Psychology Myths free essay sample

Power Most people believe that people only use 10% of the brain power because they are hopeful. Even very educated people fall into this trap. If only ten percent is being used, there Is plenty of room to become smarter. But this is untrue. Businesses feed off this hope for self-improvement, and therefore, create products that do not actually aid in self-improvement but Just act as a feel good product for the customer. But these scams and shortcuts are useless. Hard work is the only way of getting ahead in life.Looking at the Terrier Achieve case, 50% of her cerebrum was destroyed in an accident, and after the fact, she remained In a state of vegetation for fifteen years before her inevitable death. If 90% of the brain was not needed, Achieve should have survived. And In stoke and head trauma patients, no matter which part of the brain is destroyed, patients are always left with serious deficits in functioning. Finally, when parents of the brain are unused, they either wither away or are colonized by surrounding areas. Furthermore, people do not use only ten percent of their brain power. This is a myth I already knew to be false. And I found the supporting evidence to be very interesting. Chapter 2: Myth # 6 Playing Mozart Music to Infants Boost Their Intelligence In 1 993, a study was published showing that college students who listened to 10 minutes of Mozart sonatas performed much better on spatial reasoning tasks then the students who did not listen. Soon after, this study was blown out of proportion, and the Mozart Effect was born. The Mozart Effect is the claim that people became more Intelligent upon listening to Mozart music.It has even gotten to the point where the New York Jets played Mozart during practice to enhance their performance, and newborns in Georgia received free copies of Mozart CDC to increase intelligence. But research done on the Mozart Effect after the original study have not backed up the claim. Most research leads to another explanation: short- term arousal. So while Mozart music may boost performances shortly after listening, It has nothing to do with the music itself. And Mozart music does not have the ability to increase intelligence in adults or infants either.I was skeptical about this myth when I first heard this myth a few years ago, and it seems had good reason to be. Chapter 3: Myth # 14- Most People with Amnesia Forget All Details of Their Earlier Lives 1 OFFS up from a lengthy comma after an accident with little or no recollection of the past events in his life. This is what most Americans have come to believe. But in the real Nor, amnesia is the complete opposite; instead, those with amnesia have difficulty creating new memories. Also, the generalized amnesia that is portrayed in these Hollywood movies is extremely rare. There are more misconceptions that the public have about amnesia.One being, amnesia patients lives normal lives despite their loss of memory, and two being, a second bump to the head can be responsible for bringing lost memories back. Both are wrong. Amnesia patients are almost always scarred with lasting and serious cognitive deficits, and a second bump to the head only creates more problems. Sadly, I had fallen victim to this myth due to all the amnesia movies I had seen. Chapter 4: Myth # 16 If Youre Unsure of Your Answer When Taking a Test, Its Best to Stick with Your Initial Hunch he First Instinct Fallacy warns multiple choice test takers to be wary of changing answers. For it is more likely to change a right answer into a wrong answer than it is to change a wrong answer to a right answer. Though professors, students, and Inebriates encourage students to trust their initial hunch, scientific findings suggest otherwise. Over sixty studies suggest changing answers. For each point that students lose when changing from a right to a wrong answer, they gain between two and three points on average in changing from a wrong to a right answer. I admit that eave historically stuck with my hunches, but I wont be anymore.Chapter 5: Myth # 20 Researches Have Demonstrated that Dreams Possess Symbolic Meaning Once again brainwashed by popular belief, high percentages of people across the glove believe that dreams mirror peoples desires, showing the future, personal insight, and advice. Freud state that dreams were the royal road to understanding the unconscious mind, or the via Regina. During dreaming, the egos defenses are down, allowing the id to shine through. The id is then morphed into trademark, symbols masking hidden wishes.He warns though, that this trademark is difficult to decipher and not universal for all. However, modern scientists have not come across any evidence to prove Freud correct. Whilst in ERM sleep, people often have illogical and emotional dreams. Hobnobs and McCauley concocted a theory tying dreaming to brain activity instead of symbolic expression of unconscious wishes. Because of the haphazard information transmitted from the ponds of the brain, dreaming essentially has no meaning. But Freud was correct about two points: dreams are influenced by daily activity, and dreams are emotion based.This was another myth that I believed Chapter 