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Psychomythology: 10 Common Myths About the Mind

brain

The Greek philosopher, Aristotle believed the heart organ was the center of emotions. Phrenologists were convinced that bumps on the human skull correlated with cognitive ability. Misconceptions about the human mind have always existed, and many commonplace beliefs once thought to be true, would be considered laughable now. The domain of psychology in particular has been a source of many such shibboleths and misconceptions that have been eventually disproven and debunked with the aid of better science and technology. Here is a list of 10 common myths about the mind that persist to this day.

10 percent brain

1. We Only use 10% of Our Brains.

The notion that we only use 10% of our brain, is a pseudoscientific claim that has managed to gain traction in pop culture. It’s been seized upon by the self help industry and used as the basis for many programs and books designed to help you unleash your supposed untapped brain power. In doing so, you could potentially boost IQ or unlock psychic powers like that of professor Xavier. The 10% claim has never been scientifically supported. Its origins are uncertain but the idea is generally attributed to a misconstrued reference to 19th century psychologist, William James (1-1).

In the foreword to the bestselling book “How to Win Friends and Influence People”, Lowell Thomas cited James as saying people only use 10% of their brain. In actuality, James was merely stating that people are often operating in a suboptimal, perfunctory fashion, not fully engaged mentally (1-2). He never suggested that there is a majority of the brain that goes unutilized, nor did he specify a percentage. Today, thanks to technology such as fMRIs and PET scans, there is scientific proof that there are no inactive or “silent” portions of the brain (1-3).

left and right brain

2. Left Brained & Right Brained People

While it is true that the two hemispheres of the brain are specialized for different tasks, the notion of a dominant hemisphere that equates to being either more creative or more logical is a fiction. Whether performing analytical or visual/spatial driven tasks, both hemispheres engage and communicate with one another. They work in concert and any given action will require an interchange of mental resources that are spread across both hemispheres.

The two hemispheres actually share the burden of most mental facilities such as language and perception although one side may bear more of it than the other (2-1). The two halves of the brain do specialize with respect to what side of the body it controls. However, even with patients who have undergone hemispherectomies (removal of part or all of a brain hemisphere) the brain has such remarkable ability to compensate to the extent that patients were found to be relatively high functioning on measures of vision, movement, emotion and thought processes. (2-2).

mozart effect

3. The Mozart Effect

The Mozart Effect was a theory that sparked a marketing craze in the 90s. It was based on a 1993 study in which participants were given an IQ test after listening to 10 minutes of either Mozart music, silence, or relaxing voice instructions. Those who listened to 10 minutes of Mozart’s piano sonata performed 8-9 points better than the other participants on tests measuring spatial reasoning. The effects however, lasted for only 10-15 minutes and there was no observed improvement on general intelligence (3-1). Nevertheless, media outlets jumped on the story but often misrepresented the study’s findings and implications.

The buzz it generated was substantial and Mozart CDs began flying off the shelves. The surge in interest was coming primarily from parents hoping to enhance their infant child’s cognitive development. There unfortunately has been no scientific evidence that early exposure to Mozart music would have any augmenting effect on IQ (3-2). Additionally, the short term effects that are associated with listening to Mozart may have little to do with Mozart in particular. Experts propose that it is rather the emotional arousal it produces, which can be achieved with virtually any music that is enjoyable to the listener.

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polygraph test

4. Reliability of Polygraphs

Despite being popularly used on television shows like Dr. Phil, polygraphs a.k.a. Lie detector tests, are more of a gimmick than anything. It is for this reason they are generally not admissible in court aside from certain exceptions. Their reliability is dubious in part because it is not even clear that the physiological indicators it measures for are valid signs of deception. Polygraphs depend on measures of three different physiological signals: heart rate/blood pressure, skin conductivity and respiration. Polygraph practitioners typically utilize two different questioning techniques: the Guilty Knowledge Test (GKT) and the Control Question Test (CQT).

