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Psychology myths 1 of 10 Myth #1 People Use Only 10% of Their Brain Power
A long time ago, I heard about the myth that people only use 10% of the brain. At first I thought that only people who were not in the field of psychology or neurology would believe this misconception. Until I read that in one study one-third of psychology students answered that people only use one-tenth of their brain power (Higbee & Clay, 1998, p. 471). Then, when people kept asking me what I thought about humans only being capable of using ten percent of their brain and reading things like 59% of a sample of individuals who went to college in Brazil believe in this myth and that six percent of neuroscientists agreed (Herculano-Houzel, 2002), I understood that I was reading about one of the most prevalent myths in psychology. (If you would like to learn more about this and other myths check out 50 Great Myths of Popular Psychology by clicking this link) History Where did it come from? Well, it's hard to pinpoint its origin, but it seems that it originated when William James wrote that he doubted that people used more than 10% of their intellectual capacity. Then, some people slowly transformed the term into 10% of the brain. Moreover, the journalist Lowell Thomas stated that the proposition came from William James. He wrote this in the preface of "How to Win Friend and Influence People," which has sold 15 million of copies worldwide. Some people believe that Albert Einstein used this claim in order to explain his intelligence, but the staff at Albert Einstein did not found evidence of this. Why is it so prevalent? There are several reasons this myth has not died. First of all it would be good news to know that we have room to expand and there are a lot people who help feed these hopes. For example Robert K. Cooper wrote a book called "The Other 90%: How to unlock your vast untapped potential for leadership and life." Other books where the ten percent claim is present includes "How to Be Twice as Smart," by Scott Witt. He wrote on page four thAat "If you are like most people you're using only ten percent of your brain power." In addition, it has been used over and over in the media. A good example would be the movie "Lucy." If you have not seen this movie, it involves a woman who is slowly accessing more parts of her brain thanks to a drug. She starts by being able lo speak other languages, but in the end she has superpowers such as telepathy. Can we improve? According to Dr. Gordon, a behavioral neurologist and cognitive neuroscientist, who had an interview published in Scientific American in 2008, we use virtually every part of the brain. Does this mean that people have reached their limits? Well, no. Research explains that there is the best way to improve is not by unlocking secret areas of the brain, but rather working hard (Beyerstein, 1999c; Druckman & Swets, 1988). And yet people still believe that there is the possibility that they will unlock that 90%. Why? Because the evidence of the research has not changed the convictions of believers of the myth (Beyerstein, 1999c). But, can we change that? http://hbookreviews.blogs...of-10.html [Edited 7/12/15 23:33pm] | |
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Saying this "we only use 10%..." of course makes someone look smart. As if that person somehow knows a way to get to the other 90%. Imagine what would be possible then! I never really believed it, but on the other hand, there are parts of the brain that offer a way into different realities that we don't normally visit. Are you going to do the other nine myths as well? | |
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Sounds like human rational at work.
