WEBVTT 00:00:10.857 --> 00:00:12.186 So you've heard of your IQ, 00:00:12.186 --> 00:00:13.693 your general intelligence, 00:00:13.693 --> 00:00:15.392 but what's your Psy-Q? 00:00:15.392 --> 00:00:17.629 How much do you knowabout what makes you tick, 00:00:17.629 --> 00:00:20.374 and how good are youat predicting other peoples' behavior 00:00:20.374 --> 00:00:21.880 or even your own? 00:00:21.880 --> 00:00:25.159 And how much about what you thinkyou know about psychology is wrong? 00:00:25.159 --> 00:00:28.947 So let's find out by counting downthe top 10 myths of psychology. 00:00:28.947 --> 00:00:32.343 So you've probably heard it saidthat when it comes to their psychology, 00:00:32.343 --> 00:00:35.225 it's almost as if men are from Marsand women are from Venus. 00:00:35.235 --> 00:00:37.334 But how differentare men and women really? 00:00:37.334 --> 00:00:40.808 So to find out, let's start by lookingat something on which men and women 00:00:40.808 --> 00:00:41.595 really do differ 00:00:41.595 --> 00:00:44.943 and plotting some psychologicalgender differences on the same scale. 00:00:44.943 --> 00:00:46.426 So one thing that men and women 00:00:46.426 --> 00:00:48.913 do really differ on is how farthey can throw a ball. 00:00:48.913 --> 00:00:50.803 So if we look at the data for men here, 00:00:50.803 --> 00:00:53.274 we see what is calleda normal distribution curve. 00:00:53.274 --> 00:00:55.112 A few men can throw a ball really far, 00:00:55.112 --> 00:00:56.565 and a few men not far at all, 00:00:56.565 --> 00:00:58.292 but most a kind of average distance. 00:00:58.292 --> 00:01:00.476 And women sharethe same distribution as well, 00:01:00.476 --> 00:01:02.565 but actually there'squite a big difference. 00:01:02.565 --> 00:01:04.913 In fact, the average mancan throw a ball further 00:01:04.913 --> 00:01:06.620 than about 98 percent of all women. 00:01:06.620 --> 00:01:09.647 So now let's look at whatsome psychological gender differences 00:01:09.647 --> 00:01:12.504 look like on the same standardized scale. 00:01:12.504 --> 00:01:15.020 So any psychologist will tell youthat men are better 00:01:15.020 --> 00:01:16.555 at spacial awareness than women, 00:01:16.555 --> 00:01:18.513 so things like map-reading, for example, 00:01:18.513 --> 00:01:19.505 and it's true, 00:01:19.505 --> 00:01:22.023 but let's have a lookat the size of this difference. 00:01:22.023 --> 00:01:25.250 It's tiny: the lines are so close togetherthat they almost overlap. 00:01:25.250 --> 00:01:29.244 In fact, the average woman is betterthan 33 percent of all men, 00:01:29.244 --> 00:01:31.125 and of course, if that was 50 percent, 00:01:31.125 --> 00:01:33.341 then the two genderswould be exactly equal. 00:01:33.341 --> 00:01:35.729 And it's worth bearing in mindthat this difference 00:01:35.729 --> 00:01:37.536 and the next one I'm going to show you 00:01:37.536 --> 00:01:39.374 are pretty much the biggestpsychological gender differences 00:01:39.374 --> 00:01:40.931 ever discovered in psychology. 00:01:40.931 --> 00:01:42.032 So here's the next one. 00:01:42.032 --> 00:01:44.540 Any psychologist will tell youthat women are better 00:01:44.540 --> 00:01:46.225 with language and grammar than men. 00:01:46.225 --> 00:01:48.794 So here's performanceon the standardized grammar test. 00:01:48.794 --> 00:01:50.861 There go the women. There go to the men. 00:01:50.861 --> 00:01:53.090 Again, yes, women are better on average, 00:01:53.090 --> 00:01:54.553 but the lines are so close 00:01:54.553 --> 00:01:56.417 that 33 percent of men 00:01:56.417 --> 00:01:58.035 are better than the average woman, 00:01:58.035 --> 00:01:59.720 and again, if it was 50 percent, 00:01:59.720 --> 00:02:02.462 that would representcomplete gender equality. 