WEBVTT

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You've heard of your I.Q.,
your general intelligence,

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but what's your Psy-Q?

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How much do you know
about what makes you tick,

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and how good are you
at predicting other people's behavior

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or even your own?

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And how much of what you think you know
about psychology is wrong?

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Let's find out by counting down
the top 10 myths of psychology.

NOTE Paragraph

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You've probably heard it said
that when it comes to their psychology,

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it's almost as if men are from Mars
and women are from Venus.

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But how different
are men and women really?

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To find out, let's start
by looking at something

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on which men and women really do differ

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and plotting some psychological
gender differences on the same scale.

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One thing men and women
do really differ on

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is how far they can throw a ball.

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So if we look at the data for men here,

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we see what is called
a normal distribution curve.

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A few men can throw a ball really far,
and a few men not far at all,

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but most a kind of average distance.

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And women share
the same distribution as well,

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but actually there's
quite a big difference.

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In fact, the average man
can throw a ball further

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than about 98 percent of all women.

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So now let's look at what
some psychological gender differences

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look like on the same standardized scale.

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Any psychologist will tell you

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that men are better
at spatial awareness than women --

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so things like map-reading, 
for example -- and it's true,

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but let's have a look
at the size of this difference.

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It's tiny; the lines are so close
together they almost overlap.

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In fact, the average woman is better
than 33 percent of all men,

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and of course, if that was 50 percent,

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then the two genders
would be exactly equal.

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It's worth bearing in mind that this
difference and the next one I'll show you

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are pretty much the biggest
psychological gender differences

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ever discovered in psychology.

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So here's the next one.

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Any psychologist will tell you
that women are better

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with language and grammar than men.

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So here's performance
on the standardized grammar test.

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There go the women. There go the men.

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Again, yes, women are better on average,
but the lines are so close

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that 33 percent of men
are better than the average woman,

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and again, if it was 50 percent,

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that would represent
complete gender equality.

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So it's not really
a case of Mars and Venus.

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It's more a case of, if anything,
Mars and Snickers:

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basically the same, but one's maybe 
slightly nuttier than the other.

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I won't say which.

NOTE Paragraph

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Now we've got you warmed up.

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Let's psychoanalyze you using
the famous Rorschach inkblot test.

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So you can probably see two, I dunno,
two bears or two people or something.

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But what do you think they're doing?

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Put your hand up if you think
they're saying hello.

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Not many people. Okay.

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Put your hands up if you think
they are high-fiving.

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Okay. What if you think they're fighting?

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Only a few people there.

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Okay, so if you think they're
saying hello or high-fiving,

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then that means you're a friendly person.

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If you think they're fighting,

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you're a bit more of a 
nasty, aggressive person.

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Are you a lover or a fighter, basically.

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What about this one?

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This isn't really a voting one, so on 
three everyone shout out what you see.

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One, two, three.
(Audience shouting)

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I heard hamster. Who said hamster?

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That was very worrying.

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A guy there said hamster.

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Well, you should see
some kind of two-legged animal here,

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and then the mirror image of them there.

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If you didn't, then this means
that you have difficulty

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processing complex situations
where there's a lot going on.

NOTE Paragraph

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Except, of course,
it doesn't mean that at all.

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Rorschach inkblot tests
have basically no validity

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when it comes to diagnosing
people's personality

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and are not used
by modern-day psychologists.

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In fact, one recent study found
that when you do try

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to diagnose people's personalities
using Rorschach inkblot tests,

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schizophrenia was diagnosed

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in about one sixth of apparently
perfectly normal participants.

NOTE Paragraph

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So if you didn't do that well on this,

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maybe you are not
a very visual type of person.

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So let's do another
quick quiz to find out.

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When making a cake, do you prefer to --
so hands up for each one again --

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do you prefer to use
a recipe book with pictures?

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Yeah, a few people.

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Have a friend talk you through?

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Or have a go, making it up
as you go along?

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Quite a few people there.

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Okay, so if you said A,

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then this means that you
are a visual learner

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and you learn best when information
is presented in a visual style.

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If you said B, it means
you're an auditory learner,

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that you learn best when information
is presented to you in an auditory format.

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And if you said C, it means
that you're a kinesthetic learner,

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that you learn best when you get stuck in
and do things with your hands.

NOTE Paragraph

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Except, of course,
as you've probably guessed,

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that it doesn't, because
the whole thing is a complete myth.

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Learning styles are made up and are 
not supported by scientific evidence.

