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PsychMyths and Psychology Applied To Everyday Life
Why What You Think You Know About Human Behavior Is Mostly Wrong
It's a bold statement; that much of what you think you know about human behavior is wrong, but it's true for many of us. In this new section I'm going to walk you through, step by step and explain why this is true, what beliefs you hold are wrong, and most importantly the implications of being wrong (or right) in real life.
We'll tackle Psychology myths -- those things that are generally believed by lay people, and have been repeated over and over again, but are simply wrong.
I'll explain why, as human beings, we tend to make certain kinds of mistakes, fairly consistently, and partly as a function of how the brain works (note that having beliefs that are wrong doesn't make you stupid, but, in fact "normal".
It's going to be a fun ride.
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Introductory Information
Welcome, Why PsychMyths, and A Disclaimer
Learn why I created PsychMyths, and why you shouldn't believe me, either.
Your Basic Brain Principles
To understand why people believe things that are false, you need to understand some very basic things about the brain, that work together to "push" us, into false conclusions, and believing things, not only in the absence of good data, but even when the things we believe in are patently silly if we stopped to think about them, even for a moment.
The Prime Directive: Information Load Reduction
The brain is a "limited capacity information processing machine", and that simple fact, albeit simple, is essential to understand if you want to understand people, and yourself.
Your Brain Hates Uncertainty - It's an Uncertainty Reduction Machine
The brain's tendency to reduce uncertainty, or to "force you" to make a decision or take an action or suffer discomfort has implications for what we think we know. It pushes us to become certain and that means we stop searching for and using additional information.
Your Brain Hates Incompleteness AND Inconsistency - Filling In The Holes
One of the most interesting things about how the brain works is that, in the service of reducing information processing load, it "dislikes" incompleteness and inconsistency and strives to reduce both.
Your Brain and Dissonance - How You Distort The Information You Come Across, and Why You Don't Look For Information That Conflicts With What You Believe
Your brain drives you to reduce conflicting information, and actually works to "encourage" you to ignore, or not look for any information that conflicts with what you already believe. Which causes you to get stuck, get close-minded, and to get stuff wrong.
Social Facilitation and Disinhibition - How We Are Affected By Others And End Up Believing In Wrong Things
In the quest to reduce information load, and because we are wired so, we learn and are affected by seeing what others do. But unfortunately, that leads us to believe that things that are popular beliefs are factual. Popularity and truth are not the same thing.
Our Brains Are Built To Associate
Our brains are built to associate things that happen together in time. This leads to a host of errors in interpreting our complex environments, and explains things like superstitions and the linking of things in the environment to unpleasant experiences.
PsychMyths (coming topics)
Left Brain, Right Brain - Why everything you believe about the two "parts of the brain" is wrong.
Is there anyone on the planet who hasn't heard, and probably believed, in the right brain = creative and left brain = logical? Sorry, while there are different parts of a brain, the brain only works as a whole system. By and large the left brain, right brain beliefs are simply put, bunk.
Amygdala Hijacking - Visiting the Myth of Your Reptile Brain, and Emotions
Learning Styles - Nu-Uh - How Learning Styles Are Completely Misconstrued
Personality Styles - Common Sense? Yes. Wrong? Pretty Much
The Myth of Rational Decision Making
The Myth of Surveys - Saying Vs. Behaving
The Myth of More Information Resulting In Better Decisions
The Myth of Racism, Sexism, or Categorizationism
Emotions Affect Thought, But Wait. It's Actually the Other Way
We use Only 10% Of Our Brains. Not So.
Oh, Those Wacky Affirmations. Do They Work?
Myths About Learning and Education
Lecture is Bad
E-Learning - McLuhan, Functional Fixedness Applied
Schools Stifle Creativity
Standardized Tests Are Useless
Business and Management
The Myth of the Rational, Free Market System
The Myths Surrounding Customer Service
Why We/You Get Things Wrong
How Do You Know What You Think You Know About Psychology
Information Load Strategies Lead To Wrong Conclusions
Well, It Makes Sense To Me, So It Must Be True of...Everyone!
The Search To Confirm What We Already Believe
The Overwhelming World of Multi causation Part 1 (Distal and Proximate Causes)
The Overwhelming World of Multi causation Part II (Multivariate Causation)
Everything is "frame-able" and There Is An Infinite Number of Frames
Perceiving Other People Differently Than We Perceive Ourselvesl
The Problem of The Outlier
Confusing Metaphors With Reality
Constructs, Reification, Huh?
The Effects of Repetition
The Social Effect - Popular Ideas "Make It So"
Misunderstanding Science
The Authority of Numbers
The Process of "Rationalization"
Cognitive Distortions - How Our Brains Mislead ALL of Us
Over-Generalization - The Broad Brush Syndrome
The Talk Vs. Behavior Illusions
Tools To Self-Correct Your Brain Biases and Quirks
While your brain has evolved a number of ways of dealing with information that "push" you into accepting and believing in things that are incorrect, as human beings we have the ability to self-correct through how we think, and learning some intellectual discipline skills. Here, you'll find some of those skills explained.
Miller's Law
(more coming)