In Brief
- Scores of popular psychology books and articles are rife with what we term “psychomythology,” the collected body of misinformation about human nature.
- The authors’ new book busts 50 widespread psychology myths, along with about 250 “mini myths,” including “Most people use only 10 percent of their brainpower” and “People tend to behave oddly during a full moon.”
- In this article, the authors debunk six fallacies. They deflate enthusiasm for expressing anger, different learning styles and a positive attitude as a salve for cancer. They also discredit the belief that all alcoholics must aim for abstinence, that older people are unhappy and that grief emerges in five set stages.
Parts of this article are adapted from 50 Great Myths of Popular Psychology: Shattering Widespread Misconceptions about Human Behavior, by Scott O. Lilienfeld, Steven Jay Lynn, John Ruscio and Barry L. Beyerstein. Copyright © Wiley-Blackwell, 2010.
Popular psychology has become a fixture in our society, and its aphorisms, truths and half-truths permeate our everyday existence. A casual stroll through our neighborhood bookstore reveals dozens of self-help, relationship, recovery and addiction books that serve up heaping portions of advice for steering us along life’s rocky road. About 3,500 self-help books are published every year, and numerous new Internet sites on mental health sprout up every month.
This article was originally published with the title Busting Big Myths in Popular Psychology.
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8 Comments
Add CommentI was looking forward to enjoying, "Busting Big Myths in Popular Psychology" until I got a part which, in fact, perpetuates another myth. In discussing anger, the authors claim that "practitioners of Arthur Janov's 'Primal Therapy'...believe that must bellow at the top of their lungs" in order to release their childhood pain.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHad the authors actually read Janov, they would know that this is the opposite of what he prescribes. Janov, in fact, is opposed to therapists telling their patients what to do. Sure, sometimes a patient may be angry and want to yell, and sometimes they need to cry, and sometimes the feeling will be primarily a somatic one. The point is that it is the patient who knows, often unconsciously, why they feel bad. The role of a Primal therapist is to provide a safe and supportive space so that the patient can open up. It is not their role to tell the patient what to do or to provide "insights".
The authors' baseless assertions are uncomfortably like those "creationists" who have never read Darwin (or Gould or any real scientist), but who think they know anyway.
Even a short perusal of Janov's writing, such as ,"Prisoner of Pain" or "Why You Get Sick and How You Get Well, would show that the authors are promoting a caricature.
Whether Janov is right or wrong is one question; but setting up a straw man out of ignorance is another matter.
Sincerely,
Peter G. Prontzos
Great, an AD for a book - masquerading as a story, designed to sell magazines.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAgreed. I was expecting a news story, not an ad. I've seen this more than a few times lately and I'm beginning to wonder if my RSS feed on my google home page just needs to be removed so I can quit clicking on their advertisements.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis website is so lost... it's a shame!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLooking at the "search inside" pages in Amazon, it doesn't sound like this is anything new (every myth mentioned in the preview was covered in my '90s undergrad experimental psych. class, precisely to demonstrate poor thinking and how to correct it). So it's not like this is new science.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut surely it's a good thing to put facts together in one place for the lay population. And the process of understanding how the myths began and how they got debunked is a good exercise in understanding scientific thought. So while it might have been better to write a review of the book, it doesn't seem completely out of place for Scientific American to promote it.
It is definitely true that thoughts and feelings in mind, or ego and emotions cannot be controlled or ameliorated effectively by contemplative or meditative mentation or thoughts and mental therapies alone. Counter techniques like giving space for expression of negative emotions are also reported to have done more harm than good by reinforcing certain types of ambivalent behavior that doesn't help in the long run,despite claims to the contrary by primal therapists. But techniques of mentation and self counseling or psycho therapies that are often discredited as having dubious value may work when coupled with breath patterns like in a sleep,where the breathing is more internalised .Breathing controls and emotional controls in the brain do overlap as some studies have found ,and hence there may be a way through specialized breath techniques to alter mental and emotional states by process philosophic approaches or yogic pranayama techniques. There are some empirical evidence reported in consciousness literature to substantiate this.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSURESHKUMAR.S,SCIENTIST AND ADVISER,NIIST,TRIVANDRUM,INDIA
One of the so called "myths" is that kids should not be taught according to learning style. That in doing so they don't learn how to compensate or adapt. They also don't learn what is being taught and realize their potential! The authors are writing a book. Dear ducklings, I urge you not to line up behind these mother quackers.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe myth about problem drinkers being able to drink again was legitimate, but improperly justified. Not everyone who has a drinking problem may truly be an alcoholic. However, the study cited found only 18% of the problem drinkers could safely drink again. What about the other 82%? How many more innocent victims of drunk driving must die, because an alcoholic, who will always crave alcohol to some degree, saw a study showed that a small percentage could safely drink "moderately"?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe "moderation management" movement is extremely suspect. Yes, Alcoholics Anonymous is not for everyone. But the temptation to be able to drink "moderately led the movements founder, Audrey Kishline, to eventually kill a father and daughter, driving the wrong way down the interstate with a blood alcohol level over twice the legal limit.
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I found your story devoid of scientific rigor or journalistic integrity.