform relatively better than the other. The two halves of the brain differ in how they process information rather than in what they process. The left hemisphere is relatively better at processing grammar, while the right hemisphere is better at considering the emphases of speech. In a normal functioning brain, the two hemispheres communicate extensively during the majority of tasks in an integrated fashion.
3. Extrasensory perception (ESP) is a well‐established scientific phenome-non. Belief in psychic abilities and ESP is widespread throughout modern society, with 41% of adults studied believing in ESP. The US government attempted to employ such abilities in their Stargate pro
gram of 1972, intending to acquire militarily useful information from people in distant, inaccessible places. However, this was discontinued in 1995 due to lack of success. Further, studies have been conducted for over 150 years that have attempted, unsuccessfully, to demonstrate the existence of ESP. Beliefs in such paranormal phenomena exist as a result of the need to believe in something greater than ourselves lying beyond our conscious senses.
4. Visual perceptions are accompanied by tiny emissions from the eyes. One study found that 30% of participants said that the eyes emit rays or particles enabling them to see. Winer and Cottrell (1996) highlight that we often describe people as giving us a “piercing stare” or a “cut
ting look.” It may be that people overgeneralize such metaphors and take them literally, believing that the eye outputs energy.
5. Subliminal messages can persuade people to purchase products.
Information outside of our conscious awareness can influence our judgments; however, this is different to the subliminal processing envisioned by pop psychology. Much research has investigated efforts to prime consumers into purchasing and the failure of unconscious attempts to do this, with no evidence suggesting that subliminal mes
sages can influence consumer behavior.
Other brain and perception myths to explore:
● We need a full brain to function effectively.
● Modern humans have larger brains than Neanderthals.
● Areas of activation on brain scans mean that brain regions are becom
ing more active.
24 All in the Mind: Psychology for the Curious
● “Alpha consciousness” is associated with states of relaxation.
● Adult humans don’t grow new neurons.
● As adults, we lose about 100,000 neurons each day.
● Blind people have especially well‐developed senses of hearing and touch.
● Blind people can detect obstacles at a distance by sensing heat and pressure on their foreheads.
● A coma is a state of deep sleep.
● We can “awaken” people from comas by playing their favorite songs.
● Biofeedback is a uniquely effective means of reducing tension.
● Humans have an invisible “body energy” that can cause psychological problems when blocked.
● Alcohol kills brain cells.
● Alcohol’s primary effect is stimulating the brain.
● Alcohol enhances sexual arousal.
● One can always detect alcohol on the breath.
● Alcohol promotes sleep.
● Alcohol warms up the body.
● It’s easier to get drunk at high altitudes, such as while flying in an airplane.
● Impaired judgment after drinking occurs only after obvious signs of intoxication.
● Drinking coffee is a good way to sober up after heavy drinking.
● A cold shower or exercise is a good way to sober up after heavy drinking.
● Switching among different types of alcohol is more likely to lead to drunkenness than sticking to one type of alcohol.
● One can’t become an alcoholic by drinking beer only.
● There’s good evidence that people who smoke marijuana for many years end up apathetic.
● Most people with brain injury look and act disabled.
● Following a head injury, the best prescription is rest.
● A head injury can’t produce brain damage unless the person is knocked unconscious.
● Prefrontal lobotomies (more popularly called “lobotomies”) turn peo
ple into human “vegetables.”
● Humans have five senses.
● Most color‐blind people see the world in black and white.
● Dogs see the world in black and white.
● Reading in dim light can ruin our eyesight.
● The human tongue’s tastes can be described as a “map” of four tastes.
● Consuming ice cream or other cold substances too quickly causes pain in our brains.
● Magnets, like those embedded in shoe insoles, can reduce pain.
● Eating lots of turkey can make us tired.
Myths about development and aging
6. Playing Mozart to infants boosts their intelligence. Students who listen to 10 minutes of a Mozart piano sonata were found to significantly improve on a spatial reasoning task compared to a group who lis
tened to a relaxation tape or silence. However, the experiment docu
mented only short‐term impacts and related to college students, not infants. The media has reported extensively on this effect, and has applied it to groups that have not been empirically investigated, for example elementary school and high school students, despite repli
cations of the original study reporting either no effect or a minimal one. It has instead been suggested that short‐term arousal resulting from listening to Mozart is in fact the causal factor, with stimuli that heighten arousal increasing performance on demanding tasks.
7. Adolescence is inevitably a time of psychological turmoil. Books and films focus more on troubled stories of unhappy adolescents and their families, presenting the public with a biased representation of teenagers. Adolescents are at somewhat elevated risk for difficulties with parents, mood instability, and engaging in risky behavior. It is not typical for adolescents to go through such experiences.
8. Most people experience a midlife crisis in their 40s or early 50s. Erikson (1968) observed that in middle adulthood, many people struggle to find purpose and meaning in their lives, and go about “correcting”
their flaws. However, Shek (1996) conducted a cross‐cultural study that did not find dissatisfaction in the majority of middle‐aged men and women. Further, a study of 7,195 participants concluded that those between the ages of 40 and 60 felt more in control of their lives and higher well‐being than in the 10 years previous.