00:02:02.462 --> 00:02:04.583 So it's not reallya case of Mars and Venus. 00:02:04.583 --> 00:02:07.250 It's more a case of, if anything,Mars and Snickers: 00:02:07.250 --> 00:02:08.901 basically the same, but, you know, 00:02:08.901 --> 00:02:11.990 one's maybe slightlynuttier than the other. 00:02:11.990 --> 00:02:13.708 I won't say which. 00:02:13.708 --> 00:02:15.503 Right. Now we've got you warmed up. 00:02:15.503 --> 00:02:18.539 Let's psychoanalyze you usingthe famous Rorschach inkblot test. 00:02:18.539 --> 00:02:22.122 So you can probably see two, I dunno,two bears or two people or something. 00:02:22.122 --> 00:02:23.875 But what do you think they're doing? 00:02:23.875 --> 00:02:27.059 Put your hand up if you thinkthey're saying hello. 00:02:27.059 --> 00:02:28.870 Not many people. Okay. 00:02:28.870 --> 00:02:31.337 Put your hands up if you thinkthey are high-fiving. 00:02:31.337 --> 00:02:33.307 Okay. What if you think they're fighting? 00:02:33.307 --> 00:02:34.482 Only a few people there. 00:02:34.482 --> 00:02:37.639 Okay, so if you think they'resaying hello or high-fiving, 00:02:37.639 --> 00:02:39.630 then that means you're a friendly person. 00:02:39.630 --> 00:02:42.410 If you think they're fighting,that means you're a bit more 00:02:42.410 --> 00:02:43.876 of a nasty, aggressive person. 00:02:43.876 --> 00:02:45.806 Are you a lover or a fighter, basically. 00:02:45.806 --> 00:02:48.303 What about this one?This isn't really a voting one, 00:02:48.303 --> 00:02:50.535 so on three, everyoneshout out what you see. 00:02:50.535 --> 00:02:53.549 One, two, three. 00:02:53.549 --> 00:02:55.241 I heard hamster. Who said hamster? 00:02:55.241 --> 00:02:56.778 That was very worrying. 00:02:56.778 --> 00:02:58.291 A guy there said hamster. 00:02:58.291 --> 00:03:01.599 Well, you should seesome kind of two-legged animal here, 00:03:01.599 --> 00:03:03.983 and then the mirror image of them there. 00:03:03.983 --> 00:03:07.414 If you didn't, then this meansthat you have difficulty 00:03:07.414 --> 00:03:09.109 processing complex situations 00:03:09.109 --> 00:03:11.524 where there's a lot going on. 00:03:11.524 --> 00:03:13.729 Except, of course,it doesn't mean that at all. 00:03:13.729 --> 00:03:16.400 Rorschach inkblot testshave basically no validity 00:03:16.400 --> 00:03:18.675 when it comes to diagnosingpeople's personality 00:03:18.675 --> 00:03:21.136 and are not usedby modern-day psychologists. 00:03:21.136 --> 00:03:22.785 In fact, one recent study found 00:03:22.785 --> 00:03:26.035 that when you do tryto diagnose people's personality 00:03:26.035 --> 00:03:27.684 using Rorschach inkblot tests, 00:03:27.684 --> 00:03:29.356 schizophrenia was diagnosed 00:03:29.356 --> 00:03:33.349 in about one sixth of apparentlyperfectly normal participants. 00:03:33.349 --> 00:03:36.182 So if you didn't do that well on this, 00:03:36.182 --> 00:03:38.736 maybe you are nota very visual type of person. 00:03:38.736 --> 00:03:41.105 So let's do anotherquick quiz to find out. 00:03:41.105 --> 00:03:43.153 When making a cake, do you prefer to 00:03:43.153 --> 00:03:45.005 -- so hands up for each one again -- 00:03:45.005 --> 00:03:47.652 do you prefer to usea recipe book with pictures? 