myths

Bialystok (bilingual)

consistently found advantages in children and older adults, lack of evidence in adolescents could be due to ceiling effects, improper tasks and ppts. If publication bias was an issue, would have found a monolingual advantage

Papp (bilingual)

any evidence is a false positive due to publication bias, confounding variables, small sample size. Miniscule advantages

Sheeran (2002) (healthy behaviour)

intention-behaviour gap, need motivation

germ defence 2009-2020

co-production, did produce a behaviour change, increased perceived risk and efficacy

Nisbett & Wilson (1977) (self-understanding)

choose right-most stocking at 4:1, systematic bias?

Johasson et al (2005, 2010) (self-understanding)

card trick, didn’t notice, couldn’t explain why they chose a certain card

Bushman et al (2014) (self-understanding)

glucose levels in married couples, music and voodoo doll

Danzinger et al (2011) (self-understanding)

judges decisions on parole

Maier (1931) (self-understanding)

two string problem, people didn’t realise that experimenter swinging rope gave them the idea

Davis et al (2011) (self-understanding)

2010 debate, worm does have influence on ppt’s perceptions of who won

Herculano-Houzel (2002) (learning)

survey, 72% of ppts believed that we only use 10% of our brains

Howard-Jones (2014) (learning)

survey, 'short bursts of coordination exercises improve integration of left+right HS' = 77%. 'hemispheric dominance help explain differences in learners' - 80%

Volz and Gazzniga (2017) (learning)

split-brain ppts, visual stimulus on either side of screen, left=left hand grabs it (right HS) but couldn’t verbalise. In pt.2, show 2 letters on each side of screen, would verbalise the one on right and grab one on left

Nielsen et al (2013) (learning)

1011 scans and found some lateralisation in regions for different tasks but doesn’t support left-right brained

Rogowsky, Calhouh and Tallal (2015) (learning)

learning style questionnaires (auditory or visual), randomly assigned to audio or e-text conditon. Completed MCQs, both learners did better in e-text

Butler (2010) (learning)

read passages, either reread or practice questions, short answer questions, practice test condition did better

Beck et al (1979) (uni vs west psych)

cognitive behavioural therapy

Hoffman et al (2012) (uni vs west psych)

meta-analysis for CBT found effective treatment for anxiety, somatic disorders, bulimia and anger control

Beck et al (2024) (uni vs west psych)

1 in 5 meet criteria for depression

Hicking (2008) (uni vs west psych)

misdiagnosis of schizophrenia in english-speaking afro-caribbeans

Carpenter et al (2016) (brain training)

with learning RX, received 1:1 sessions training, completed Woodcock Johnson intelligence test before and after as well as control, better in all areas of cognition apart from attention

Thorndike & Woodworth (1901a) (brain training)

ability to find and mark words with same letter pairs, accuracy and time got better. Tried with other letter pairs but skills didn’t transfer

Olesen et al (2003) (brain training)

 fMRI scanning, adaptive learning, remember order of visual stim using eye-tracking, activation in visual cortex and left pre-frontal lobe

Jaeggi et al (2008) (brain training)

WM training for varying lengths of time, match auditory stimulus two back and visual stimulus two back, training group improved

Soveri et al (2017) (brain training)

203 training effects, WM programmes improved performance on specific trained tasks

Hyde (2014) (gender differences)

gender similarity and differences hypothesis, evolutionary theory, cognitive social learning theory and social role theory

Hyde (2014) (gender differences)

78% of effect sizes of psychological gender differences in 5000 studies were small or near 0

Mehl et al (2007) (gender differences)

claim that women speak more than men not supported, small difference (women more by 600 words), language recorded for 30s every 12 mins

Gomez-Gonzalez et al (2023) (gender differences)

blurred players, control evaluations were higher for men, experimental had no difference

Mickes et al (2011) (gender differences)

ppts give 20 blank cartoons, 94% male endorsed stereotype and 89% female. Memory - funnier captions remembered better and attributed to men

Ingalhalker et al (2014) (gender differences)

male brains facilitate connectivity between perception and coordination, female brain facilitate communication between analytical and intuitive processing models