6: Myth #25 Ulcers Are Caused Primarily or Entirely by Stress before the medical breakthrough in the mid sass, ulcers were believed to be caused by stress, along with a plethora of other causes. Frauds assumption that ulcers were result of psychological conflict. And to this day, this is still the popular belief, along Ninth eating and lifestyle habits. Also, because stomachs churn because of stress, it is assumed that stress can lead to other stomach problems.But proof arose when Marshall and Warren identified the relation between ulcers and the Helicopter wooly bacterium. But as usual, popular belief was slow to follow medical findings. But though awareness has spread, most still believe that stress is the primary cause of ulcers. But most likely, a combination of dangerous bacteria, stress, and emotions create a perfect environment for H. Pylori to wreak havoc on the stomach tissues. I believed this myth because I had a friend last year who was unbelievably stressed and also happened to have stomach ulcers.Chapter 7: Myth #27 Opposites Attract: We Are Most Romantically Attracted to People Who Differ from Us Everyone is in love with idea of opposites attracting romantically. But its too good to be true, right? Yes. This is one of many psychology myths that is always backwards. Dozens of studies show people with similar personality traits are more attracted to each other than if they had differing personality traits. Hence the creation of Inebriates such as Match. Com and Raymond. Com that match people based on shared personality traits and attitudes.Similarity in these traits are also a good indicator of marriage and happiness. So most of the time, like attracts like and opposites actually repel each other. This was a myth that I had heard much of and correctly rejected. Chapter 8: Myth #36 Our Handwriting Reveals Our Personality Traits Handwriting style is unique to each individual. Because of this, graphology, the analysis of handwriting, could possibly reveal our unique psychological make up. As a pseudoscience, graphology is not completely reliable and even open for interpretation.A whip like crossed letter t to one graphologist indicates a sadist but a Kerr to another graphologist. Graphologists say things such as the police and courts employees, but it isnt true. Police and courts dont use graphology and the pool of possible employees is already all qualified. Richard Kowalski conducted an experiment in 1992 and found that graphologists did no better than chance when foretelling ones Job performance based on handwriting. This was a myth I found to be somewhat silly; it is like Judging a book by its cover.Chapter 9: Myth #36 Theres Recently Been a Massive Epidemic of Infantile Autism Recently, the public has come to believe autistic babies are popping out of wombs left and right. Before the sass, 1 in 2,500 were autistic. That statistic is now 1 in 150, n astonishing 657% increase. Many parents pointed their fingers at Mercury tainted canines, even though there is no link between the two. Additionally, the 2008 U. S. Presidential election supported the increasing prevalence of autism, leading even more people to believe in the myth.But it is unlikely that autism is becoming more common. Instead, we must turn to a loosening of diagnostic procedures in recent times. And because schools are required to have an exact count of children with disabilities such as autism, the number of cases reported now does not reflect the hang in autisms frequency. Movies such as The Rain Man also created a heightened observation for autism. All these factors lead to the conclusion that the autism epidemic is an illusion; autism diagnoses are out of the roof while there is no actual increase in the prevalence of autism.This all makes for a pointless fuss over the autism epidemic. This was a myth I was already aware of because Born On A IEEE Day and having an autistic family friend; I was Just still curious on the matter. Chapter 1 1: Myth #49 All Effective Psychotherapies Force People to Confront the Root Causes of Their Problems in Childhood Hollywood movies often dramatist psychotherapy sessions, showing a patient reclined on a couch, searching for memories from childhood, and suddenly remembrance of a painful event.This stems from Frauds belief in current difficulties are rooted in experiences from childhood. Adding on to Freud, Harry Lessons belief that early memories when correctly interpreted often reveal very quickly the basic core of ones personality was also shared by many. Though childhood problems may help understand ongoing problems, these recollections are often distorted and accurate. Furthermore, childhood problems do not have to do with later psychological problems and do not need to be known to change.Later therapies emphasized the signifi cance of current awareness, acceptance, and expression of emotions. Behavior therapists define successful therapy as acquiring adaptive behaviors and strategies that patients can actually use in real life. As proof, in one psychotherapy treatment, 24 out of 42 patients improved but showed no insight forwards instead of backwards. This was another myth I thought was real because it seemed legitimate.