39,99 €
Mehr erfahren.
- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
All in the Mind: Psychology for the Curious, Third Edition covers important, topical, and sometimes controversial subjects in the field of Psychology in an engaging alternative or supplement to traditional student textbooks. The third edition of a successful and uniquely readable textbook – includes more than two thirds brand new material, with all retained material thoroughly revised and updated. All in the Mind, 3rd Edition offers a new and engaging way to consider key theories and approaches in psychology; providing an original alternative or supplement to traditional teaching textbooks.
Sie lesen das E-Book in den Legimi-Apps auf:
Seitenzahl: 505
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016
Ähnliche
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Chapter Descriptions
Preface to the Third Edition
Acknowledgments
Some Quirky Quotes About Psychology
1 Introduction
1.1 Introduction
1.2 Public Ignorance About Psychology
1.3 Tackling Student Skepticism About Psychology
1.4 Psychology and Control
1.5 How People Get Tricked
1.6 Conclusion
2 “Untangling” Myths and Psychological Realities
2.1 Popular Myths
2.2 Mind and Brain Myths
2.3 Myths about Happiness
2.4 Modern Myths of Popular Psychology
2.5 Conclusion
3 The Names and Dates That Shaped Psychology’s History and Development
3.1 Introduction
3.2 The Psychology Thinkers and Their Ideas
3.3 Conclusion
4 Science, Pseudo‐Science, and Conspiracy Theories
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Maxims for Distinguishing Science From Non‐Science
4.3 Superstition vs. Science
4.4 Common Sense
4.5 Beware the Fortune Cookie
4.6 Conspiracies and Cover‐Ups
4.7 Conclusion
5 The Man Called Freud
5.1 Knowledge of Psychoanalysis
5.2 Quizzes
5.3 The Basics
5.4 The Dynamics of Personality
5.5 The Structure of Personality
5.6 The Development of Personality
5.7 Dreaming
5.8 Critiques
5.9 Freud and Falsifiability
5.10 Freud Today
6 A Guide Into Abnormal Psychology
6.1 Introduction
6.2 Being Sane in an Insane Place
6.3 Mental Illnesses
6.4 How Good Are You?
6.5 Conclusion
7 Psychology and Work
7.1 Introduction
7.2 Management and Common Sense
7.3 Psychologists as Business Consultants
7.4 The Hawthorne Effect
7.5 Money, Motivation, and Happiness
7.6 Stress at Work
7.7 Conclusion
8 Do Looks Matter?
8.1 Introduction
8.2 Defining Attractiveness
8.3 Are Attractive People More Intelligent?
8.4 Why do we Find Particular Physical Characteristics Attractive?
8.5 What Are the Key Factors?
8.6 Physical Characteristics and Personality
8.7 Attractive Personalities
8.8 Attractiveness at Work
8.9 Conclusion
9 Judging and Nudging
9.1 Introduction
9.2 Cognitive Biases
9.3 Behavioral Economics
9.4 Conclusion
10 A Psychologist in the Marketplace
10.1 Introduction
10.2 The Consumer as an Individual
10.3 Children and Advertising
10.4 Vulnerability
10.5 Consumer Decision Making
10.6 The Social Consumer
10.7 Services and Products
10.8 Ethics and Consumer Well‐Being
10.9 Conclusion
References
Further Reading
Index
End User License Agreement
List of Tables
Chapter 02
Table 2.1 Percentage of myths thought true, false or unknown
Chapter 05
Table 5.1 Extremes of Freudian personality types
Chapter 07
Table 7.1 Symptoms of burnout
Chapter 08
Table 8.1 Attractive features in women and evolutionary reasons behind these
Table 8.2 What people think physical features indicate
Table 8.3 Examples of adjectives, Q‐sort items, and costs and benefits defining the Big Five factors of personality
Chapter 10
Table 10.1 The approaches of Educators and Legislators
List of Illustrations
Chapter 01
Figure 1.1 Possible reasons for holding myths.
Figure 1.2 General principles of science.
Chapter 02
Figure 2.1 Reasons why myths occur.
Figure 2.2 Percentage of myths thought true, false or unknown (Furnham & Hughes, 2014).
Chapter 04
Figure 4.1 Three reasons why people think all psychology is common sense.
Figure 4.2 Targets of conspiracy theories.
Chapter 05
Figure 5.1 Freud’s different interests over time.
Chapter 06
Figure 6.1 Beliefs of the anti‐psychiatry movement.
Chapter 07
Figure 7.1 Pure vs. applied psychology.
Figure 7.2 Conditions for an incentive plan to work.
Chapter 09
Figure 9.1 The theory of cognitive dissonance.
Figure 9.2 Three experimental groups.
Figure 9.3 Economists vs. social psychologists (Gilovich, 1991).
Figure 9.4 System 1 and system 2 thinking.
Chapter 10
Figure 10.1 The standard argument.
Figure 10.2 A realistic model.
Figure 10.3 Better decision making.
Guide
Cover
Table of Contents
Begin Reading
Pages
iii
iv
vi
vii
viii
ix
x
xi
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
244
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
All in the Mind
Psychology for the Curious
Third Edition
Adrian Furnham and Dimitrios Tsivrikos
This third edition first published 2017© 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd
Edition history: Whurr Publishers Ltd (1e, 1996); Whurr Publishers Ltd (2e, 2001)
Registered OfficeJohn Wiley & Sons, Ltd, The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, UK
Editorial Offices350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148‐5020, USA9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UKThe Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, UK
For details of our global editorial offices, for customer services, and for information about how to apply for permission to reuse the copyright material in this book please see our website at www.wiley.com/wiley‐blackwell.
The right of Adrian Furnham and Dimitrios Tsivrikos to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, without the prior permission of the publisher.
Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books.
Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. All brand names and product names used in this book are trade names, service marks, trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. The publisher is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book.
Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and authors have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. It is sold on the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering professional services and neither the publisher nor the author shall be liable for damages arising herefrom. If professional advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional should be sought.
