Tales and myths in psychology
The September edition of The Psychologist has two articles that deal with tales in psychology. Like all sciences, psychology has its own historical experiments. Their stories, however, have been blurred with unbased facts. This is not restricted to psychology. Physics for example has the popular tale of the apple falling on Newton’s head. However, in physics, such tales are harmless. In psychology, they are really myths turned into reality for psychologists accross the globe.
We got our own myths, too, buddy
For example the magazine has an article concerning the case of Phineas Gage, the man who, without wanting to, created neuropsychology. While before his accident he had been described as a well-tempered man, after his accident he was described as a "restless, moody, unpredictable, untrustworthy, depraved, slovenly, violently quarrelsome, aggressive and boastful dissipated drunken bully, displaying fits of temper, and with impaired sexuality". However, the historical record shows that he became a coach driver after the accident, something that required complex cognitive skills and social cooperation.
The Psychologist also offers the facts about other myths in psychology. Little Albert’s experiment was not as controlled as they’d like us to think, nor did he fear every white and furry object he saw. The Hawthorne effect has become a term with such a wide meaning that it really means nothing at all and we also learn that there were not 34 bystanders in Kitty Genovese’s murder (nor did they remain inactive).
J.B. Watson wipes smile off little Albert’s face
We also have Asch’s experiments on conformity. Asch believed his experiments to be evidence of resistance to authority. He also took qualitative data from his experiments, proving that even the subjects that conformed hadn’t changed their opinion. However, almost every article mentioned on his research considers these studies to be evidence of an inner tendency to follow the mass like sheep. The article mentions:
Why do people who write about classic psychology experiments want to propagate the idea that we’re all prone to becoming mindless sheep in the face of a majority opinion? Rafferty believes part of the answer lies in the headline appeal of the notion that conformity is all powerful. But beyond that she wonders if there lies a darker motive. ‘Why is individualism so overvalued by society – what threat do organisations perceive if we are not viewed as sheep?’, Rafferty asks. ‘Is there perhaps such a fear of social movements by which we might come together for a common cause?’
Echoing Manning’s views on the influence of the Genovese myth, Rafferty believes that the misreporting of the Asch experiments has had a harmful effect on the direction taken by social psychology research. ‘In overemphasising the powerful but detrimental effect of the group on the individual, the discipline of social psychology may have inadvertently undermined its potential usefulness in showing the practical contribution and positive benefits that groups can have for individuals,’ Rafferty says.
You’re not necessarily a sheep
Finally, the article makes a mention to the whole idea of "cognitive revolution". As it seems, behaviorism never completely dominated psychology in the first half of the 20th century. Psychoanalysis and gestalt psychology where also present at that time. Additionaly, the cognitive term "attention" was already published in articles at 1930. This doesn’t come in terms with our view that there was a cognitive revolution that replaced behaviorism. Not only this didn’t happen, but there are still about 20 or 30 magazines based on the work of B.F. Skinner. The article mentions:
‘Many psychologists would say that cognitive psychology is the main approach,’ Hobbs continues, ‘but the existence of a flourishing comparative approach to psychology is a bit of an embarrassment to them because it means that we haven’t established a Kuhnian [Thomas Kuhn was an eminent historian of science] “normal science” as you have with physics and chemistry. I think that’s the attraction of the cognitive revolution as a myth. It’s a way of dealing with uncomfortable facts about our subject.’
The second article in The Psychologist is called "Foundations on Sand", and, maybe, quite correctly so. Myths and tales are part of every science, but in psychology the case is different. False facts create false conclusions and some of these conclusions can have, not only scientific, but social implications, as well (like the Asch’s case described above). So, we should not build our foundations upon the sand, but rather, upon concrete scientific facts.
Just leave these out of science
Further Reading:
LiveScience.com: The Most Popular Myths in Science
Scientific mythology on Wikipedia