Dean et al (2018) (gender differences)

environment changes brain structures, scanned babies, sex differences in specific regions of interest

Open Science Collaboration (2015) (science is self-correcting)

replication of 100 studies, found 50% don’t reach significance threshold

De Vries et al (2018) (science is self-correcting)

analysis of 105 studies on RCTs, study publication bias (don’t publish failed studies), outcome reporting bias (change aim), spin, citation bias

Reid et al (2021) (science is self-correcting)

researchers who had researched topic and who hadn't, researcher allegiance bias

Carp (2012) (science is self-correcting)

142 fMRI studies on same topic, none had same analysis, had all modified it to be within p value

YouGov (2024) (protests)

survey, justifiability of protests depends on attitudes, those who saw it as important were more willing to justify

Mann (2022) (protests)

survey on support and non disruptive protests, 46% decrease, 40% no effect, 13% increase

Nisbett & Wilson (1997) (protests)

people’s erroneous reports are systematic not haphazard

Selvanathan & Lickel (2019) (protests)

longitudinal study in Malaysia, created model based on protests having positive or negative effects

Feinberg et al (2020) (protests)

social identification model consistent with social views, the more you identify, the more motivated you are

Stromeyer (1970) (memory)

elizabeth, stereoscopic images

De Groot (1965) (memory)

expert chess players got 91% of chess pieces correct compared to 41% of less expert

Merritt (1979) (memory)

tried to test stereoscopic images on over 1mil, 30 could do it, visited 18, none could do it in front of him

Angil-Williams & Davis (2021) (climate apathy)

increasing efficacy, 3 conditions (threat vid, threat + self efficacy, threat + collective efficacy), measured self/response efficacy + climate behaviours, able to improve response but not self efficacy

Simons & Chabris (2011) (memory)

mem is video camera, 24% strongly agreed, 39% moderately disagreed

Simons & Levin (1998) (memory)

experimenter have convo with person, door goes through, experimenters swap, only half ppts recognise change

Neisser & Harsch (1992) (memory)

questionnaire on challenger disaster (where and what they were doing), repeated day of and 3yrs, 220 attributes, 93 wrong, 60 partially wrong, 67 correct

Hyman et al (1995) (memory)

implanting of false memory, 1) isnt true, 2) is true, 3) creates story

Kull et al (2003, 2006) (memory)

repeated polling about WMDs in US, some were convinced there were WMDs

Motta et al (2018) (knowledge)

causes of autism, 36% think know more than doctors, 34% more than scientists

Rozenblit & Kiel (2002) (knowledge)

ppts rating of understanding before and after explanation

Fisher et al (2015) (knowledge)

‘google galileo’

Lombrozo (2007) (knowledge)

simple explanations are preferred unles 10x more statistical

Polderman et al (2015) (intelligence)

meta-analysis of twin studies, IQ heritability around 40-50%

Valant & Newark (2016) (intelligence)

survey, differences in test scores between black and white people a result of genetic differences?

Schatter & Luks (2018) (misinformation)

perception of photos and political preferences

Swire et al (2007, 2010) (misinformation)

trump and sanders statements, affirm true, correct false. Belief ratings immediately or week after, did update but didn’t change voting stance

National Registry of Exonerations (2024) (forensics)

false accusations was high in list of exonerations

Henkel, Coffman & Dailey (2008) (forensics)

survey, agree with confession is strong indicator of guilt, agree to confess to a crime=probably guilty

National Registry of Exonerations (2024b) (forensics)

36% false confessions <18, 70% had mental illness or intellectual disability

Kasin & Wrightsman (1985) (forensics)

types of confessions - voluntary, compliant and internalised

Russano, Meissner, Warchet & KAsin (2005) (forensics)

problem-solving tasks, told it was cheating, 4 conditions (none, deal, minimisation, minimisation and deal), highest true+false confessions was minimise+deal

Wixted & Wells (2017) (forensics)

watched vid of crime, tested hour after or week after, high confidence gives higher accuracy, 'other race bias', doesn’t matter with high confidence

Garret (2021) (forensics)

57% of 161 exonerations, eyewitnesses were uncertain