Library of Congress Cataloging‐in‐Publication Data
Names: Furnham, Adrian, author. | Tsivrikos, Dimitrios, author.Title: All in the mind : psychology for the curious / Adrian Furnham and Dimitrios Tsivrikos.Description: Third edition. | Chichester, West Sussex, UK : John Wiley & Sons Inc., 2017. | Includes bibliographical references and index.Identifiers: LCCN 2016009020| ISBN 9781119161653 (cloth) | ISBN 9781119161615 (pbk.) | ISBN 9781119161660 (Adobe PDF) | ISBN 9781119161677 (ePub)Subjects: LCSH: Psychology.Classification: LCC BF131 .F87 2017 | DDC 150–dc23LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016009020
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Cover image: Gettyimages/ALFRED PASIEKA/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY
Chapter Descriptions
Chapter 1
Introduction: Public Beliefs About Psychology.
A short and informative chapter that provides a jargon‐free history of psychology and aims to demystify some of the main misconceptions related to psychology and psychological theorizing.
Chapter 2
“Untangling” Myths and Psychological Realities.
This chapter explores a plethora of topics related to everyday psychological topics and how psychology has been portrayed or perceived by the general public. Topics range from how our brains work to a number of therapies used today and their actual impact. A candid and to‐the‐point chapter that equally educates and entertains.
Chapter 3
The Names and Dates That Shaped Psychology’s History and Development.
For about 150 years psychologists from many backgrounds, trained in many different areas, have investigated a wide range of psychological topics from memory to mating and personality to prejudice. This chapter summarizes some of the key works of prominent psychologists and showcases the impact of their work in our society. The information is provided in a playful and accessible manner.
Chapter 4
Science, Pseudo‐Science, and Conspiracy Theories.
This is a very applied chapter that looks into the very essence of how science is perceived, and how it operates within the remit of psychology. This link between science and science fiction creates an excellent platform to explore how psychology can help us investigate a number of conspiracy theories that populate our society and media alike.
Chapter 5
The Man Called Freud.
Without doubt the most famous psychiatrist ever to have lived was Sigmund Freud. He remains, to this day, the most quoted of all psychologists or psychiatrists who did so much to shape how people in the 20th and 21st centuries see themselves. This chapter provides an insight into some of the key ideas that shaped psychology.
Chapter 6
A Guide Into Abnormal Psychology.
This chapter is aimed at assisting the reader to understand the causes, development, and treatment of mental illnesses. This is an area that remains both important and controversial, with a number of public viewpoints and misconceptions. Covering topics such as schizophrenia and psychopathy, the chapter includes a number of key studies that allow novice readers to explore how psychologists use various diagnostic tools to detect and deal with mental health conditions.
Chapter 7
Psychology and Work.
Working adults spend about one‐third of their day at work (8 hours out of 24). Work is central to our lives and therefore of considerable interest to psychologists. This chapter explores how psychology is used to assist us in developing and managing employees at work. We explore issues of stress, burnout, and other key topics and conditions that people may be facing at work.
Chapter 8
Do Looks Matter?
This is an important question, not least because it colors the way we examine the social impact of attractiveness, as well as questions concerning body image and body esteem. This chapter aims to explore which traits and characteristics best explain interpersonal attraction: that is, why people may be attracted to each other.
Chapter 9
Judging and Nudging.
Psychologists have always been interested in how people make decisions. They are fascinated by people’s arationality and irrationality, unlike economists, who base many of their theories on people being logical and rational. Psychological research has shown a very long list of cognitive biases to which everyone is prone. These are “errors” people make in their everyday thinking. This chapter explores such errors and provides tips as to how to improve one’s decision‐making processes.
Chapter 10
A Psychologist in the Marketplace.
Consumer psychology aims to examine how consumers in an individual and social context make purchase, consumption, and disposal decisions to satisfy both wants and needs. The growth of consumer psychology has mirrored that of advertising and the commercial sector in the Western hemisphere during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Given such interest, we explore how individuals make decisions related to what they consume as well as the real impact that marketing and advertising may have upon our marketplace choices.
Preface to the Third Edition
The interest in psychology can be seen by the number of stories in every newspaper and blog. It is rare for a day to go by without a major news report sharing some new, interesting, and often counterintuitive finding from one or another branch of psychology, particularly neuroscience. Psychology books sell well.
This is not a textbook, nor is it a thematic book. It is a book for the curious. We have chosen topics that interest us … and we hope the reader. In that sense it is quirky. We believe there are few competitors for a book like this … and we are happy with that.
We have tried to be academically sound but also produce a readable text.
Adrian and Dimitrios
Acknowledgments
We have a number of research assistants to thank. Every year, for a quarter of a decade, we have had a placement student from Bath as a research assistant. With very few exceptions they have been a wonderful asset for us: clever, curious, and very computer literate; happy, honest, and hard‐working; and good fun. We frequently ask them to search out material, critique something that we have written, tabulate findings, and so on. They do so with (apparent) enthusiasm and speed, and we are enormously grateful. Many of their efforts have gone into this book. Naming them in reverse order (that is, according to who worked with us most recently) they are Luke Treglown, Olivia Nettleton, Will Ritchie, Rebecca Milner, and Kate Telford.
Special thanks must go to Steen Tjarks for the brilliant summaries of two books that appear in Chapter 3, and to Viren Swami, who contributed so much to the chapter on attractiveness.
