Erring to Succeed
I believe that the technique described in “The Pluses of Getting It Wrong,” by Henry L. Roediger III and Bridgid Finn—starting out with a hard test you’re bound to fail—is indeed the best way to learn. I had a college math professor who would pose a question on a topic we hadn’t learned yet. We would then spend the next half-hour trying to collectively come up with the solution as he shot down wrong answer after wrong answer. If you are so intent on finding the answer, when you finally get it, it sticks!
“bigems”
commenting at www.ScientificAmerican.com/Mind
The Trouble with Myths
lt is easy to refute an overly simplistic statement about a complex topic, but doing so does not necessarily mean an opposing statement is true. In “Busting Big Myths in Popular Psychology,” by Scott O. Lilienfeld, Steven Jay Lynn, John Ruscio and Barry L. Beyerstein, the authors imply that expressing anger is never therapeutically useful, based on studies of people pounding nails or playing violent video games. As a psychotherapist, I find that I can help patients defuse their anger by having them physically express it.
Similarly, negative emotions and attitudes, which might affect cancer and other illnesses, take hard work to root out and bring to consciousness. To claim that the link between emotions and cancer is a myth, based on studies of people who paper over deep-seated negativity with positive thinking, is analogous to concluding that it is a myth to say “vegetables are healthy” based on studying people who consume five servings per day of ketchup. And possibly as harmful.
Ted Riskin
via e-mail
THE AUTHORS REPLY: We agree that there is a danger in oversimplifying complex psychological claims. Nevertheless, we must beware of the logical fallacy of the golden mean: the erroneous belief that the truth always lies in between two extremes. In the case of the myth of anger expression, we did not argue that “expressing anger is never therapeutically useful”; instead we maintained that expressing anger is likely to be helpful only when accompanied by constructive problem solving. Additionally, Riskin is mistaken that studies refuting the link between positive emotions and cancer focus on “people who paper over deep-seated negativity with positive thinking.” As we noted in our article, well-controlled studies of support groups among breast cancer survivors—which do not encourage women to ignore their negative moods—show no effects of positive thinking on survival rates.
In my experience, the display of anger has quite different purposes from the experience of uncontrollable emotion. What I read in this piece was that the authors haven’t spent very long working in a biker bar, or in the noncommissioned ranks of a military force, or (here in the U.K.) on the terraces of a football match. I have found well-developed models for the purposeful and cathartic expression of anger in all these places.
So it is in the case of my letter: I was angry enough about this misrepresentation to write to you but not so enraged that I threw my laptop out the window!
Steve Cassidy
London
See what we're tweeting about
4 Comments
Add CommentCheck out proSeed: - a journal of environmental finance. It's a weekly publication which reports on the environmental finance space. In future journals we will continue to provide compelling information, relevant news, interviews with industry professionals, and a whole lot of other interesting material. http://proseedjournal.blogspot.com/
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIMO, Beckoff cries 'wolf' when he states (with proper disclaimers):
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"...I think it is possible that early humans saw the animals’ fairness, cooperation, empathy and other positive social behavior patterns and may have used these “social lessons” in their own interactions."
Other primate species also have sophisticated social behaviors strongly featuring fairness, cooperation and especially empathy. Why would humanity have had to learn these behaviors from canines after hundreds of thousands of years? I think Beckoff is a true dog lover.
Fairness, Honesty, and the blaming game
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHerbert uses research articles findings documenting persons wearing the so called knockoffs triggered dishonesty in his article Faking It. He then laments that counterfeiting is a serious economical and social problem and wearing the fakes makes people cynic and has hidden social costs.
These results can also be explained by thinking that wearing fakes made Jane Doe more aware of the possibility of getting away with cheating corporations who they consider cheaters. Arent the corporations making eyeglass frame cheating by making them costlier than gold? Arent corporate executives cheating by garnering ever- expanding extravagant benefits? When reminded of corporation logos such as Beyond Petroleum B. P., it is easy to be a cynic. Also if she is cynical about psychological studies, she might cheat to feel the thrill of getting away with cheating psychologists.
I think the research results show that there is need for research on why people covet costly designer products and how psychologists aids the marketing of nearly useless or even potentially harmful ideas and products. The society will served better if psychologists would help Jane avoid psychological marketing traps and thus make the playing field more level.
Furthermore, to decrease cynicism felt by Jane, psychologists could research corporate management and even super-persons corporations themselves to tally the hidden moral cost and suggest ways to make them fairer and more honest.
Fairness, Honesty, and the blaming game
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHerbert uses research articles findings documenting persons wearing the so called knockoffs triggered dishonesty in his article “Faking It.” He then laments that counterfeiting is a serious economical and social problem and wearing the fakes makes people cynic and has hidden social costs.
These results can also be explained by thinking that wearing fakes made Jane Doe more aware of the possibility of getting away with cheating corporations who they consider cheaters. Aren’t the corporations making eyeglass frame cheating by making them costlier than gold? Aren’t corporate executives cheating by garnering ever- expanding extravagant benefits? When reminded of corporation logos such as Beyond Petroleum B. P., it is easy to be a cynic. Also if she is cynical about psychological studies, she might cheat to feel the thrill of getting away with cheating psychologists.
I think the research results show that there is need for research on why people covet costly designer products and how psychologists aids the marketing of nearly useless or even potentially harmful ideas and products. The society will served better if psychologists would help Jane avoid psychological marketing traps and thus make the playing field more level.
Furthermore, to decrease cynicism felt by Jane, psychologists could research corporate management and even super-persons corporations themselves to tally the hidden moral cost and suggest ways to make them fairer and more honest.