Examiners look for signs of autonomic arousal in response to questions, which depending on the questioning technique used, may be interpreted as deceptive or non-deceptive. Polygraphs are problematic because it is really a measure of fear response. Individuals who are highly anxious can trigger false positives and those with a lack of anxiety (like psychopaths) can often beat the test with a false negative. Furthermore, the test can be thwarted with the aid of drugs or psychological techniques that suppress autonomic arousal response (4-1).

opposites attract

5. Opposites Attract

Conventional wisdom tells us that opposites attract. We see it in nature; magnetism, gravity and pressure are just some examples where forces of a polar nature physically draw towards one another. Intuitively, it stands to reason that this might extend to human attraction. After all, people of opposite temperament could potentially compliment, compensate for and complete one another’s flaws and deficiencies when they come together. This notion, although rational and prevalent, does not bear true in reality, at least with regards to personality.

Studies have shown that when it comes to what attracts and keeps people together, similarity in worldview, temperament, basic activities and sexual drive are the most critical factors (5-1). Additionally, there are studies showing married couples tend to rate similarly as their partner on personality tests (5-4). There is also a positive correlation found between personality similarity and marital satisfaction (5-5). One survey assessing 197 type A and type B people, found that participants tended to prefer people with traits of the same behavior type as their own (5-2). Another study showed that among children, there was a tendency to like and associate with peers who were of similar social status and behavioral style (5-3).

rorschach test ink blot

6. Inkblots

The Rorschach Inkblot test or simply Rorschach test, has been used to assess personality and mental disorders by analyzing a person’s interpretation of abstract ink splotches. It was developed in 1921 by Hermann Rorschach, a Swiss psychologist with a background in art. It was used primarily in WW2 to screen military personnel. Since then, it has been scientifically debunked despite its continued use by practicing psychologists (6-1).

As many as 6 million Rorschach tests are administered worldwide per year (6-2). Proponents of the test have described it as a “psychological X-Ray” and even to this day, there are clinicians who avow its importance as a tool for unearthing psychological trauma. However, research does not support the validity of the Rorschach test’s methodology or theory (6-3). It has been shown that the majority of test results have not been able to reliably predict personality traits or diagnose mental disorders such as clinical depression, anxiety and antisocial personality disorder (6-3).

graphology

7. Graphology

Graphology is a pseudoscience akin to that of phrenology and palmistry. It is predicated on the belief that details about personality can be revealed in handwriting. This is not to be confused with the work of Questioned Document Examiners (QDT) who are called upon to analyze handwriting for the purpose of verifying its authenticity. Graphologists believe handwriting is a window to the inner self and that the various idiosyncrasies in our handwriting such as spacing, legibility, length and angle of strokes, hold clues about our mental states.

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They have been largely utilized by companies as part of the hiring selection process. However, Graphologist interpretations have no scientific basis and have more to do with semantic associations. For example, writing that is widely spaced, signifies social distance and isolation. Writing that drifts upward indicates optimism. These interpretations represent largely common intuitions that even non-graphologists are likely to infer (7-2). Furthermore, researchers have found that the predictive power of graphologist predictions was no better than random chance and studies testing the accuracy thereof have consistently returned negative results (7-1).

full moon

8. The Lunar Effect

The lunar effect, also known as the Transylvania Effect, refers to the long-standing notion that the full moon correlates with higher rates of crime, hospital admissions, accidents and a host of other bizarre occurrences. Since ancient times, the moon has been commonly associated with psychosis and has been the basis of many folklores and mythic creatures such as werewolves and vampires. Part of the rationale behind this was a notion that the moon’s gravitational pull affects the fluids of the brain the way it affects the tides of the Earth. Today, the belief in the moon’s influence on crime and hospital admissions still persists even among professional health workers and college students. Even law enforcement organizations have been known to deploy additional personnel and resources during full moon occurrences (8-1).

Assumptions about the moon’s effect on the brain are flawed in part because the gravitational forces of the Moon only have an effect on large open bodies of water like oceans and lakes but not water that is in a closed, contained space like the fluids inside your skull. Furthermore, the tidal forces are independent of the lunar phases. The tidal effects are caused by factors irrespective of the moon’s various phases of visibility. Ultimately there is no scientific evidence to support any correlation with full moons and malefic phenomena on earth. However, one study did find a higher rate of traffic accidents occurring on full moons. It was later discredited after realizing that these full moons tended to fall on the weekend when more people are driving anyway. After controlling for that factor, further analysis no longer showed a positive correlation (8-2).

