Customer Reviews

50 Great Myths of Popular Psychology: Shattering Widespread Misconceptions about Human Behavior

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I was pretty excited about this one, it was a promising smart read but I was also hopoing it would be entertaining and witty too. Unfortunately, the authors clearly state that they have set out to create a book worthy of being a psychology textbook, and that's really what they have achieved here. It is rather dry, often goes on and on and has a very painful introduction to get through before any of the myth busting begins. The material in itself is interesting, but in my opinion could have been present in a more amusing way. Of course there is nothing wrong with the dry, detailed textbook style if that's what you're after, so perhaps my expectations here were the problem.

The authors of this book want readers to know that there is often a great gap between scientific reality and popular theory when it comes to understanding the human mind. Many of us have, in effect, unknowingly adopted bogus claims about our mental disposition that have been fashioned on perceptions that fall far short of the mark. These kinds of myths, according to credible research, are usually based on promoting limited experiences as gospel truth, employing poor sampling techniques, and mistaking correlations for causation. This book debunks fifty main beliefs and adds hundreds more in passing to make the point that faulty thinking can often cause people to indulge in faulty practices that distort an accurate view of life. Some of the fallacies that caught my eye were: the empty nest syndrome; the mid-life crisis effect; the 10% Brain Use Argument; criminal profiling; the 'Sad on Mondays' Condition, and the countless John Gray male vs. female polarities. While some of these interpretations may have a kernel of truth to them, they are hardly axiomatic in their application. Based on a wide-range of large peer-reviewed studies, Lilienfeld and his associates critiqued the validity of these theories, posing as fact, and conclude that they have very limited value. I would recommend anyone who is taking a university psych course to read this book first in order to get a handle on concepts that are often passed off as scientific when they are nothing more than an old wife's tale.