[ExI] Myths among psychologists

[Dan TheBookMan]

On Mar 14, 2018, at 3:36 PM, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> On Wed, Mar 14, 2018 at 3:00 PM, Dan TheBookMan <danust2012 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> https://digest.bps.org.uk/2018/03/05/belief-in-brain-myths-and-child-development-myths-continues-even-among-those-whove-studied-psychology/
>> 
>> Maybe Bill W can ramify this.
>> 
>> Regards,
>> 
>> Dan
>>    
> ​There was a study done by a psychologist that may answer your question:  he handed out a list of typical myths and noted the results.  He designed his course so that each myth was given time in class and thoroughly refuted.
> 
> At the end of the semester he again gave the myth list.  He got approximately the same results.  This, of course, is very discouraging to a teacher.
> 
> It's hard to change attitudes that are popularly believed and have been held a long time.  Another factor:  when we pull out a memory, we can misattribute it to other than the source we actually got it from.  So, picking up a myth from a friend about psychology may be remembered as coming from a psych class and not the friend, giving it validity.

That’s disheartening... I was wondering if maybe focusing on not every myth, but picking, say, the top three (or the middle three) and hammering away at them would work better. I picked that because I recall somewhere reading that if you pile on too many examples you just lose people. The advice was something like “if you’re giving a talk, people should be able to walk away with around three points you’ve made.” More than that and they forget the humble.

I recall an economics professor once going over what he believed to be a faulty theory and then saying if you’re go by to sleep through the rest of this class, remember this theory is completely wrong. This segues into your point in memory: the prof feared he would go over the theory (I believe it was classical capital theory) and some students would leave class not grasping his refutation but just recalling his setting up the theory. That sounds just like what you discuss above.

Regards,

Dan
   Sample my latest Kindle book "Sand Trap":
http://mybook.to/SandTrap

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