Adrian and Dimitrios
Some Quirky Quotes About Psychology
There is something wrong with a society in which parents are afraid to speak to their children without first consulting a psychologist. (Balaam)
Anyone who goes to a psychiatrist ought to have his head examined. (Sam Goldwyn)
Many who go into the profession [psychoanalysis] do so in order to overcome their own neurosis. (Professor Ernest Jones)
Because Professor Feynman answered an Army psychiatrist’s questions truthfully he was thought to be insane. (Stuart Sutherland)
The business of psychology is to tell us what actually goes on in the mind. It cannot possibly tell us whether the beliefs are true or false. (Hastings Rashdall)
Plagued by anxiety, troubled by worry, the psychological individual of our decade seeks only “peace of mind.” It appears to represent the best way of coping with life’s tensions. There is a pathological need to fill the hollow of our inner being. As we do not have a sufficient sense of selfhood, there must be a constant reaffirmation of our existence by seeing ourselves in others. (Sambar Cohen)
A large part of the popularity and persuasiveness of psychology comes from its being a sublimated spiritualism: a secular, ostensibly scientific way of affirming the primacy of “spirit” over matter. (Susan Sontag)
There is no psychology; there is only biography and autobiography. (Thomas Szasz)
Psychiatrists are the new monks, their offices the secular monasteries against whose walls come to wail, while seeking to be shriven, the guilt‐ridden, the sinner, the troubled‐in‐mind. (Alexander Theroux)
I do not have a psychiatrist and I do not want one, for the simple reason that if he listened to me long enough, he might become disturbed. (James Thurber)
Psychotherapy, unlike castor oil, which will work no matter how you get it down, is useless when forced on an uncooperative patient. (Abigail van Buren)
In psychology, as in the management of pigs, it is one thing to know the body of principles, the science; it is quite another to possess the art of putting these principles into practice. (William Glover)
It is still open to question whether psychology is a natural science, or whether it can be regarded as a science at all. (Ivan Pavlov)
Magicians pull rabbits out of hats. Psychologists pull habits out of rats! (Anon)
The world of psychology contains looks and tones and feelings; it is the world of dark and light, of noise and silence, of rough and smooth; its space is sometimes large and sometimes small, as everyone knows who in adult life has gone back to his childhood’s home; its time is sometimes short and sometimes long, it has no invariables. It contains all the thoughts, emotions, memories, imaginations, volitions that you naturally ascribe to mind. (E. B. Titchener)
Psychology is a science, but science is only exactified common sense. (E. S. Waterhouse)
Popular psychology is a mass of cant, of slush and of superstition worthy of the most flourishing days of the medicine man. (John Dewey)
Psychology is not a young science; it is merely a difficult one. (J. C. Marshall)
Psychiatrist (n.) a person who owns a couch and charges you for lying on it. (Edwin Brock)
Psychiatry (n.) spending $50 an hour to squeal on your mother. (Mike Connolly)
Psychoanalysis (n.) the disease it purports to cure. (Karl Kraus)
Psychologist (n.) a man who, when a good‐looking girl enters the room, looks at everyone else. (Anon)
Psychopath (n.) someone who lives in an ivory tower and dribbles over the battlements. (Fritz Leiber)
1Introduction: Public Beliefs About Psychology
1.1 Introduction
Psychology is a new science – barely 140 years old. It has an official “birth date” of the 1880s in Germany. With new methods and discoveries we understand more and more about such things as how the brain operates, why people behave the way they do, and the causes of human unhappiness. In fact psychology looks as if it is on the edge of some great discoveries thanks to developments in neuroscience, statistics, and data gathering.
What people who study psychology often say is that it gives you an “aha” experience. “Aha” is the expression of surprised happiness that comes with insight. “Aha” experiences often occur when psychology can offer explanations for seemingly bizarre or irrational behavior: why people spend money when depressed; why anorexics starve themselves; why clever people make such bad decisions.
Psychology provides a rich vocabulary through which it can describe and explain behavior. Psychological terms like passive‐aggressive, obsessive‐compulsive, and self‐actualization are part of many individuals’ vocabulary.
There is a joke about “psychobabble,” which is the misuse or overuse of psychological language and concepts, but this usually occurs only in the popular press and by non‐psychologists. Some psychological theories are counterintuitive – that is, a number of the theories are not what common sense suggests. Some theories are quite commonsensical but there are also several that are not. Nevertheless, many skeptics and some cynics have continued to maintain that all the findings in psychology are really only a form of common sense.
One way to discover the reality of human nature is, according to most psychologists, through scientific experimentation and observation, but lay people do not use scientific evidence when forming their ideas about their fellows. Many believe in superstitions and old wives’ tales that have been perpetuated, but never tested, over the generations.
1.2 Public Ignorance About Psychology
It is paradoxical that, with so much media attention on psychological issues, the general public remains so ignorant about a topic. Certainly they seem unable to independently evaluate claims about many pseudo‐scientific pursuits like graphology, psychic surgery, subliminal advertising, and the like. So many myths of popular psychology are held by people despite considerable evidence to the contrary. These include: “It is better to express anger than hold it in”; “Low self‐esteem is the cause of nearly all psychological problems”; “People of opposite personality type are attracted to one another.”
Fortunately there is evidence that if people take courses in psychology they become less likely to hold myths and misconceptions and more critical and skeptical in their thinking (Kowalski & Taylor, 2009; Standing & Huber, 2003).
Many studies have looked at very specific areas to try to understand why people have so many misconceptions. Thus Aamodt (2008) looked at criminal psychology and came to the conclusion that myths were held for various specific reasons.
Figure 1.1 Possible reasons for holding myths.
There are three reasons for public ignorance:
Media
The media often favors sensationalistic rather than factual reporting of science. Further, the media has a “let all flowers bloom” and “anything goes” philosophy aimed at entertainment, not education.
Pseudo‐science
A lot of pseudo and bogus science is behind multi‐million dollar industries that depend on keeping the public poorly informed about their claims and the fact that they may have been shown to be fraudulent.
Psychologists
When appearing in the media, they are persuaded to favor “sexy soundbites” rather than useful explanations. If they insist on the latter they tend to be edited out of the transmission.
Thus the lay person is presented with confused, contradictory, exaggerated, incomplete, and naïve findings and theories. It is no wonder that some believe that psychology is either just common sense or a matter of opinion.
Stop a hundred people in the street and ask them to name all the psychologists they have ever heard of. The likelihood is that 90% will nominate Freud and about a third Jung. Asked if they can name a living psychologist, only about 5% probably can. This galls modern psychologists because although many are impressed by Freud’s insights, intuition, and learning, they see little development in psychoanalysis and are skeptical about total reliance on clinical interviews. More importantly, many have no truck with the pretentiousness of a field that shuns empirical disconfirmation.