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So we know this because in
tightly controlled experimental studies,

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when learners are given material to learn

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either in their preferred style
or an opposite style,

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it makes no difference at all to the
amount of information that they retain.

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And if you think about it
for just a second,

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it's just obvious
that this has to be true.

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It's obvious that
the best presentation format

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depends not on you,
but on what you're trying to learn.

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Could you learn to drive a car,
for example,

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just by listening to someone
telling you what to do

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with no kinesthetic experience?

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Could you solve simultaneous equations

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by talking them through in your head
and without writing them down?

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Could you revise 
for your architecture exams

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using interpretive dance
if you're a kinesthetic learner?

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No. What you need to do 
is match the material to be learned

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to the presentation format, not you.

NOTE Paragraph

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I know many of you are A-level students

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that will have recently gotten
your GCSE results.

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And if you didn't quite get
what you were hoping for,

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then you can't really blame
your learning style,

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but one thing that you might want
to think about blaming is your genes.

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So what this is all about is a
recent study at University College London

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found that 58 percent of the variation

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between different students
and their GCSE results

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was down to genetic factors.

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That sounds like a very precise figure,
so how can we tell?

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Well, when we want to unpack
the relative contributions

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of genes and the environment,

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what we can do is do a twin study.

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So identical twins share
100 percent of their environment

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and 100 percent of their genes,

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whereas non-identical twins
share 100 percent of their environment,

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but just like any brother and sister,
share only 50 percent of their genes.

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So by comparing how similar
GCSE results are in identical twins

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versus non-identical twins,

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and doing some clever math,

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we can an idea of how much variation
and performance is due to the environment

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and how much is due to genes.

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And it turns out that it's
about 58 percent due to genes.

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So this isn't to undermine the hard work
that you and your teachers here put in.

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If you didn't quite get the GCSE results
that you were hoping for,

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then you can always try blaming
your parents, or at least their genes.

NOTE Paragraph

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One thing that you shouldn't blame

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is being a left-brained
or right-brained learner,

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because again, this is a myth.

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So the myth here is that
the left brain is logical,

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it's good with equations like this,

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and the right brain is more creative,
so the right brain is better at music.

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But again, this is a myth
because nearly everything that you do

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involves nearly all parts
of your brain talking together,

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even just the most mundane thing
like having a normal conversation.

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However, perhaps one reason
why this myth has survived

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is that there is
a slight grain of truth to it.

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So a related version of the myth

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is that left-handed people are
more creative than right-handed people,

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which kind of makes sense because
your brain controls the opposite hands,

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so left-handed people,

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the right side of the brain
is slightly more active

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than the left-hand side of the brain,

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and the idea is the right-hand side
is more creative.

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Now, it isn't true per se

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that left-handed people are more creative
than right-handed people.

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What is true that ambidextrous people,

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or people who use both hands
for different tasks,

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are more creative thinkers
than one-handed people,

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because being ambidextrous involves

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having both sides of the brain
talk to each other a lot,

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which seems to be involved
in creating flexible thinking.

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The myth of the creative left-hander

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arises from the fact
that being ambidextrous

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is more common amongst 
left-handers than right-handers,

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so a grain of truth in the idea
of the creative left-hander,

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but not much.

NOTE Paragraph

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A related myth that you've
probably heard of

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is that we only use
10 percent of our brains.

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This is, again, a complete myth.

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Nearly everything that we do,
even the most mundane thing,

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uses nearly all of our brains.

NOTE Paragraph

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That said, it is of course true

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that most of us don't use our brainpower
quite as well as we could.

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So what could we do
to boost our brainpower?

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Maybe we could listen
to a nice bit of Mozart.

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Have you heard of the idea
of the Mozart effect?

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So the idea is that listening 
to Mozart makes you smarter

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and improves your 
performance on I.Q. tests.

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Now again, what's interesting
about this myth

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is that although it's basically a myth,
there is a grain of truth to it.

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So the original study found that

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participants who were played
Mozart music for a few minutes

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did better on a subsequent I.Q. test

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than participants who simply
sat in silence.

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But a follow-up study recruited
some people who liked Mozart music

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and then another group of people

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who were fans of 
the horror stories of Stephen King.

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And they played the people
the music or the stories.

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The people who preferred
Mozart music to the stories

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got a bigger I.Q. boost
from the Mozart than the stories,

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but the people who preferred
the stories to the Mozart music

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got a bigger I.Q. boost
from listening to the Stephen King stories

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than the Mozart music.