FOOLS multiply when WISE Men & Women are silent. | |
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I believe that the human capacity for intelligence is limitless. But it's not like we can unlock some door and have all this intelligence fall on us. We expand our intelligence every day, and always have. And always will. | |
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Myth #2: It’s Better to Express Anger Than to Hold it in If you’re like most people, you believe that releasing anger is healthier than bottling it up. In one survey, 66% of undergraduates agreed that expressing pent-up anger — sometimes called “catharsis” — is an effective means of reducing one’s risk for aggression.6 A host of films stoke the idea that we can tame our anger by “letting off steam” or “getting things off our chest.” In the 2003 film Anger Management, after the meek hero (Adam Sandler) is falsely accused of “air rage” on a flight, a judge orders him to attend an anger management group run by Dr. Buddy Rydell (Jack Nicholson). At Rydell’s suggestion, Sandler’s character plays dodgeball with schoolchildren and throws golf clubs. Dr. Rydell’s advice echoes the counsel of many self-help authors. John Lee suggested that rather than “holding in poisonous anger,” it’s better to “Punch a pillow or a punching bag.”7 Some psychotherapies encourage clients to scream or throw balls against walls when they become angry.8 Proponents of “primal scream therapy” believe that psychologically troubled adults must release the emotional pain produced by infant trauma by discharging it, often by yelling at the top of their lungs.9 Yet more than 40 years of research reveals that expressing anger directly toward another person or indirectly toward an object actually turns up the heat on aggression.10 In an early study, people who pounded nails after someone insulted them were more critical of that person.11 Moreover, playing aggressive sports like football results in increases in aggression,12 and playing violent videogames like Manhunt, in which participants rate bloody assassinations on a 5-point scale, is associated with heightened aggression.13 Research suggests that expressing anger is helpful only when it’s accompanied by constructive problem-solving designed to address the source of the anger.14 Why is this myth so popular? In all likelihood, people often mistakenly attribute the fact that they feel better after they express anger to catharsis, rather than to the fact that anger usually subsides on its own after awhile.15 | |
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At least the primal scream therapy inspired John Lennon to make some good music! But yes, I can see how this is a myth too. But it's an idea that has become a big part of society. If you have a problem, talk about! Don't keep it bottled up! All the therapists and analysts and psychologists would be out of work without this myth! | |
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Myth #3: Low Self-Esteem is a Major Cause of Psychological Problems
Many popular psychologists have long maintained that low self-esteem is a prime culprit in generating unhealthy behaviors, including violence, depression, anxiety, and alcoholism. From Norman Vincent Peale’s 1952 The Power of Positive Thinking onward, self-help books proclaiming the virtues of self-esteem have become regular fixtures in bookstores. In his best-seller, The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem, Nathaniel Branden insisted that one “cannot think of a single psychological problem — from anxiety and depression, to fear of intimacy or of success, to spouse battery or child molestation — that is not traceable to the problem of low self-esteem.”16 The self-esteem movement has found its way into mainstream educational practices. Some athletic leagues award trophies to all schoolchildren to avoid making losing competitors feel inferior.17 One elementary school in California prohibited children from playing tag because the “children weren’t feeling good about it.”18 Moreover, the Internet is chock full of educational products intended to boost children’s self-esteem. One book, Self-Esteem Games, contains 300 activities to help children feel good about themselves, such as repeating positive affirmations emphasizing their uniqueness.19 But there’s a fly in the ointment: Research shows that low self esteem isn’t strongly associated with poor mental health. In a comprehensive review, Roy Baumeister and his colleagues canvassed over 15,000 studies linking self-esteem to just about every conceivable psychological variable. They found that self-esteem is minimally related to interpersonal success, and not consistently related to alcohol or drug abuse. Moreover, they discovered that although self-esteem is positively associated with school performance, better school performance appears to contribute to high self-esteem rather than the other way around. Perhaps most surprising of all, they found that “low self-esteem is neither necessary nor sufficient for depression.”20 [Edited 7/14/15 11:34am] | |
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Myth #4: Human Memory Works like a Video CameraDespite the sometimes all-too-obvious failings of everyday memory, surveys show that many people believe that their memories operate very much like videotape recorders. About 36% of us believe that our brains preserve perfect records of everything we’ve experienced.21 In one survey of undergraduates, 27% agreed that memory operates like a tape recorder.22 Even most psychotherapists agree that memories are fixed more or less permanently in the mind.23 It’s true that we often recall extremely emotional events, sometimes called flashbulb memories because they seem to have a photographic quality.24 Nevertheless, research shows that even these memories wither over time and are prone to distortions.25 Consider an example from Ulric Neisser and Nicole Harsch’s study of memories regarding the disintegration of the space shuttle Challenger.26 A student at Emory University provided the first description 24 hours after the disaster, and the second account two and a half years later.