Many people cannot distinguish between a psychologist, a psychiatrist, a psychoanalyst or a psychiatric social worker. Some use the work “shrink” or “head doctor” or even “psycho‐the‐rapist” (Gadon & Johnson, 2009).
Psychology is an amazingly diverse discipline. So diverse that any two psychologists have almost nothing in common. Psychology is an archipelago, not an island. And some think it is drifting apart near to collapse.
Developmental psychologists may join educational departments; social and organizational psychologists may be happier in business schools; physiological psychologists could happily work in a biology department; and even clinical psychologists could be embraced by psychiatrists. This makes things difficult for the lay person, who often thinks psychology is little more than clinical psychology or a discipline whose primary aim is to help people.
Many disciplines study human behavior – sociology, economics, anthropology, history, and so forth – but what makes psychology unique is its scope and methodology. Psychology studies the full range of human (and non‐human) behavior from the micro to the macro level.
Second, psychologists use scientific methodology to test their theories. It is the data‐based scientific study of behavior (see Figure 1.1). It is a young science and the record of progress is mixed. As Stanovich (1998, p. 21) notes, psychology is an immensely diverse discipline covering a range of subjects that are not tied together by common content. Instead, what unifies the discipline is that it uses scientific methods to understand behavior. The scientific method is not a strict set of rules; instead it is defined by some very general principles. Three of the most important are shown in Figure 1.2.
Figure 1.2 General principles of science.
Psychology still has an image problem for various reasons (Stanovich, 1998). These include:
Guilt by association. Because psychologists have been interested in testing claims in various pseudo‐sciences (clairvoyance, psychic surgery), psychology has been associated with them! Psychologists are in a trap: If they refuse to investigate certain problems for fear of being confused with them, they are not true scientists. But if they research issues dispassionately and show pseudo‐scientists to be writing nonsense, this association may be seen as confirmation that psychology itself is a pseudo‐science.
Self‐help books that commercialize psychotherapy create an inaccurate impression of the aims, methods, and knowledge in psychology. These books are characterized by unrepresentative but vivid case studies, endorsements, and miraculous personal testimonies. Further, they propagate “recipe” knowledge – they show how to follow various steps without explaining why they should work.
Media psychologists are self‐selected, have a poor reputation with academic peers, and respond to the media’s love of news, drama, and certainty as opposed to fact. Further, whereas television, radio, and quality newspapers have trained writers in the fields of physics, economics, and medicine, they do not employ trained psychologists. Again, psychologists are often trapped: When they refuse or fail to give glib, simplistic answers to complex problems, they are criticized and devalued, but if they do give such answers they are often misleading.
The terms “psychologist” and “psychology” are often very loosely used. Often the work of physiological psychologists is mistaken for biology; cognitive psychology for computer science or ergonomics; and health psychology for medicine. Thus, in the eyes of the public, psychology is reduced to counseling and clinical psychology.
Unscientific attitudes within psychology itself. Psychologists can also rightly be accused of unprofessional behavior and unclear thinking. Further, professional organizations are much more concerned with chartering and licensing than with scientific behaviors. They look more like trade unions than scientific societies. Thus rigorous scientific psychologists and pseudo‐scientific speculative commentators sit side by side.
Everybody is a psychologist. Some believe they have a special, more profound, and perceptive insight into human nature.
Finally, some people imply that psychology diminishes or dehumanizes psychology. This is a moral or metaphysical objection based on the idea that trying to uncover fundamental mechanisms and processes reduces our wonder and curiosity about human behavior.
1.3 Tackling Student Skepticism About Psychology
Lilienfeld (2012) offered some useful advice for people when they became really skeptical about psychology. “Are you analyzing me right now?” Psychologists are asked this question by students, lay people, or both at some point. Many students and lay persons believe psychology is all Freud analysis all the time. Surveys suggest the general public does not regard our field as scientific. Most students have armed themselves on the first day of lectures with multiple myths and beliefs about what psychology is all about. Lilienfeld (2012) proposes ways to handle some of these spurious claims.
Myth 1: Psychology is merely common sense
Students, on their first days, can generate a number of beliefs they find intuitive and obvious: opposites attract; we use only 10% of our brain; gut instincts are usually correct. Yet all of these assertions are false – or at best very poorly supported.
Combating the common sense myth
So, how to debunk these spurious claims? Provide students with research that contradicts these beliefs. Introduce them to
hindsight bias
, which is the tendency to perceive outcomes as foreseeable once we know them. Once we learn of a psychological finding, it suddenly appears self‐evident.
Myth 2: Psychology is not a real science
Students perceive the psychological discipline as incomparable with that of “hard sciences.” Therefore, it must be far less scientific! Why do students assume this? Hard sciences use objective measures such as volts or chemical levels that make self‐reports seem flawed by subjective artifacts such as memory bias. Real sciences are perceived to be defined by exacting research designs. Students assume replicability in psychology cannot match that of a hard science.
Debunking the soft science myth
Point out to students that subjectivity does not mean unscientific. Ample data and studies demonstrate the validity of self‐reports.
Discuss how psychology safeguards against human error. Point out how fields in psychology routinely use randomized control groups and blind studies. Psychology also has a reliance on sophisticated statistical methods, from multiple regressions to structural equation modeling.
Psychology’s lack of replicability may be overstated. Hedges (1987) found particle physics results were no more replicable than those in psychology. Psychology also has more active scholars addressing potential problems with the replicability of their findings.
Myth 3: Psychology is not useful to society
Despite teachers’ efforts, some students still miss how psychology applies to everyday life. The role of biology in health seems clear. The role of engineering in building bridges seems obvious. As the wide breadth of psychology is not apparent to most students, they assume it has no clear role.