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So the truth is that listening
to something that you enjoy

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perks you up a bit
and gives you a temporary I.Q. boost

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on a narrow range of tasks.

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There's no suggestion that
listening to Mozart,

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or indeed Stephen King stories,

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is going to make you any smarter
in the long run.

NOTE Paragraph

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Another version of the Mozart myth

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is that listening to Mozart can make you
not only cleverer but healthier, too.

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Unfortunately, this doesn't
seem to be true

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of someone who listened
to the music of Mozart almost every day,

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Mozart himself,

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who suffered from gonorrhea,
smallpox, arthritis,

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and, what most people think eventually
killed him in the end, syphilis.

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This suggests that Mozart
should have bit more careful, perhaps,

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when choosing his sexual partners.

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But how do we choose a partner?

NOTE Paragraph

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So a myth that I have to say
is sometimes spread a bit by sociologists

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is that our preferences in a romantic 
partner are a product of our culture,

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that they're very culturally specific.

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But in fact, the data don't back this up.

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A famous study surveyed people from
32 different cultures across the globe,

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from Americans to Zulus,

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on what they look for in a partner.

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And in every single culture
across the globe,

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men placed more value
on physical attractiveness in a partner

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than did women,

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and in every single culture, too,

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women placed more importance than did men
on ambition and high earning power.

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In every culture, too,

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men preferred women
who were younger than themselves,

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an average of, I think it was 2.66 years,

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and in every culture, too,

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women preferred men
who were older than them,

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so an average of 3.42 years,

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which is why we've got here
"Everybody needs a Sugar Daddy."

NOTE Paragraph

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So moving on from trying
to score with a partner

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to trying to score in basketball
or football or whatever your sport is.

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The myth here is that sportsmen go through
hot-hand streaks, Americans call them,

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or purple patches,
we sometimes say in England,

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where they just can't miss,
like this guy here.

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But in fact, what happens is that
if you analyze the pattern

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of hits and misses statistically,

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it turns out that it's
nearly always at random.

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Your brain creates patterns
from the randomness.

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If you toss a coin,

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a streak of heads or tails is going 
to come out somewhere in the randomness,

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and because the brain likes to see
patterns where there are none,

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we look at these streaks
and attribute meanings to them

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and say, "Yeah he's really on form today,"

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whereas actually you would
get the same pattern

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if you were just getting
hits and misses at random.

NOTE Paragraph

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So an exception to this, however,
is penalty shootouts.

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A recent study looking
at penalty shootouts in football

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shows that players who represent countries

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with a very bad record
in penalty shootouts,

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like, for example, England,

00:11:24.784 --> 00:11:28.545
tend to be quicker to take their shots
than countries with a better record,

00:11:28.545 --> 00:11:31.865
and presumably as a result,
they're more likely to miss.

NOTE Paragraph

00:11:31.865 --> 00:11:33.560
Which raises the question

00:11:33.560 --> 00:11:36.949
of if there's any way that we
could improve people's performance.

00:11:36.949 --> 00:11:38.947
And one thing you might think about doing

00:11:38.947 --> 00:11:42.366
is punishing people for their misses
and seeing if that improves them.

00:11:42.366 --> 00:11:45.998
This idea, the effect that punishment
can improve performance,

00:11:45.998 --> 00:11:48.204
is what participants
thought they were testing

00:11:48.204 --> 00:11:50.736
in Milgram's famous learning
and punishment experiment

00:11:50.736 --> 00:11:53.744
that you've probably heard about
if you're a psychology student.

00:11:53.744 --> 00:11:56.566
The story goes that participants
were prepared to give

00:11:56.566 --> 00:11:59.867
what they believed to be fatal
electric shocks to a fellow participant

00:11:59.867 --> 00:12:01.888
when they got a question wrong,

00:12:01.888 --> 00:12:04.697
just because someone
in a white coat told them to.

NOTE Paragraph

00:12:04.697 --> 00:12:07.112
But this story is a myth
for three reasons.

00:12:07.112 --> 00:12:12.016
Firstly and most crucially, the lab coat
wasn't white, it was in fact grey.

00:12:12.016 --> 00:12:16.423
Secondly, the participants
were told before the study

00:12:16.423 --> 00:12:18.930
and reminded any time
they raised a concern,

00:12:18.930 --> 00:12:21.763
that although the shocks were painful,
they were not fatal

00:12:21.763 --> 00:12:24.505
and indeed caused
no permanent damage whatsoever.

