What We're Reading: Jan

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

We’ve all heard the popular axioms: “opposites attract”, “there’s safety in numbers”, and “stress is the primary cause of ulcers” and have accepted them as fact. Surprisingly, these “myths” and many others have been debunked in this critique by four psychology professors using scientific studies and statistics. It turns out that, in general, mates are chosen based on similar values and personalities, groups of people don’t help in emergencies because they feel less responsible in a group than individually, and that stress is primarily caused by a bacterial infection. The authors discuss 50 ideas in depth and more than 200 others briefly and cover areas of psychology relating to law, memory, emotion, personality, mental illness and more. It’s a fascinating read as many of the ideas have been held as truth for years and are refuted - they fall one-by-one by the power of science. As the authors quote in the beginning of the book : “Science must begin with myths and with the criticism of myths.” (Sir Karl Popper , 1957)