00:03:47.652 --> 00:03:49.672 Yeah, a few people. 00:03:49.672 --> 00:03:52.412 Have a friend talk you through? 00:03:52.412 --> 00:03:55.245 Or have a go, making it upas you go along? 00:03:55.245 --> 00:03:56.777 Quite a few people there. 00:03:56.777 --> 00:03:58.287 Okay, so if you said a, 00:03:58.287 --> 00:04:00.459 then this means that youare a visual learner 00:04:00.459 --> 00:04:02.187 and you learn best when information 00:04:02.187 --> 00:04:04.091 is presented in a visual style. 00:04:04.091 --> 00:04:06.599 If you said b, it meansyou're an auditory learner, 00:04:06.599 --> 00:04:10.394 that you learn best when informationis presented to you in an auditory format, 00:04:10.394 --> 00:04:11.254 and if you said c, 00:04:11.254 --> 00:04:13.269 it means that you'rea kinesthetic learner, 00:04:13.269 --> 00:04:15.280 that you learn best when you get stuck in 00:04:15.280 --> 00:04:16.714 and do things with your hands. 00:04:16.714 --> 00:04:18.947 Except, of course,as you've probably guessed, 00:04:18.947 --> 00:04:21.777 that it doesn't, becausethe whole thing is a complete myth. 00:04:21.777 --> 00:04:23.215 Learning styles are made up 00:04:23.215 --> 00:04:25.755 and are not supportedby scientific evidence. 00:04:25.755 --> 00:04:29.191 So we know this because intightly controlled experimental studies, 00:04:29.191 --> 00:04:31.142 when learners are given material to learn 00:04:31.142 --> 00:04:33.812 either in their preferred styleor an opposite style, 00:04:33.812 --> 00:04:35.218 it makes no difference at all 00:04:35.218 --> 00:04:37.421 to the amount of informationthat they retain. 00:04:37.421 --> 00:04:39.504 And if you think about itfor just a second, 00:04:39.504 --> 00:04:41.602 it's just obviousthat this has to be true. 00:04:41.602 --> 00:04:44.144 It's obvious thatthe best presentation format 00:04:44.144 --> 00:04:45.672 depends not on you, 00:04:45.672 --> 00:04:47.357 but on what you're trying to learn. 00:04:47.357 --> 00:04:49.479 Could you learn to drive a car,for example, 00:04:49.479 --> 00:04:51.897 just by listening to someonetelling you what to do 00:04:51.897 --> 00:04:53.525 with no kinesthetic experience? 00:04:53.525 --> 00:04:55.341 Could you solve simultaneous equations 00:04:55.341 --> 00:04:58.487 by talking them through in your headand without writing them down? 00:04:58.487 --> 00:05:00.448 Could you ?? for your architecture exams 00:05:00.448 --> 00:05:03.161 using interpretive danceif you're a kinesthetic learner? 00:05:03.161 --> 00:05:04.972 No. What you need to do is match 00:05:04.972 --> 00:05:08.617 the material to be learnedto the presentation format, 00:05:08.617 --> 00:05:10.078 not you. 00:05:10.078 --> 00:05:12.126 So, I know many of youare A-level students 00:05:12.126 --> 00:05:14.418 that will have recently gottenyour ???? results. 00:05:14.418 --> 00:05:16.976 And if you didn't quite getwhat you were hoping for, 00:05:16.976 --> 00:05:19.323 then you can't really blameyour learning style, 00:05:19.323 --> 00:05:22.966 but one thing that you might wantto think about blaming is your genes. 00:05:22.966 --> 00:05:24.220 So what this is all about 00:05:24.220 --> 00:05:26.635 is a recent studyat University College London 00:05:26.635 --> 00:05:29.189 found that 58 percent of the variation 00:05:29.189 --> 00:05:32.440 between different studentsand their ??? results 00:05:32.440 --> 00:05:34.097 was down to genetic factors. 