00:12:24.505 --> 00:12:26.825
And thirdly, participants
didn't give the shocks

00:12:26.825 --> 00:12:29.473
just because someone
in the coat told them to.

00:12:29.473 --> 00:12:31.515
When they were interviewed
after the study,

00:12:31.515 --> 00:12:34.023
all the participants said
that they firmly believed

00:12:34.023 --> 00:12:37.807
that the learning and punishment study
served a worthy scientific purpose

00:12:37.807 --> 00:12:40.245
which would have
enduring gains for science

00:12:40.245 --> 00:12:46.114
as opposed to the momentary nonfatal
discomfort caused to the participants.

NOTE Paragraph

00:12:47.025 --> 00:12:49.603
Okay, so I've been talking
for about 12 minutes now,

00:12:49.603 --> 00:12:52.289
and you've probably been 
sitting there listening to me,

00:12:52.289 --> 00:12:54.509
analyzing my speech patterns 
and body language

00:12:54.509 --> 00:12:58.116
and trying to work out if you should
take any notice of what I'm saying,

00:12:58.116 --> 00:13:00.577
whether I'm telling the truth
or whether I'm lying,

00:13:00.577 --> 00:13:02.759
but if so you've
probably completely failed,

00:13:02.759 --> 00:13:05.104
because although we all think
we can catch a liar

00:13:05.104 --> 00:13:07.197
from their body language
and speech patterns,

00:13:07.197 --> 00:13:09.870
hundreds of psychological tests
over the years have shown

00:13:09.870 --> 00:13:12.561
that all of us, including
police officers and detectives,

00:13:12.561 --> 00:13:16.061
are basically at chance when it comes
to detecting lies from body language

00:13:16.061 --> 00:13:17.642
and verbal patterns.

00:13:17.642 --> 00:13:19.686
Interestingly, there is one exception:

00:13:19.686 --> 00:13:21.938
TV appeals for missing relatives.

00:13:21.938 --> 00:13:24.923
It's quite easy to predict
when the relatives are missing

00:13:24.923 --> 00:13:28.254
and when the appealers have in fact
murdered the relatives themselves.

00:13:28.254 --> 00:13:31.769
So hoax appealers are more likely
to shake their heads, to look away,

00:13:31.769 --> 00:13:33.483
and to make errors in their speech,

00:13:33.483 --> 00:13:35.498
whereas genuine appealers are more likely

00:13:35.498 --> 00:13:37.843
to express hope that the person
will return safely

00:13:37.843 --> 00:13:39.584
and to avoid brutal language.

00:13:39.584 --> 00:13:44.187
So, for example, they might say
"taken from us" rather than "killed."

NOTE Paragraph

00:13:44.187 --> 00:13:46.844
Speaking of which,
it's about time I killed this talk,

00:13:46.844 --> 00:13:50.052
but before I do, I just want 
to give you in 30 seconds

00:13:50.052 --> 00:13:53.423
the overarching myth of psychology.

00:13:53.423 --> 00:13:57.720
So the myth is that psychology is just
a collection of interesting theories,

00:13:57.720 --> 00:14:01.241
all of which say something useful
and all of which have something to offer.

00:14:01.241 --> 00:14:03.740
What I hope to have shown you
in the past few minutes

00:14:03.740 --> 00:14:05.325
is that this isn't true.

00:14:05.325 --> 00:14:08.584
What we need to do is assess
psychological theories

00:14:08.584 --> 00:14:10.468
by seeing what predictions they make,

00:14:10.468 --> 00:14:13.289
whether that is that listening to Mozart
makes you smarter,

00:14:13.289 --> 00:14:18.056
that you learn better when information is
presented in your preferred learning style

00:14:18.056 --> 00:14:21.521
or whatever it is, all of these
are testable empirical predictions,

00:14:21.521 --> 00:14:23.306
and the only way we can make progress

00:14:23.306 --> 00:14:25.426
is to test these predictions
against the data

00:14:25.426 --> 00:14:27.755
in tightly controlled
experimental studies.

00:14:27.755 --> 00:14:30.889
And it's only by doing so
that we can hope to discover

00:14:30.889 --> 00:14:33.513
which of these theories
are well supported,

00:14:33.513 --> 00:14:36.903
and which, like all the ones
I've told you about today, are myths.

NOTE Paragraph

00:14:36.903 --> 00:14:38.412
Thank you.

NOTE Paragraph

00:14:38.412 --> 00:14:41.872
(Applause)