Earning a place in society
From the multitudinous range of real‐world applications you know, select a few that will resonate with your students. Psychology is used to standardize tests for university and graduate admission, as well as personal selection tests for employees. Perception researchers apply their field to improving the safety of vehicles and other apparatus. Cognitive psychologists use heuristics to influence the world of marketing, negotiation, and sales.
Even in the field of science, psychology has yet to receive recognition. Social science has always been seen as a “soft” science. Even though psychologists often emphasize the importance of being empirical and testable in their theories, psychology is still not recognized by the Nobel Prize. In 2002, the psychologist Daniel Kahneman received a Nobel Prize for his studies in decision making. Although these studies were heavily psychological, his award was made in the field of economics.
Myth 4: Psychologists and psychotherapists are the same
Most students and their parents perceive psychologists and psychotherapists to be extremely similar. In one study, students estimated that 56% of psychologists were in private practice, whereas the actual figure is 39%.
Part of the issue is that psychologists are confused with other “helping” professionals.
Knowing a coach from a couch
Draw attention to the misleading coverage of psychologists by the entertainment media. Many films use the terms psychologist and psychiatrist interchangeably.
Share information with your students about the different roles of different psychological disciplines.
Myth 5: Psychology is pretty useless – it cannot make good predictions
Students recoil when their frantically shouted out questions are answered with the phrase “it depends.” This can frustrate students into thinking psychological research cannot predict anything with certainty. They may also be dismayed by studies predicting a small percent of variance or when correlations do not exceed
r
= .30. Clearly, the consensus is that psychology is not powerful enough to predict behavior well.
Showing off its strength
Remind students of psychology’s high “causal density,” which is far higher than other hard sciences!
Statistical associations tend to be context dependent. For example, the relationship between divorce and negative outcomes in children is contingent on a myriad of variables. As a result, it is potentially impossible to apply a firm numeric value to this prediction.
This incompleteness stems in part from the sheer number of moderating variables, as well as our lack of knowledge of their impact.
Myth 6: Psychology is pretty useless – everyone is unique, so how can it predict behavior?
We are constantly told, from primary school into our working lives, that we are individual, unique, one of a kind. So students now assume psychology cannot generate meaningful generalizations as a result. For example, if every person with depression is slightly different, how can we outline underlying and universal treatments that are effective?
The fallacy of uniqueness
Psychologists understand and value the uniqueness in living things. The aim of psychology is to decode human thoughts and behavior in the hope of generating theories and models that can be applied to the majority of people. Various research methods have been developed to look at individual differences. For instance, research in differences in gender, age, race, and culture has certainly demonstrated psychologists’ effort in valuing human uniqueness.
The reality is that unique variables may be irrelevant to the underlying mechanisms of the treatment. Use vivid examples to debunk this rumor: All cases of melanoma are unique, yet 90% can be cured with early surgery. The same is true for psychiatric diagnoses. We do not state that all individuals in a category are alike, just that they are alike in one crucial way: the core signs and symptoms that comprise that category.
General teaching tip
Acknowledge and address the underlying sources of skepticism. The history of our discipline is characterized by attempting to change misperceptions. But a great more deal needs to be done!
Part of the issue is what students are exposed to:
Poorly supported or totally inaccurate pop psychology, featured in general‐population magazines written by non‐professionals.
Spurious portrayals in media and culture, with the “face” of psychology being personalities such as Dr. Phil McGraw (“Dr. Phil”).
The sheer multitude of self‐help books published without rigorous scientific testing, making claims far beyond the data.
The role of teachers:
Teachers play a valuable role in educating students about psychology’s scientific side. Many misunderstandings are what we may term “understandable misunderstandings.” Instructors must be prepared to acknowledge the understandable basis of student skepticism and tackle this head on.
As psychology is a part of our everyday lives and is subjectively “immediate,” it is liable to seem intuitively obvious. But familiarity must not be confused with genuine understanding!
1.4 Psychology and Control
Psychologists work in the media and the military. They are employed by advertising agencies, political parties, and others whom some would consider to peddle propaganda. Is psychology about (politically) controlling others? Wars have been good for psychologists. With massive call‐ups, psychologists have been heavily involved in selection, training, ergonomic design, welfare, and treatment of both military and civilians. Since World War II (1939–1945), psychologists have made a particular study of such things as interrogation techniques, and the effects of captivity and “brainwashing” or re‐educating both captured soldiers and defeated civilians. This research has provided many benefits, such as an understanding of the significant individual differences in reactions to sensory deprivation and also more recent understandings of post‐traumatic stress disorder.
Both sides in war provide propaganda for the people at home as well as the enemy. The aim of propaganda is to change emotions and beliefs about very general issues. It is clearly deceptive, slanted, and enriched with powerful emotional overtones. Further, propagandists attempt to keep failures, “cock‐ups,” and reverses “in perspective” and to preserve the credibility of the army and politicians. At times the aim is to keep the public calm but at other times the central aim is to arouse them. Psychologists have been interested in dispassionate research of these issues whereas others have actually been involved in devising propaganda messages.
Advertising may be considered a type of propaganda. It is certainly more persuasive in times of peace: It employs many psychologists and spends vast amounts of money! Psychologists have distinguished between the sources of the message (are they credible, trustworthy, sexy, experts); the message itself (is it clear, vivid, one‐sided); the medium (print, radio, television); the audience (are they knowledgeable, sympathetic, attentive) and the situation where they receive it (the home, the movies, a supermarket).
There is a vast and fascinating research literature on consumer behavior: good words to use (new, improved, quick), good pictures (animals, babies), and where best to place products (eye level, end of aisles, checkout) and how to package them (bundles, piled high). Some psychological research in this area has attracted a great deal of attention but little support. A good example is subliminal attention – messages that occur too quickly or faintly to reach conscious awareness but somehow are registered and effective. This was all popularized by Vance Packard’s book The Hidden Persuaders (1957). But careful research showed the whole subliminal issue to be, as one reviewer put it, “preposterous, absurd, ludicrous, and laughable.”
However, it has been established that moods do affect purchasing. Hence stores may pump in certain smells (baking bread, pine forests) or play particular music to change or enhance moods and so increase the likelihood of customers purchasing products.