Clearly, there are striking discrepancies between the two memories. Neisser and Harsch found that about one-third of students’ reports contained large differences across the two time points. Similarly, Heike Schmolck and colleagues compared participants’ ability to recall the 1995 acquittal of former football star O. J. Simpson 3 days after the verdict, and after many months.27 After 32 months, 40% of the memory reports contained “major distortions.” Today, there’s broad consensus among psychologists that memory isn’treproductive — it doesn’t duplicate precisely what we’ve experienced — but reconstructive. What we recall is often a blurry mixture of accurate and inaccurate recollections, along with what jells with our beliefs and hunches. Indeed, researchers have created memories of events that never happened. In the “shopping mall study,” Elizabeth Loftus created a false memory in Chris, a 14-year-old boy. Loftus instructed Chris’s older brother to present Chris with a false story of being lost in a shopping mall at age 5, and she instructed Chris to write down everything he remembered. Initially, Chris reported very little about the false event, but over a two week period, he constructed a detailed memory of it.28 A flood of similar studies followed, showing that in 18-37% of participants, researchers can implant false memories of such events as serious animal attacks, knocking over a punchbowl at a wedding, getting one’s fingers caught in a mousetrap as a child, witnessing a demonic possession, and riding in a hot air balloon with one’s family.29 Myth #5: Hypnosis is a Unique “Trance” State Differing
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We don’t mourn artists because we knew them. We mourn them because they helped us know ourselves. | |
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It's coming from this book. There are some things that'll piss people off, or rather they'll simply not agree with. IDK, I'm strictly Psych 101
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10 OF PSYCHOLOGY'S GREATEST MYTHS
Myth - Subliminal Advertising Works
It's one of the great conspiracies of the television era: that advertisers and influencers are flashing subtle messages across our screens -- sometimes lasting as little as 1/3000th of a second -- and altering how we think and act, as well as what we buy. Rest assured, however, these advertisements don't work. Your unconscious mind is safe. In a great many carefully controlled laboratory trials, subliminal messages did not affect subjects' consumer choices or voting preferences. When tested in the real world, subliminal messaging failed just as spectacularly. In 1958, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation informed its viewers that they were going to test a subliminal advertisement during a Sunday night show. They then flashed the words "phone now" 352 times throughout the program. Records from telephone companies were examined, with no upsurge in phone calls whatsoever. The dearth of evidence for subliminal advertising hasn't stopped influencers from trying it. In 2000, a Republican ad aimed at Vice President Al Gore briefly flashed the word "RATS."
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2 that I have seriously believed. Myth: We are born with all the brain cells we ever have, and once they die, these cells are gone forever.Traditional wisdom has long suggested that adults only have so many brain cells and that we never form new ones. Once these cells are lost, are they really gone for good? Reality Check: In recent years, experts have discovered evidence that the human adult brain does indeed form new cells throughout life, even during old age. The process of forming new brain cells is known as neurogenesis and researchers have found that it happens in at least one important region of the brain called the hippocampus. "Above-ground nuclear bomb tests carried out more than 50 years ago resulted in elevated atmospheric levels of the radioactive carbon-14 isotope (14C), which steadily declined over time. In a study published yesterday (June 7) in Cell, researchers used measurements of 14C concentration in the DNA of brain cells from deceased patients to determine the neurons’ age, and demonstrated that there is substantial adult neurogenesis in the human hippocampus." – Dan Cossins, The Scientist Myth: Drinking alcohol kills brain cells.Partly related to the myth that we never grow new neurons is the idea that drinking alcohol can lead to cell death in the brain. Drink too much or too often, some people might warn, and you'll lose precious brain cells that you can never get back. We've already learned that adults do indeed get new brain cells throughout life, but could drinking alcohol really kill brain cells? Reality Check: While excessive or chronic alcohol abuse can certainly have dire health consequences, experts do not believe that drinking causes neurons to die. In fact,research has shown that even binge drinking doesn't actually kill neurons. "Scientific medical research has actually demonstrated that the moderate consumption of alcohol is associated with better cognitive (thinking and reasoning) skills and memory than is abstaining from alcohol. Moderate drinking doesn’t kill brain cells but helps the brain function better into old age. Studies around the world involving many thousands of people report this finding." – PsychCentral.com
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By St. Boogar and all the saints at the backside door of Purgatory! |
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