9. Old age is typically associated with increased dissatisfaction and senility.
There is generally a negative stereotype about the elderly, with 65% of participants agreed that “most older people are lonely and isolated.”
An investigation into Disney children’s films led to the finding that 42% of elderly characters are portrayed negatively, displaying traits such as anger and forgetfulness. However, this is not the case. One study found that participants over the age of 60 were actually happier than were those between 21 and 40 years old. Furthermore, the group of people documented as being happiest were men aged 65 and older.
10. When dying, people pass through a universal series of psychological stages. The six stages of grief, denial, anger, bargaining, depression,
26 All in the Mind: Psychology for the Curious
and acceptance were popularized by Kübler‐Ross (1969) and were intended to describe the stages that people pass through when dying.
Unfortunately, Kübler‐Ross’s theory is based on subjective observa
tions and measurements of emotions that were not standardized.
Dying people may pass through stages in different orders. Many ter
minally ill individuals may skip stages, or even pass them in reverse order. Dal Bello‐Haas, Del Bene, and Mitsumoto (2002) highlight that some patients initially accept their impending death, and later enter denial. Dealing with death is not as simple as initially proposed.
Other development and aging myths to explore:
● A mother’s bad mood can lead to miscarriage.
● The first few minutes following birth are crucial for effective parent–
infant bonding.
● The first three years are especially critical to infant development.
● Children given a great deal of physical encouragement and support walk earlier than other children.
● Newborn babies are virtually blind and deaf.
● Infants establish attachment bonds only to their mothers.
● Mothers who talk to their children in baby talk (“motherese”) slow down their language development.
● Children exposed prenatally to crack cocaine (“crack babies”) develop severe personality and neurological problems in later life.
● Young children almost never lie.
● Overweight children are just carrying “baby fat” that will melt away as they grow older.
● Adoption takes a negative psychological toll on most children.
● Children raised by gay parents have higher rates of homosexuality than other children.
● Marital satisfaction increases after couples have children.
● People need less sleep as they get older.
● A large percentage of the elderly live in nursing homes.
● Older people are more afraid of death than younger people.
● Almost all senile people suffer from Alzheimer’s disease.
● Excessive aluminum causes Alzheimer’s disease.
● Many people die of “old age.”
● Terminally ill people who have given up all hope tend to die shortly thereafter.
● Terminally ill people can often “postpone” their deaths until after hol
idays, birthdays, or other personally significant days.
Myths about memory
11. Human memory works like a tape recorder or video camera, and accurately records the events we’ve experienced. Our memories are, in fact, not true replicas of past events. We do experience flashbulb memories of extremely emotional or salient events that stand out to us and seem to be precise. Yet even flashbulb memories of events such as 9/11 are prone to distortions, as with all memories. It is proposed that our memories are blurred by our personal beliefs, needs, and emotions.
12. Hypnosis is useful for retrieving memories of forgotten events. It is widely believed that hypnosis has memory‐enhancing powers. Yapko (1994) documented that 75% of people agree that hypnosis enables people to “accurately remember things they otherwise would not.”
However, forensic psychologists now take the view that hypnosis either has no effect on memory (Erdelyi, 1994), or can in fact distort recall. Worryingly, hypnosis has also been found to increase unwar
ranted confidence in those memories recalled (Green, Lynn, &
Malinoski, in press), and thus can be very misleading and have nega
tive impacts if used in court cases, such as incorrect conviction.
13. Individuals commonly repress the memories of traumatic experiences.
Psychologists and psychiatrists use the term dissociative amnesia to describe the inability to remember stressful or traumatic events that can’t be explained as normal forgetting (American Psychiatric Association, 2000). McNally (2003) suggests that, instead of repress
ing and actively forgetting disturbing instances, those that occurred in childhood could be recalled through the realization in adult life that it was in fact an instance of abuse. Piper (1997) highlights the fact that failure to report an event does not mean that an individual has repressed it. It may be that individuals need several prompts to recall embarrassing information, after failing to report it in the first place.
14. Most people with amnesia forget all details of their earlier lives. Films depicting those with amnesia often tell the story of people who have lost all memories from their past, yet have no difficulty learning new things. Yet those suffering from true amnesia are faced more with the problem of anterograde amnesia, or loss of memory for new infor
mation, and thus have problems forming new memories. Patients may also suffer retrograde amnesia – loss of memory of the past – but this is not the main problem. A patient known as H.M. who under
went brain surgery in an attempt to halt his severe epilepsy became virtually incapable of remembering recent events, being unable to recall people he had met 5 minutes earlier, for example.
28 All in the Mind: Psychology for the Curious Other memory myths to explore:
● The memory of everything we’ve experienced is stored permanently in our brains, even if we can’t access all of it.
● Some people have true “photographic memories.”
● With effort, we can remember events back to birth.
● Memory is chemically transferable.
● The suggestibility of memory is only a problem for preschoolers.
● People who can’t recall what they had for lunch yesterday have a poor
“short‐term memory.”
● Rote memorization is the best way to retain information.
● Almost all forgetting is due to decay of information in our brains.