Psychologists have also been active in devising consumer typologies. This is sometimes called psychographics and its aim is to segment actual or potential markets into types based on the values and lifestyles of consumers. Thus one could take any product (cars or cameras) or any setting (supermarkets or the web) and categorize the different types of consumers based not on their demography (age, sex, class) but their psychology (interest, opinions, values) (Gunter & Furnham, 1992). Marketing psychologists get involved in naming products, which has been shown to be very important. They also carry out research on designing the packaging, suggesting catchy slogans, placing the advertisement – indeed, the whole campaign.
So, to return to our question: Is psychological inquiry dangerous because it teaches us, or worse, it teaches clever psychologists, how to control behavior?
It has always been the ambition of psychology to describe, understand, and then predict behavior. If one can understand the antecedents of behavior it is not difficult to see how one may control them. Psychologists are frequently called in to try to control the spread of alcoholism or delinquency or theft. They are requested to help with social engineering by helping through legal, social or physical means to create environments that prescribe some behaviors and proscribe others. Most people are happy with this but seem far less happy when psychologists work for manufacturers and governments or organizations (the police, the secret service, prisoners’ associations) whose aims are somehow more political. Accusations of control are always political in the sense that they have strong value judgments attached to them. Just as the study of physics was responsible for both nuclear power and the nuclear bomb, so the study of psychology may be used for very different purposes.
If understanding and prediction are part of control, then psychologists wish to control a great deal. And individual psychologists, like individual scientists, have very varied political and moral beliefs.
There are psychologists who are both strongly pro‐corporal punishment (spanking) and anti‐corporal punishment. There are left‐wing and right‐wing psychologists. There are inevitably what most people would regard as morally good and morally bad psychologists.
The aim of psychology, however, is always the understanding and prediction of behavior.
How psychological findings are used is of interest to psychologists but is not their primary aim. Disciplines such as social policy and administration are much more interested in these questions.
Certainly psychologists believe in “giving psychology away” – not in developing products and processes for certain powerful or wealthy clients but in helping people in general understand the cause of things. Psychology benefits human welfare by attempting to understand and predict human behavior and publicizing the process through scientific papers and books. It is, in that sense, no different from economics or chemistry.
The idea that we should not research a topic like advertising, or welfare, or consumer behavior because the knowledge might be abused by someone is unacceptable. No topic within the field of human behavior is beyond the legitimate research of psychology.
1.5 How People Get Tricked
Perhaps we can understand why people hold false beliefs and misconceptions by how fraudsters successfully trick them.
Polidoro (1999) has examined in detail the deception mechanisms used in psychic fraud. He claims there are 26 different strategies that are categorized under five headings:
How to be believable
Psychics create believable claims – at least to those who believe in these sorts of things.
Supernatural psychic powers come from outside forces (e.g., God), so that detractors have to take on the Almighty.
Psychics like to appear modest and humble, which makes an audience more sympathetic and likely to overlook various issues.
Psychics pretend to be amazed by their own powers because (coming from outside) they do not know if they always work.
The more psychic phenomena are consistent (appearing many times in the same guise), the stronger the evidence of genuineness.
Psychics produce claims that individuals want to believe because they satisfy emotional needs for healing or contact with dead relatives.
Psychics credit their audience/participants with paranormal powers to motivate them.
How to limit and thwart the controls
The results of the (magic) psychic demonstrations are not stated in advance so participants do not know what to look for.
During the demonstration the original goal is switched slightly to one that escapes the controls.
Psychics create chaos to divert attention – or the opposite by being very slow and monotonous to reduce observers’ vigilance.
Psychics exploit control by preparing for tricks well in advance and getting access to secret information.
Psychics exploit inoffensive or reviewable controls that allow a sleight of hand.
The subject is allowed to suggest tests and conditions for tests, which gives people confidence but does not increase their powers of detection.
How to perform seeming miracles
The psychic appears incapable of fraud by being young, innocent, and incapable.
The psychic fails to pass the test designed to determine if the necessary skill is present: this makes him/her innocent of fraud (e.g., he/she physically cannot bend spoons).
The psychic appears to have no motivation to deceive: he/she does not look for fame or money and is content with the recognition of the genuineness of his/her powers.
The psychic uses familiar objects particularly if borrowed from the audience, so “proving” that no manufacturer’s “gimmicks” are involved.
The psychic uses simple methods again so as not to encourage distrust in the audience.
The psychic never uses the same method to fabricate the same kind of information. He or she never repeats a trick because it so often relies on the person not knowing what to expect and therefore what to look for.
The great fake psychics are improvisers as they need to be able to do things on the spur of the moment.
What to do in case something goes wrong
Failure is a proof of genuine paranormal powers: it cannot be a trick.
Skeptics produce “negative vibrations” that prevent the phenomenon occurring.
Any trickery detected may be attributed to the subject’s desire to please the audience – they could not help themselves because they needed to please the observers.
Any trickery detected may be considered proof of genuine powers because the ruse is simply too crude to be mistaken – the psychic did it involuntarily.
How to distort memories
The psychic is elusive, making it difficult to remember exactly what went on.
The psychic recapitulates often what happened to alter memories.
Certainly, by studying tricks one has a very good idea of why otherwise normal, bright individuals are taken in by them.
1.6 Conclusion
People remain very interested in all things psychological. The average newspaper usually contains, on a daily basis, at least one article reporting some recent finding. However, when exaggerated and misleading headlines are used, lay people will be left with inaccurate and unempirical psychological knowledge.
Lay people often misunderstand psychologists’ work. Poorly supported pseudo‐science claims are constantly reinforced by the media, leading to ignorance of the field among the general public. Most people often do not realize how practical and influential psychological knowledge can be.
It is untrue that psychologists have mystical power or can read minds, but they study behavior, which allows them to predict behavioral patterns. Does that mean psychologists can control behavior and intercept thoughts subliminally? Knowledge itself is neutral but is susceptible to being misused. Much depends on how psychologists maintain their competence and professionalism, and where they draw the line in the constant battle against psychology being viewed as a pseudo‐science.