00:05:34.097 --> 00:05:35.923 So that sounds a very precise figure, 00:05:35.923 --> 00:05:37.223 so how can we tell? 00:05:37.223 --> 00:05:40.738 Well, when we want to unpackthe relative contributions 00:05:40.738 --> 00:05:42.842 of genes and the environment, 00:05:42.842 --> 00:05:45.071 what we can do is do a twin study. 00:05:45.071 --> 00:05:48.647 So identical twins share100 percent of their environment 00:05:48.647 --> 00:05:50.551 and 100 percent of their genes, 00:05:50.551 --> 00:05:53.773 whereas non-identical twinsshare 100 percent of their environment, 00:05:53.773 --> 00:05:55.589 but just like any brother and sister, 00:05:55.589 --> 00:05:57.447 share only 50 percent of their genes. 00:05:57.447 --> 00:06:00.837 So by comparing how similar??? results are in identical twins 00:06:00.837 --> 00:06:04.018 versus non-identical twins, 00:06:04.018 --> 00:06:05.364 and doing some clever math, 00:06:05.364 --> 00:06:09.265 we can an idea of how much variationand performance is due to the environment 00:06:09.265 --> 00:06:11.401 and how much is due to genes. 00:06:11.401 --> 00:06:15.178 And it turns out that it'sabout 58 percent due to genes. 00:06:15.178 --> 00:06:18.941 So this isn't to undermine the hard workthat you and your teachers here put in. 00:06:18.941 --> 00:06:22.012 If you didn't quite get the ??? resultsthat you were hoping for, 00:06:22.012 --> 00:06:26.888 then you can always try blamingyour parents, or at least their genes. 00:06:26.888 --> 00:06:28.606 One thing that you shouldn't blame 00:06:28.606 --> 00:06:31.068 is being a left brainedor right brained learner, 00:06:31.068 --> 00:06:32.879 because again, this is a myth. 00:06:32.879 --> 00:06:35.636 So the myth here is thatthe left brain is logical, 00:06:35.636 --> 00:06:37.435 it's good with equations like this, 00:06:37.435 --> 00:06:39.264 and the right brain is more creative, 00:06:39.264 --> 00:06:41.517 so the right brain is better at music. 00:06:41.517 --> 00:06:44.465 But again, this is a mythbecause nearly everything that you do 00:06:44.465 --> 00:06:47.275 involves nearly all partsof your brain talking together, 00:06:47.275 --> 00:06:50.595 even just the most mundane thinglike having a normal conversation. 00:06:50.595 --> 00:06:53.938 However, perhaps one reasonwhy this myth has survived 00:06:53.938 --> 00:06:56.180 is that there isa slight grain of truth to it. 00:06:56.180 --> 00:06:57.790 So a related version of the myth 00:06:57.790 --> 00:07:01.073 is that left-handed people aremore creative than right-handed people, 00:07:01.073 --> 00:07:04.527 which kind of makes sense becauseyour brain controls the opposite hands, 00:07:04.527 --> 00:07:05.887 so left-handed people, 00:07:05.887 --> 00:07:08.313 the right side of the brainis slightly more active 00:07:08.313 --> 00:07:10.118 than the left hand side of the brain, 00:07:10.118 --> 00:07:12.606 and the idea is the right-hand sideis more creative. 00:07:12.606 --> 00:07:14.003 Now, it isn't true per se 00:07:14.003 --> 00:07:17.204 that left-handed people are more creativethan right-handed people. 00:07:17.204 --> 00:07:19.619 What is true that ambidextrous people, 00:07:19.619 --> 00:07:22.312 or people who use both handsfor different tasks, 00:07:22.312 --> 00:07:26.074 are more creative thinkersthan one-handed people, 00:07:26.074 --> 00:07:27.807 because being ambidextrous involves 00:07:27.807 --> 00:07:30.536 having both sides of the braintalk to each other a lot, 00:07:30.536 --> 00:07:34.298 which seems to be involvedin creating flexible thinking. 