50 Great Myths of Popular Psychology - Shattering Widespread Misconceptions about Human Behavior

Sep 17, 2026

Uploaded by Dozel

50 Great Myths of Popular Psychology: Shattering Widespread Misconceptions about Human Behavior brings together research-informed critiques of widely accepted pop-psychology claims. The book targets common beliefs that persist in everyday conversations and pseudoscientific circles, explaining why people fall for these myths and how science evaluates them. Readers also gain examples showing how psychological evidence is assessed and why truth about mind and behavior can be as surprising as fiction.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages354

Reading Time14 h 52 min

AccessFree to download

Praise for 50 Great Myths of Popular Psychology

About the Authors

50 GREAT MYTHS OF POPULAR PSYCHOLOGY Shattering Widespread Misconceptions about Human Behavior Scott O. Lilienfeld Steven Jay Lynn John Ruscio Barry L. Beyerstein AJohn Wiley & Sons, Ltd., Publication Praise for 50 Great Myths of Popular Psychology “True knowledge is hard won, and this timely and remarkable book shows us that stamping out falsehoods is no easy task either. The book does it all: it debunks all-too-common beliefs from the pseudoscientiﬁc fringe; it presents evidence against a variety of myths that seem like they ought to be true; it explains why people fall prey to such falsehoods; and it ends with some tantalizing facts about mind and behavior that make it clear that the truth can be every bit as amazing as ﬁction. These 50 myths won’t disappear with the publication of this book, but those who read it will enjoy being able to set others—many others—straight.” Thomas Gilovich, Cornell University “We have needed this compendium for some time. These factoids and popular (but fallacious) memes about psychology have been exposed in single publications, but critiques of all of them have never been brought together in one place before. The myths chosen by these authors are indeed popular ones—the very ones that psychology instructors encounter every day. The book is an incredible resource for both student and instructor. The critiques are accurate and well written. I’m sure my copy will be dog-eared within six months.” Keith E. Stanovich, author of How To Think Straight About Psychology and What Intelligence Tests Miss “A much-needed mythbuster for consumers and students of psychology. This engaging book reminds us that applying science to everyday psychology is not only enormously worthwhile, but fun.” Carol Tavris, coauthor of Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me) “Because I only use 10% of my brain, I had to play Mozart music while reading this book, and then be hypnotized to recover the memory of it because of early childhood traumas that were repressed but occasionally leaked through outof-body experiences and ESP. And if you believe any of the above you need to read this book . . . twice if its mythbusting revelations cause you to repress the memory of it.” Michael Shermer, Publisher of Skeptic magazine, monthly columnist for Scientiﬁc American, and author of Why People Believe Weird Things “Is it true that psychology is mostly common sense? For anyone who wonders, this amazing book—which effectively discounts 50 pop psychology myths and brieﬂy dismisses 250 more—provides convincing answers. And it does more: it offers fascinating examples of how science works and supports critical thinking. For teachers, students, writers, and anyone who wants to think smarter, this classic-to-be will be a valuable resource and a great read.” David G. Myers, Hope College, author of Intuition: Its Powers and Perils “I ﬁnd each and every chapter excellent and from a teaching point of view, brilliant. The way in which the history of the myths is presented up to the critical but balanced discussion of each myth, is a great achievement. Scott Lilienfeld is well-known for his user-friendly writing style, but in this text he and his coauthors reach a new level. This leads to a book which will not only be easily understandable by undergraduate, and especially ﬁrst year students, but also by the general population.” Dap Louw, University of the Free State About the Authors Scott O. Lilienfeld is a Professor of Psychology at Emory University in Atlanta. Author of over 200 journal articles, chapters, and books, he is a recipient of the 1998 David Shakow Early Career Award for Distinguished Contributions to Clinical Psychology from Division 12 (Society for Clinical Psychology) of the American Psychological Association (APA). He is a past president of the Society for a Science of Clinical Psychology and a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science. He is editor of the Scientiﬁc Review of Mental Hea

FAQs

What is the purpose of 50 Great Myths of Popular Psychology?

The book debunks widely held pop-psychology beliefs using evidence-based critiques, explains why such myths persist, and offers examples of how science evaluates claims about mind and behavior.

How does the book address popular misconceptions?

It presents evidence against a variety of myths, counters ideas from pseudoscientific fringes, and discusses why people are prone to these falsehoods.

Who are the authors and what are their backgrounds?

Scott O. Lilienfeld, Steven Jay Lynn, John Ruscio, and the late Barry L. Beyerstein are psychology scholars with extensive publication and research experience spanning clinical psychology, hypnosis, memory, dissociation, quantitative methods, and pseudoscience research.

Sep 17, 2026

Uploaded by Dozel