● Ginkgo and other herbal remedies improve memory in normal indi
viduals.
Myths about intelligence and learning
15. Intelligence (IQ) tests are biased against certain groups of people. It has been suggested that IQ tests favor white males. This does not reflect a bias in IQ tests, rather that groups do in fact differ in a particular trait.
Reassuringly, the issue has been empirically tested. Authors confirm that there is no evidence that IQ tests underpredict the performance of women or minorities, and modern authors support this finding.
16. If you’re unsure of your answer when taking a test, it’s best to stick with your initial hunch. Between 68% and 100% of college students believe that their total score will not be improved by changing their initial answers. Yet research demonstrates that changing your origi
nal answer on a multiple choice paper is more likely to increase your final score, with those who change more answers tending to score higher than other students.
17. The defining feature of dyslexia is reversing letters. Many people’s per
ceptions of dyslexia are that those with the condition literally see letters backward. Interestingly, backward writing and letter reversals are evi
dent in young children learning to write and spell, not just in those with dyslexia. Further, reversing letters is only one issue that dyslexic children suffer with, and are not the defining feature of the condition.
18. Students learn best when teaching styles are matched to their learning styles. Much research has been carried out into matching teaching and learning styles, with many studies failing to support this approach. It is suggested that this is due to the finding that some teaching styles reap more successful results than others, regardless of students’ learning style.
Other intelligence and learning myths to explore:
● Extremely intelligent people are more physically frail than other people.
● IQ scores almost never change over time.
● IQ scores are unrelated to school performance.
● SATs and other standardized tests are highly coachable.
● There’s a close link between genius and insanity.
● Mental retardation is one condition.
● Most mentally retarded individuals are severely retarded.
● There is no association between brain size and IQ.
● Women are worse drivers than men.
● Creative breakthroughs occur in sudden bursts of insight.
● Very high levels of motivation usually help when solving difficult problems.
● Negative reinforcement is a type of punishment.
● Punishment is a highly effective means of changing long‐term behavior.
● The best means of maintaining a behavior is to reward every response.
● B. F. Skinner raised his daughter in a “Skinner box,” contributing to her psychosis in later life.
● Small class sizes consistently promote better student achievement.
● Grouping students in classes by their ability levels promotes learning.
● Holding immature or underperforming students back a grade can be helpful.
● Standardized test scores don’t predict later grades.
● Direct and immediate feedback is the best means of ensuring long‐
term learning.
● “Discovery learning” (in which students must discover scientific prin
ciples on their own) is superior to direct instruction.
● The standardized test scores of US students have been declining in recent decades.
● Students typically recall only 10% of what they read.
● Speed reading courses are effective.
● Subvocalizing increases reading ability.
● Deaf people can understand most of what other people say by reading lips.
● Some people “speak in tongues.”
● Many identical twins have their own private language.
● Albert Einstein had dyslexia.
Myths about consciousness
19. Hypnosis is a unique “trance” state that differs in kind from wakeful-ness. Many explanations regarding hypnosis have been put forward, including the idea that when hypnotized, people are in a sleep‐like
30 All in the Mind: Psychology for the Curious
state in which they lose their willpower and are unable to remember what has happened. Research shows that the majority of the public accept as fact media portrayals and myths that the hypnotized state is quite different from waking consciousness. However, studies have found that hypnotized people are somewhat in control, and can resist and even deny suggestions under hypnosis. Hypnotized people have also been shown not to act out of character when under hypnosis or following hypnosis, despite media suggestions.
20. Researchers have demonstrated that dreams possess symbolic meaning.
Forty‐three percent of Americans believe that dreams reflect their unconscious desire. These beliefs have stemmed from Freud’s idea that dreams contain symbols relating to the dreamer’s unconscious desires. Yet scientists reject the suggestion that dream images carry universal symbolic meaning. Hobson, Pace‐Schott, and Stickgold (2000) propose that REM (rapid eye movement) dreams are our brain’s attempt to formulate a story from the random firing of brain areas during sleep, and thus do not contain meaning.
21. People can learn new information, like new languages, while asleep.
Sleep‐assisted learning is discussed widely in the media and in books.
A review of studies showing encouraging results relating to learning while sleeping has highlighted that such studies did not control for a key factor: whether the participant was awake. It may be that partici
pants were actually awake when listening to the tapes. Studies that have controlled for sleeping by monitoring brain waves found little evidence for sleep‐assisted learning.
22. During “out‐of‐body” experiences, people’s consciousness leaves their bodies. Out‐of‐body experiences (OBEs) have been reported widely across cultures. Yet scientific research suggests that it is not possible for our consciousness to leave our bodies. A hypothesis explaining the experience proposes that an OBE is the disconnection between a person’s sense of self and his or her sensations. Blanke and Thut (2007) instead argue that OBEs are the result of different brain areas failing to integrate information from a number of senses. Scientists have managed to successfully induce OBEs by stimulating the tem
poral lobe. This suggests that our consciousness does not actually leave our physical body, despite the subjective feeling that it does.
Other myths about consciousness to explore:
● Relaxation is necessary for hypnosis to occur.
● People are unaware of their surroundings during hypnosis.