Rethinking Psychology

In this thought-provoking exploration of 44 of the most common psychological myths, Mike Eysenck examines the complexity of psychological science as well as the distortion of data, not only through the media, but also by researchers, textbook writers, and individuals themselves.

Michael W. Eysenck graduated from University College London. He then moved immediately to Birkbeck University of London as a lecturer where he did his PhD on the von Restorff and 'release' memory effects. His research for several years focused on various aspects in memory (e.g., levels of processing; distinctiveness). Since then, his main focus has been on anxiety and cognition (including memory) in healthy populations and patients with anxiety disorders. Some of this research has focused on cognitive biases especially those affecting attentional and memory processes. Theoretically, he proposed his influential attentional control theory of anxiety in 2007 based on the assumption that anxious individuals' problems with cognitive processing often revolve around impaired attentional control. Most of this research and theorising was carried out at Royal Holloway University of London where he was Professor of Psychology between 1987 and 2009 (Head of Department, 1987-2005) and where since 2013 he has been a fellow. He continued this research during the period 2010-2020 at the University of Roehampton. He has published 67 books in psychology (many relating to human memory) including two research monographs on anxiety and cognition. He has been in Who's Who since 1989.

Preface Chapter 1: Is psychology a science? "Psychology is an inferior kind of science" Reproducibility and the 'replication crisis' Highly controlled experimental conditions Clearly defined terminology Predictability and testability: the 'theory crisis' What should psychologists do? Psychology is a different kind of science Myths in psychology Chapter 2: Visual perception Myth: subliminal messages can motivate people's behaviour without their awareness Myth: we generally detect changes in objects Myth: visual perception provides us with very rich and accurate information about the environment at a glance Myth: everyone agrees on the colour of a dress (or #theDress) Myth: most people are 'face experts' Why do we believe so many myths about visual perception? Chapter 3: Mysteries of memory Myth: "Memory is like a video camera" Myth: memories do not change over time: they are permanent Myth: repression and 'return of the repressed' are very common Myth: amnesic patients have forgotten their pasts Myth: the only function of (episodic) memory is to provide access to our past experiences Myth: forgetting is a bad thing Chapter 4: Thinking and cognition Myth: 10,000 hours of practice produce outstanding performance Myth: brain training improves your brain functioning and intelligence Myth: we only use 10% of our brains Myth: Artificial Intelligence (AI) will soon be much more intelligent than humans Myth: nudges are very effective at changing people's behaviour Chapter 5: Intelligence Myth: there are multiple intelligences in the human mind Myth: it is important to match teaching methods to learning styles Myth: emotional intelligence is helpful in life Myth: IQ scores only measure how good someone is at taking intelligence tests Myth: intelligence does not depend on genetic factors Chapter 6: Personality Myth: high self-esteem is highly desirable (and low self-esteem very undesirable) Myth: situational factors overwhelm personality when predicting behaviour Myth: personality measures do not predict consequential outcomes (like health, wealth and divorce) well enough to be useful Myth: parenting practices are a major source of personality differences Myth: men are from Mars, women are from Venus (men and women have dramatically different personalities) Chapter 7: Social psychology Myth: Milgram proved that most people will obey immoral orders Myth: crowds typically panic in threatening situations Myth: Zimbardo proved that the power structure in prisons makes guards aggressive and violent Myth: individual differences in attitudes are mostly learned Myth: happiness is influenced most strongly by what happens to us Chapter 8: Mental disorders and their treatment Myth: mental illnesses are due almost entirely to people's life experiences Myth: psychiatric diagnoses or labels stigmatise people Myth: The Rorschach Inkblot test is a very useful way of diagnosing most mental illnesses Myth: people with multiple personality disorder (dissociative identity disorder) have more than one distinct personality Myth: most psychotherapy requires lying on a couch and recalling one's childhood Myth: antidepressants are much more effective than psychotherapy for treating depression Chapter 9: Psychology and the law Myth: an eyewitness's confidence is never a good predictor of their identification accuracy Myth: experts can nearly always identify the culprit from fingerprinting evidence Myth: DNA tests are almost infallible for identifying culprits Myth: the polygraph test is very good at detecting lying Myth: hypnosis enhances eyewitnesses' memory Myth: Offender profiling is (very) useful in identifying culprits Chapter 10: How to become a mythbuster Why do people subscribe to myths? Distorted research: biased experimental design, reporting and interpretations of findings Biased textbook coverage Members of the public: confirmation bias or wishful thinking Members of the public: deficient thinking about intrinsically improbable beliefs Members of the public: mistaken extrapolation from limited personal experience Members of the public: plausible beliefs based on general knowledge (kernel of truth) Conclusions Chapter 11: Brave new world Experiments: the gold standard? Developing new methods Experimenter bias The jingle-jangle fallacies Granularity problem Scientific analysis: meta-analysis Scientific reporting Psychology as a cumulative science Conclusions References