Audiobook10 hours
50 Great Myths of Popular Psychology: Shattering Widespread Misconceptions about Human Behavior
Written by Barry L. Beyerstein, Scott O. Lilienfeld, Steven Jay Lynn and John Ruscio
Narrated by Walter Dixon
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
()
About this audiobook
50 Great Myths of Popular Psychology uses popular myths as a vehicle for helping students and laypersons to distinguish science from pseudoscience.
Uses common myths as a vehicle for exploring how to distinguish factual from fictional claims in popular psychology
Explores topics that listeners will relate to, but often misunderstand, such as 'opposites attract', 'people use only 10% of their brains', and 'handwriting reveals your personality'
Provides a 'mythbusting kit' for evaluating folk psychology claims in everyday life
Teaches essential critical thinking skills through detailed discussions of each myth
Includes over 200 additional psychological myths for listeners to explore
Contains an Appendix of useful Web Sites for examining psychological myths
Uses common myths as a vehicle for exploring how to distinguish factual from fictional claims in popular psychology
Explores topics that listeners will relate to, but often misunderstand, such as 'opposites attract', 'people use only 10% of their brains', and 'handwriting reveals your personality'
Provides a 'mythbusting kit' for evaluating folk psychology claims in everyday life
Teaches essential critical thinking skills through detailed discussions of each myth
Includes over 200 additional psychological myths for listeners to explore
Contains an Appendix of useful Web Sites for examining psychological myths
Related to 50 Great Myths of Popular Psychology
Related audiobooks
Sex, Murder, and the Meaning of Life: A Psychologist Investigates How Evolution, Cognition, and Complexity Are Revolutionizing Our View of Human Nature Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Me, Myself, and Us: The Science of Personality and the Art of Well-Being Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Perception: How Our Bodies Shape Our Minds Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings50 Psychology Classics: Who We Are, How We Think, What We Do Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Frontal Fatigue: The Impact of Modern Life and Technology on Mental Illness Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Swearing Is Good for You: The Amazing Science of Bad Language Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Practitioner's Guide to the Science of Psychotherapy Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWhy We Forget and How To Remember Better: The Science Behind Memory Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Almost a Psychopath: Do I (Or Does Someone I Know) Have a Problem With Manipulation and Lack of Empathy? Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Depression: What Everyone Needs to Know Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Schizophrenia Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Life-Changing Science of Detecting Bullshit Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Awkward: The Science of Why We're Socially Awkward and Why That's Awesome Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Black-and-White Thinking: The Burden of a Binary Brain in a Complex World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Personality: What Makes You the Way You Are Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Brainwashing: The Science of Thought Control Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mindwise: Why We Misunderstand What Others Think, Believe, Feel, and Want Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Book About Love Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Opening Skinner's Box: Great Psychological Experiments of the Twentieth Century Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Science of Fear: Why We Fear the Things We Should not- and Put Ourselves in Great Danger Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Why We Snap: Understanding the Rage Circuit in Your Brain Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Scienceblind: Why Our Intuitive Theories About the World Are So Often Wrong Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Annoying: The Science of What Bugs Us Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Against Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Walden Two Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Psychology For You
The Art of Seduction: An Indispensible Primer on the Ultimate Form of Power Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5How to Win Friends and Influence People: Updated For the Next Generation of Leaders Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The 48 Laws of Power Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Divergent Mind: Thriving in a World That Wasn’t Designed For You Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Do the Work: Recognize Your Patterns, Heal from Your Past, and Create Your Self Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before? Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Memory Craft: Improve Your Memory with the Most Powerful Methods in History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Magic Words Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Man's Search for Ultimate Meaning Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sociopath: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life with the Heart of a Buddha Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How To Win Friends And Influence People Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Do Hard Things: Why We Get Resilience Wrong and the Surprising Science of Real Toughness Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Highly Sensitive Person in Love: Understanding and Managing Relationships When the World Overwhelms You Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5What Happened to You?: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Banish Your Inner Critic: Silence the Voice of Self-Doubt to Unleash Your Creativity and Do Your Best Work Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5It Starts with Self-Compassion: A Practical Road Map Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Games People Play: The Basic Handbook of Transactional Analysis Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5You’re Not the Only One F*cking Up: Breaking the Endless Cycle of Dating Mistakes Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Create: Tools from Seriously Talented People to Unleash Your Creative Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5What Every BODY is Saying: An Ex-FBI Agent’s Guide to Speed-Reading People Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values, and Spritual Growth Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Reviews for 50 Great Myths of Popular Psychology
Rating: 4.0638297872340425 out of 5 stars
4/5
47 ratings4 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5There would have to be something really wrong with this book for me not to like it - it debunks a lot more than just 50 myths of psychomythology (I love that phrase the authors used...adding it to the toolbox.) From only using 10% of our brains to out of body experiences to hypnosis to shock therapy being dangerous, these guys cover a lot of urban myths, commonly held beliefs, commonly told stories...and they back up their treatments.
I, being a psycho-anything skeptic, already looked into pretty much most of the myths, though #4, Visual Perceptions Are Accompanied by Tiny Emissions from the Eyes, was a new one. I disagree in part with #16, If You're Unsure of Your Answer When Taking a Test, It's Best to Stick with Your Initial Hunch. I think that unless you are not sure about any answer and have more confidence that your initial hunch is wrong, stick with it, but someday I'll read the references to see if I need to recalibrate my thinking.
The very good thing about this book that sets it apart from the last book I read (O'Reilly's fictional collaboration about a major religious figure)is that all the cites are there for the picking. If you don't buy into the debunking, or do and want to read more, the authors tell you where to find the studies/sources that they used to refute the myths.
Keeping this one handy in case I run into someone who think dreams actually have symbolic meaning or someone who thinks that holding anger in is bad.
Recommended. - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5People only use ten percent of their brains.Playing Mozart with make a developing fetus turn into a smart child.Students learn best when teaching styles match their learning styles.There’s safety in numbers and opposites attract.Those who confess to crimes are almost always actually guilty.Shock therapy is brutal and hurts the patient.These are popular perceptions of psychology in the everyday world and media. They are presented in television shows, movies, self-help guides, popular best-selling books, and proverbs. Most people, even college-educated people, believe these things to be true. But psychological research does not bear them out. Lilienfeld takes these and 43 other commonly-held perceptions about the mind the personality and presents the distinctions between scientific fact and mass media fiction. He helps his readers gain tools in critical thinking about media and science, understand the major features of psychological research from the last 50 years, and gain a fuller understanding of how the mind really works.This would be an excellent supplement for freshmen psychology courses or for anyone hoping to know a little more about the fact behind some of these widely-held truisms.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A bit dry but informative
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Although I usually end up with a dissatisfied feeling when reading a book based on rave reviews, this one was not the case. It provides much needed corrective to some of the fuzzy thinking that pervades modern culture, particularly in the area of popularized psychology. He deals with the 50 myths one by one, and also provides a great many more related myths with the pertinent information in a shorter bit at the end of each chapter. Should be required reading for all people in professions that routinely invoke ideas of popular psychology, particularly for those doing motivational speaking.