5 More Great Myths Of Pop Psychology


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http://www.realclearscience.com/lists/5_pop_psychology_myths/myths_everywhere.html

5 MORE GREAT MYTHS OF POP PSYCHOLOGY

Myths: They're Everywhere!

Earlier this year, with the help of Scott Lilienfeld, Steven Jay Lynn, John Ruscio, and Barry Beyerstein's eye-opening book 50 Great Myths of Popular Psychology, we detailed ten of the greatest myths about psychology.

But myth-busting never gets old. If you're looking to sate your daily desire for logic, reason, and common sense, read on to learn about five more of the biggest myths in popular psychology.

1) IQ Tests Are Biased Against Certain Groups

Critics of the IQ test contend that it's good for only one thing: predicting performance on IQ tests. But scientific data shows otherwise.

"Although far from perfect measures, IQ tests yield scores that are among the most valid and cost effective predictors of academic achievement and job performance across just about every occupation studied," Lilienfeld writes.

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2) You Will Experience a Midlife Crisis

It's a fact of life assumed by four out of every five Americans. By the time middle age rolls around, you will be embroiled in a "period of dramatic self-questioning and turbulence": the mid-life crisis.

The concept has been around for centuries, but it received an ounce of evidence in the 1960s courtesy of psychologist Erik Erikson. He observed that in the middle parts of adulthood, people grapple to find meaning in their lives and wonder if they've made the right decisions. But according to Lilienfeld, he exaggerated the prevalence.

More recent studies conducted across cultures debunk the inevitability of the mid-life crisis. Less than a quarter of adults report experiencing one. It appears that anxiety about such a crisis is far more pervasive than the crisis itself.

3) Ulcers Are Primarily Caused by Stress

Thank you, Freudian psychology, for another pervasive myth.

For most of the 1900s, physicians and laypersons were convinced that stress caused peptic ulcers, painful breaches or sores in the lining of the stomach that affect four million Americans each year. Now, however, we know that a specific bacterium, Helicobacter pylori, is predominantly to blame.

The discovery was a game-changer in the treatment of ulcers. Antibiotics could now be used to clear out the bacterial infection.

So important was this discovery and related contradiction of historical thought that the men who discovered H. pylori and its link to ulcers, Robin Warren and Barry J. Marshall, were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2005.

4) Express Your Anger; Don't Hold It In!

For years, psychiatrists and self-help books expounded on the benefits of catharsis, the process of purging pent-up anger and emotions by expressing them in relatively safe ways. It makes intuitive sense. After all, if you let air out of a balloon it's impossible for it to burst.

But in controlled studies, psychologists have found that expressing anger actually seems to boost feelings of aggression.

"Why is the myth of catharsis still popular despite compelling evidence that anger feeds aggression?" wonders Lilienfeld. "Because people sometimes feel better for a short time after they blow off steam."

Wildly yelling or violently punching a pillow may prompt the release of the hormones cortisol and endorphins, providing a quick boost followed by a brief bout of calm, but neither of those activities actually solve any of the underlying causes of anger.

5) Criminal Profiling Helps Solve Cases

"Throw enough mud at a wall and eventually some of it will stick." That's psychics' modus operandi, and it fits a great many criminal profilers as well.

Criminal profilers are trained professionals who claim to be able to predict all sorts of characteristics about a criminal based solely on details of the crime. They're featured regularly on shows like CNN's Nancy Grace.

But though they're touted as experts, profilers are only slightly better than untrained individuals at guessing criminals' characteristics based on case files. In one meta-analysis of four studies, profilers "fared no better or even slightly worse than non-profilers at gauging offenders' physical characteristics, including gender, age, and race, thinking processes, including motives and guilt regarding the crime, and personal habits, including marital status and education," Lilienfeld wrote.

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/sigh

Adrenal insufficiency only has a peak prevalence about of 90-300 cases per million persons, depending on age (peaks at 60+), sex, ethnicity and if it's primary (Addison's) or secondary (ACTH deficiency.)

That is far from "Stress leads to all disease"

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"I need to thank my patients for having the courage to stand up to a medical system that is not just broken but dangerous. It takes an incredible amount of courage to take responsibility for your own health. Too many people today abdicate authority over their health to a medical professional, submitting to medical procedures blindly, and many times with disastrous results. I have always approached health issues with the idea that the human body is intelligent and there are reasons for its responses to environmental stimuli (that is what doctors and people call symptoms). If you look at all symptoms, whether you are dealing with High Blood Pressure, Depression, Reflux, or even Cancer, know that the body has intelligent responses to deficiencies or toxicities ? and then the solution for those symptoms or conditions will be clear. This driving thought has been inspiring me to research the true source of disease and the solutions for those diseases. In this book, I include real patients with real problems that have been mistreated by an obsolete medical system. I have changed the names of the patients, but their ages and the symptoms, and therapies they endured are real. I want you to appreciate the true courage one must have to take charge and responsibility for one?s health, and to go against the health authorities of today. Throughout history, changing a broken system has taken vision, courage, and the ability to focus on a different idea. When Galileo first had the idea that the earth wasn?t the center of the universe, he was threatened with excommunication from the church and ridiculed by those in power. But his ideas were proven to be true and today he is hailed as a hero. The people who take charge of their own health are my heroes, and this book is dedicated to that independent spirit and vision.

God Bless You Folks."


John Bergman D.C.

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This list was useless and now I have a torrent of anger I can't let out! wait, torrent, yes ships ride on torrents of the tide, ships, ships..pirates use ships, on torrents whilst singing pirate songs, that's it! I'll download my anger away by pirating song music and drinking some scotch

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