00:07:34.298 --> 00:07:36.113 The myth of the creative left-hander 00:07:36.113 --> 00:07:38.171 arises from the factthat being ambidextrous 00:07:38.171 --> 00:07:40.098 is more common amongst left-handers 00:07:40.098 --> 00:07:41.282 than right handers, 00:07:41.282 --> 00:07:44.347 so a grain of truth in the ideaof the creative left-hander, 00:07:44.347 --> 00:07:45.694 but not much. 00:07:45.694 --> 00:07:48.131 A related myth that you'veprobably heard of 00:07:48.131 --> 00:07:50.504 is that we only use10 percent of our brains. 00:07:50.504 --> 00:07:52.030 This is, again, a complete myth. 00:07:52.030 --> 00:07:54.749 Nearly everything that we do,even the most mundane thing, 00:07:54.749 --> 00:07:56.932 uses nearly all of our brains. 00:07:56.932 --> 00:08:00.693 That said, it is of course true 00:08:00.693 --> 00:08:03.363 that most of us don't use our brainpower 00:08:03.363 --> 00:08:05.267 quite as well as we could. 00:08:05.267 --> 00:08:08.239 So what could we doto boost our brain power? 00:08:08.239 --> 00:08:10.377 Maybe we could listento a nice bit of Mozart. 00:08:10.377 --> 00:08:13.255 So have you heard of the ideaof the Mozart effect? 00:08:13.255 --> 00:08:15.222 So the idea is that listening to Mozart 00:08:15.222 --> 00:08:18.221 makes you smarter and improvesyour performance on IQ tests. 00:08:18.221 --> 00:08:20.326 Now again, what's interestingabout this myth 00:08:20.326 --> 00:08:22.247 is that although it's basically a myth, 00:08:22.247 --> 00:08:23.841 there is a grain of truth to it. 00:08:23.841 --> 00:08:25.421 So the original study found that 00:08:25.421 --> 00:08:29.322 participants who were playedMozart music for a few minutes 00:08:29.322 --> 00:08:31.621 did better on a subsequent IQ test 00:08:31.621 --> 00:08:35.034 than participants who simplysat in silence. 00:08:35.034 --> 00:08:38.758 But a follow-up study recruitedsome people who liked Mozart music 00:08:38.758 --> 00:08:40.539 and then another group of people 00:08:40.539 --> 00:08:43.207 who were fans of the horror storiesof Stephen King. 00:08:43.207 --> 00:08:46.771 And they played the peoplethe music or the stories. 00:08:46.771 --> 00:08:49.279 The people who preferredMozart music to the stories 00:08:49.279 --> 00:08:51.900 got a bigger IQ boostfrom the Mozart than the stories, 00:08:51.900 --> 00:08:54.758 but the people who preferredthe stories to the Mozart music 00:08:54.758 --> 00:08:56.105 got a bigger IQ boost 00:08:56.105 --> 00:08:59.170 from listening to the Stephen King storiesthan the Mozart music. 00:08:59.170 --> 00:09:01.933 So the truth is that listeningto something that you enjoy 00:09:01.933 --> 00:09:05.184 perks you up a bitand gives you a temporary IQ boost 00:09:05.184 --> 00:09:07.111 on a narrow range of tasks. 00:09:07.111 --> 00:09:09.479 There's no suggestion thatlistening to Mozart 00:09:09.479 --> 00:09:11.104 or indeed Stephen King stories 00:09:11.104 --> 00:09:14.936 is going to make you any smarterin the long run. 00:09:14.936 --> 00:09:17.466 So another version of the Mozart myth 00:09:17.466 --> 00:09:22.324 is that listening to Mozart can make younot only cleverer but healthier, too. 00:09:22.324 --> 00:09:24.392 Unfortunately, this doesn'tseem to be true 00:09:24.392 --> 00:09:27.451 of someone who listenedto the music of Mozart almost every day, 00:09:27.451 --> 00:09:29.169 Mozart himself, 00:09:29.169 --> 00:09:32.149 who suffered from gonorrhea,smallpox, arthritis, 00:09:32.149 --> 00:09:35.043 and what most people thinkeventually killed him in the end, 00:09:35.043 --> 00:09:36.920 syphilis. 