OCD cleaning

9. People with OCD are hyper-organized

For a lot of people, the term OCD is synonymous with being a germaphobic neat freak. In films and on television, OCD characters are often portrayed this way but in reality, people with OCD are not necessarily preoccupied with cleanliness or organization. OCD itself is an anxiety disorder whereby an individual experiences intrusive, unwanted thoughts that invoke guilt, fear or disgust followed by a compelling urge to perform ritualistic behaviors as means of staving off the distress it causes.

These intrusive, repulsive thoughts can encompass almost anything from the thought of hurting a loved one to licking something vile and unsanitary. The rituals employed may often have no rational basis and simply serve to establish an illusion of control for the individual. An OCD compulsion to clean will stem from a specific fear of germ contamination. For others, compulsions may be driven by a fear of committing sin, or a fear of a particular color or number. Compulsion rituals can center around any combination of things including praying, counting, and tapping objects (knocking on wood) (9-1).

10000 hours practice rule

10. The 10,000 Hours of Practice Rule

In his 2008 book, “Outliers: The Story of Success”, Malcolm Gladwell declared that 10,000 hours of practice was the key ingredient behind the success of the world’s most eminent figures’, from the Beatles to Bill Gates. Essentially, Gladwell proposed that what separates you from being exceptional like them, came down to 10,000 hours of practice. This magic number was derived from a 1993 study at Florida State University. In it, researcher K. Anders Ercisson, found that among a group of elite violinists, the average number of hours practiced by the age of 20 was 10,000. Among a group of lower skilled violinists, the average total hours practiced across the same time period was notably less. From this, Gladwell inferred that 10,000 hours was the defining benchmark for becoming an expert (10-1).

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After the idea gained widespread popularity, the author of the original study stepped out to denounce the 10,000 hour rule as a misleading oversimplification of his study. He asserted that there is no magic number of practice hours and the amount of time required to develop peak levels of proficiency will vary for different fields. Furthermore, studies have shown that in the domain of chess for example, individuals have qualified for a World Chess Federation title with as little as 3,000 hours of practice while others required 20,000+ hours. Hitting a specific number of practice hours in and of itself will not guarantee mastery within a given domain. It is rather the quality of practice aided by superior methodology and techniques and also innate talent that will make the difference. Factors such as access to effective coaching, environment, intelligence, genetic predisposition, and external support will ultimately determine the rate of progress and improvement one can achieve from each practice session (10-2).

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sources:

LINK 1-1: https://www.psychologicalscience.org/teaching/myth-we-only-use-10-of-our-brains.html
LINK 1-2: https://www.neuropsyfi.com/frequently-asked-questions/the-10-use-of-the-brain-myth
LINK 1-3: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16198151/
LINK 2-1: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/articles/201908/10-myths-about-the-mind
LINK 2-2: https://www.webmd.com/brain/news/20191119/they-had-half-their-brains-removed-heres-what-happened-after
LINK 3-1: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1281386/
LINK 3-2: https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128104580
LINK 4-1: https://www.apa.org/research/action/polygraph
LINK 5-1: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/think-well/201907/do-opposites-really-attract
LINK 5-2: https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1989-39877-001
LINK 5-3: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15305547/
LINK 5-4: https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1986-17078-001
LINK 5-5: https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1999-95020-342
LINK 6-1: https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2003-02714-000
LINK 6-2: https://www.jstor.org/stable/40062280
LINK 6-3: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-9280.1996.tb00658.x
LINK 7-1: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2005/feb/10/science.highereducation1
LINK 7-2: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/12113710_Illusory_correlations_in_graphological_inference
LINK 8-1: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/lunacy-and-the-full-moon/
LINK 8-2: https://www.livescience.com/7899-moon-myths-truth-lunar-effects.html
LINK 9-1: https://www.bostontrials.com/4-common-myths-about-ocd/
LINK 10-1: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/articles/201908/10-myths-about-the-mind
LINK 10-2: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/aug/21/practice-does-not-always-make-perfect-violinists-10000-hour-rule

Jetta Moon

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