10 myths about psychology: Debunked

http://www.ted.com/talks/ben_ambridge_10_myths_about_psychology_debunked/transcript?language=en

0:11

You've heard of your I.Q., your general intelligence, but what's your Psy-Q? How much do you know about what makes you tick, and how good are you at predicting other people's behavior or even your own? And how much of what you think you know about psychology is wrong? Let's find out by counting down the top 10 myths of psychology.

0:29

You've probably heard it said that when it comes to their psychology, it's almost as if men are from Mars and women are from Venus. But how different are men and women really? To find out, let's start by looking at something on which men and women really do differ and plotting some psychological gender differences on the same scale. One thing men and women do really differ on is how far they can throw a ball. So if we look at the data for men here, we see what is called a normal distribution curve. A few men can throw a ball really far, and a few men not far at all, but most a kind of average distance. And women share the same distribution as well, but actually there's quite a big difference. In fact, the average man can throw a ball further than about 98 percent of all women. So now let's look at what some psychological gender differences look like on the same standardized scale. Any psychologist will tell you that men are better at spatial awareness than women -- so things like map-reading, for example -- and it's true, but let's have a look at the size of this difference. It's tiny; the lines are so close together they almost overlap. In fact, the average woman is better than 33 percent of all men, and of course, if that was 50 percent, then the two genders would be exactly equal. It's worth bearing in mind that this difference and the next one I'll show you are pretty much the biggest psychological gender differences ever discovered in psychology. So here's the next one. Any psychologist will tell you that women are better with language and grammar than men. So here's performance on the standardized grammar test. There go the women. There go the men. Again, yes, women are better on average, but the lines are so close that 33 percent of men are better than the average woman, and again, if it was 50 percent, that would represent complete gender equality. So it's not really a case of Mars and Venus. It's more a case of, if anything, Mars and Snickers: basically the same, but one's maybe slightly nuttier than the other. I won't say which.

2:14

Now we've got you warmed up. Let's psychoanalyze you using the famous Rorschach inkblot test. So you can probably see two, I dunno, two bears or two people or something. But what do you think they're doing? Put your hand up if you think they're saying hello. Not many people. Okay. Put your hands up if you think they are high-fiving. Okay. What if you think they're fighting? Only a few people there. Okay, so if you think they're saying hello or high-fiving, then that means you're a friendly person. If you think they're fighting, you're a bit more of a nasty, aggressive person. Are you a lover or a fighter, basically. What about this one? This isn't really a voting one, so on three everyone shout out what you see. One, two, three. (Audience shouting) I heard hamster. Who said hamster? That was very worrying. A guy there said hamster. Well, you should see some kind of two-legged animal here, and then the mirror image of them there. If you didn't, then this means that you have difficulty processing complex situations where there's a lot going on.

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