2“Untangling” Myths and Psychological Realities
2.1 Popular Myths
Psychologists spend a great deal of time and effort attempting to re‐educate people who hold erroneous ideas about a subject. From one source or another many people come to believe in certain psychological theories that are patently untrue. And because of self‐fulfilling prophecies it becomes extremely difficult to dislodge those ideas. Let us now consider myths in a number of different areas.
2.2 Mind and Brain Myths
The brain
We use only 10% of our brain.
Beyerstein (1999a) has pointed out the many illogicalities of this myth. First, if 90% of the brain is usually unused, there should be many parts of it that could sustain damage without disturbing any of those abilities. Second, given the process of natural selection, it seems improbable that scarce resources would be wasted to produce and maintain an underutilized organ. Third, brain‐imaging technology shows that, even during sleep, there are no completely silent areas in the brain. Finally, in the extensive examination of brain functioning and specialty localization, no one has detected the silent 90% that is not used.
Metabolic studies, microstructural analysis, and work on neural disease provide no support for the 10% myth, which seems to have originated in the self‐improvement industry and among mad numerologists. Beyerstein (1999a, p. 23) notes:
It seems likely that some early investigators’ (probably optimistic) estimate that researchers only know what 10% of the brain does may have been misinterpreted as an assertion that we normally only need to use 10% of it. The concept of a trusty, “cerebral spare tyre” continues to nourish the clientele of “pop‐psychologists” and their many recycling self‐improvement schemes…As a refuge for occultists and flim‐flam seeking the neural basis of the miraculous, the probability of its being true is considerably less than 10%.
Left brain is verbal, rational, linear, and scientific; right brain is spatial, intuitive, emotional, creative, and artistic.
Corballis (1999) has traced the origins of this myth in the last century. Clearly there is something about the symbolism of left and right that inspires such potent ideas. From a specialization in laterality he notes that there is more that is symmetrical than asymmetrical about our brains. He observes:
My Chambers Concise Dictionary (1989 paperback edition) defines myth as “an ancient traditional story of gods or heroes, esp. one offering an explanation of some fact or phenomenon.” Except for the word “ancient,” this is not a bad definition of science, where our modern gods are genes and muons and black holes. We do, of course, go beyond the evidence in constructing theories, and the view of cerebral asymmetry I have presented in this chapter no doubt contains its share of myth. The problems arise when we allow the myth to escape from scientific scrutiny and become dogma, and when that dogma creates financial opportunities for charlatans and false prophets. That is what I think has happened with the left brain and right brain.
(Corballis, 1999, p. 41)
Body energy
Saravi (1999) has considered myths about body energy that one finds in the ancient Chinese and Indian medical traditions as well as in homeopathy. He argues that these energies have no known physical correlates and cannot be quantified. He notes that these “energies” are depicted as having positive and negative signs. “New Agers” and psychobabblers’ “energy” has only a remote relationship with its physical, scientific counterpart. For these groups, it is just a word conveniently invoked to explain phenomena whose very existence is far from certain (Saravi, 1999, p. 47). Finally, he spells out various misconceptions about energy and its transformations, such as matter and energy being freely exchangeable under physical conditions. He concludes:
Brain energy utilization has been the focus of a great deal of research in the last few decades, and has enhanced our knowledge of normal and deranged CNS function. However, neither clinical nor experimental data, from the living subject to the molecular level, lend any support either for mystical conceptions of mysterious “energies” related to brain function or paranormal phenomena. Of course, true believers will not be discouraged by these facts, but they can indeed make a difference for those who think that keeping an open mind does not mean to be blind and deaf to scientific evidence.
(Saravi, 1999, p. 58)
Brain boosters
Beyerstein (1999b) has spent many years studying pseudo‐scientists and writes with great panache about them. He notes:
Pseudoscientists have learned that an effective way to amass cash and converts is to begin with an uncontroversial claim from a respected branch of science and to proceed by imperceptible steps to stretch it to absurd but lucrative proportions.
Looking for something to add sizzle to their sales pitches, New Age hucksters are repackaging shopworn folk psychology with cheap mysticism and giving it a gloss of scientific respectability claiming unearned affiliation with neuroscience. I describe the emergence of this trend which began with the self‐improvement messiahs of the 19th century who saw the profit potential in tying threadbare positive thinking platitudes to the rapidly developing science of brain research. Their descendants, and those of their ever‐hopeful clientele, continue to populate the fringes of that segment of the New Age marketing empire known as “the human potential movement.”
(Beyerstein, 1999b, p. 61)
Beyerstein (1999b) examined the recent fascination with brain boosters. He notes that products break roughly into three categories: (1) devices that passively record brain waves in the hope that informing people about their status will teach trainees to produce the allegedly beneficial ones at will; (2) devices that attempt to alter brain activity directly by delivering trains of pulsating stimuli; and (3) so‐called smart cocktails, nutritional supplements that are supposed to improve brain functioning by increasing the availability of the raw materials used by the brain’s chemical pathways.
It seems abundantly clear from Beyerstein’s analysis that claims made for brain boosters are completely unfounded. He concludes:
The desire for self‐improvement and deeper understanding are two of our most noble human aspirations. Unfortunately, these commendable attributes go hand in hand with some other prevalent human traits – among them, our penchant for wishful thinking, self‐delusion, and grasping for quick fixes. Jumping to congenial, comforting conclusions is something we all do to those who manage to claw their way to these plateaux – guarantee that anyone promising a shortcut will soon attract a large following, whether deserved or not…There is, as we have seen, nothing new in the New Age. Its core beliefs are…traceable at least as far back as the mystery cults of the pre‐Socratic Greeks. New Agers’ criteria for truth are emotional rather than empirical – if it feels good, it must be true….The New Age movement differs from its predecessors only in the modern‐sounding jargon it chooses for restarting many of these ancient dogmas. The movement is primarily a marketing umbrella that combines numerous threads of ancient magical belief with the modern fascination with the latest in technology.
(Beyerstein, 1999b, p. 68)
There are many other demonstrably false assertions about mind and brain. The idea of dualism in ancient philosophy studies the mind–body problem and argues that the spiritual mind and the physical body (including the brain) are separate but interrelated entities. Supportive examples such as near‐death and out‐of‐body experiences are used to reinforce the dualistic notion of humans, but critics have nonetheless questioned the reliability of these self‐reported and subjective experiences. Some of the currently fashionable myths include recovered memories and sleep learning. An area that has attracted much mythology as well as research into its causes is creativity. Gilhooly (1999) reviewed various “fast‐track” methods to engender creativity: brainstorming, morphological synthesis, and so forth. He concluded that we know creativity is explicable in terms of everyday (not special) cognitive processes marshaled in a goal‐directed way (as opposed to blue‐sky research) over long periods of time (not suddenly). Creativity does not require special innate talents so much as knowledge acquisition. Further, “fast‐track” methods are of limited use in large‐scale, real‐life creative problem solving compared with extensive trial‐and‐error search (Gilhooly, 1999, p. 155).
There has also been nonsense written about aging (and how to reduce its effects), and hypnosis and what it (miraculously) can achieve. However, scientists have been active in researching and revealing multifarious aspects of deception, showing many miraculous findings to be explicable in terms of placebos and magicians’ secrets.
2.3 Myths about Happiness
For decades, mythical beliefs have continuously bothered psychologists in their line of work. Common misunderstandings include psychologists’ area of research interests. Nowadays it is believed that one best understands how a normal process works when it goes wrong. That is, one understands how the kitchen clock works only when one has to fix it.
Psychologists do not study health; they study illness. They do not study happiness; they study depression. They do not study marriage; they study divorce. But recently psychologists have given up this rather bleak approach and have dared to research such things as health and happiness. In doing so they have exposed various myths.
(Eysenck, 1990)
“
Happiness depends on the quality and quantity of pleasurable events that happen to one
.” Alas, the effect of such events is often transient; worse, they make subsequent events that are only moderately pleasurable appear uninteresting in comparison. A person enjoys pleasures because he or she is happy, not vice versa. Happiness is not the result of ever more vivid jabs of excitement. It can be the result of extremely humdrum activities such as stamp collecting or bird watching.
“
Modern stressful living has made people less happy than in previous times
.” This is not 20:20 hindsight but rather a view of the past through rose‐tinted spectacles. It involves selectively forgetting poverty, disease, and primitive technology. People in advanced (and supposedly stressed) Western societies are generally happier than those in underdeveloped countries. It is the way you live, not your standard of living, that counts most, however.
“
Those with serious physical disabilities are less happy than other people
.” Whilst sudden or creeping (acute vs. chronic) disability does induce depression, studies on quadriplegics have shown that the level of happiness soon recovers and that disability is no handicapper of happiness. Great beauty, physical strength or robust health are not themselves causes of happiness.
“
Young people in their prime of life with few responsibilities are happier than older people
.” In fact, contentment and satisfaction tend to increase with age. The young have stronger levels of positive and negative affect (emotion), but the balance is the same. Young people ride on a more daring rollercoaster of emotion and many thrive on this. They tend to call the flat sections “boring.”
“
People who experience great happiness also experience great unhappiness
.” This is a popular oversimplification. Being neurotic tends to lead to great highs and lows, but for the most part people do not swing widely between the two extremes. And you certainly do not have to “pay” for happiness with periods of unhappiness.
“
Intelligent people are happier than unintelligent people
.” As academics, we can confidently confirm that this is completely untrue; indeed, the opposite may even be the case. More intelligent people tend to have higher (and more difficult to achieve) aspirations and to worry about things (the arms race, the meaning of life) over which they have no control. Ordinary, “boring” people do not agonize over the meaning of life and may be all the better for it.
“
Children usually add significantly to the happiness of a married couple
.” Again, the opposite is true, particularly for married women. We can be pretty certain that the presence of children reduces happiness because most married couples become happier again as soon as all of their children have left the nest. But there is a strong biological need to procreate which can withstand the years of parenting.
“
Winning a fortune ensures happiness
.” Studies of pools winners show that, for many, the disruption causes the opposite. Loss of friends through jealousy, persistent begging letters, and so on can often lead to despair. People soon adapt to their wealth and move in new circles where, by comparison, they are not rich at all. Curiously, most working people who adjust best to their fortune are not those who “spend, spend, spend” but those who invest it and continue much as before. As with illness and disability, levels of happiness after winning a large sum of money soon return to earlier levels. There are happy and unhappy millionaires.
“
Men are happier than women because it is a man’s world
.” In fact, there is precious little difference between men and women, although young women tend to be slightly unhappier than young men, and the opposite is true from middle age onwards. Again, the so‐called benefits of being a man do not and cannot ensure happiness.
“
Pursuing happiness directly is the surest way to lose it – it occurs in a natural way and cannot be produced to order by thinking about it
.” Indeed, the opposite again is true – anything can be done more effectively and achieved more rapidly when we possess the relevant knowledge. At least knowing what does not cause happiness prevents us pursuing it pointlessly.
“
Happiness is a superficial goal to pursue
.” For some who belong to the muscular Christianity school of chin up and buckle down, happiness
per se
is a fruitless goal. They argue it is better to strive for solid work achievements. Happiness is also linked with physical health and predictive of longevity. As unhappiness can kill you, it can hardly be seen as a trivial aim.
“
Happiness is a fleeting experience, an ephemeral state
.” But we know from longitudinal research that the degree of happiness is stable over time. It is linked to personality and, despite some misconceptions, this changes relatively little over time. Happiness can be attained by adopting an outlook and lifestyle and can be permanent.
“
Marriage tends to reduce happiness
.” Again, the opposite is true, particularly for men. Despite the high divorce rate the figures are very clear. Overall, married people are much happier than unmarried people.