00:09:36.920 --> 00:09:40.035 This suggests that Mozartshould have bit more careful, perhaps, 00:09:40.035 --> 00:09:42.613 when choosing his sexual partners. 00:09:42.613 --> 00:09:44.772 But how do we choose a partner? 00:09:44.772 --> 00:09:48.208 So a myth, but I have to sayis sometimes spread a bit by sociologists 00:09:48.208 --> 00:09:52.031 is that our preferencesin a romantic partner 00:09:52.031 --> 00:09:53.711 are a product of our culture, 00:09:53.711 --> 00:09:55.532 that they're very culturally specific, 00:09:55.532 --> 00:09:57.496 but in fact, the data don't back this up. 00:09:57.496 --> 00:10:01.931 So a famous study surveyed people from32 different cultures across the globe, 00:10:01.931 --> 00:10:03.417 from Americans to Zulus, 00:10:03.417 --> 00:10:05.483 on what they look for in a partner. 00:10:05.483 --> 00:10:07.852 And in every single cultureacross the globe, 00:10:07.852 --> 00:10:11.567 men placed more valueon physical attractiveness in a partner 00:10:11.567 --> 00:10:12.867 than did women, 00:10:12.867 --> 00:10:14.608 and in every single culture, too, 00:10:14.608 --> 00:10:16.582 women placed more importance than did men 00:10:16.582 --> 00:10:19.211 on ambition and high earning power. 00:10:19.211 --> 00:10:20.605 In every culture, too, 00:10:20.605 --> 00:10:23.130 men preferred womenwho were younger than themselves, 00:10:23.130 --> 00:10:25.939 an average of I think it was 2.66 years, 00:10:25.939 --> 00:10:27.588 and in every culture, too, 00:10:27.588 --> 00:10:30.188 women preferred menwho were older than them, 00:10:30.188 --> 00:10:32.998 so an average of 3.42 years, 00:10:32.998 --> 00:10:36.713 which is why we've got here"Everybody Needs A Sugar Daddy." 00:10:36.713 --> 00:10:39.290 So moving on from tryingto score with a partner 00:10:39.290 --> 00:10:43.214 to trying to score in basketballor football or whatever your sport is. 00:10:43.214 --> 00:10:45.072 So the myth here is that sportsmen 00:10:45.072 --> 00:10:47.353 go through hot hand streaks,Americans call them, 00:10:47.353 --> 00:10:49.553 or purple patches,we sometimes say in England, 00:10:49.553 --> 00:10:50.993 where they just can't miss, 00:10:50.993 --> 00:10:52.386 like this guy here. 00:10:52.386 --> 00:10:56.077 But in fact, what happens is thatif you analyze the pattern 00:10:56.077 --> 00:10:57.865 of hits and misses statistically, 00:10:57.865 --> 00:11:00.164 it turns out that it'snearly always at random. 00:11:00.164 --> 00:11:02.579 Your brain creates patternsfrom the randomness. 00:11:02.579 --> 00:11:04.436 So if you toss a coin, you know, 00:11:04.436 --> 00:11:07.862 a streak of heads or tails is goingto come out somewhere in randomness, 00:11:07.862 --> 00:11:10.953 and becomes the brain likesto see patterns where there are none, 00:11:10.953 --> 00:11:13.534 we look at these streaksand attribute meanings to them 00:11:13.534 --> 00:11:15.591 and say, "Yeah he's really on form today," 00:11:15.591 --> 00:11:17.901 whereas actually you wouldget the same pattern 00:11:17.901 --> 00:11:21.406 if you were just gettinghits and misses at random. 00:11:21.406 --> 00:11:24.872 So an exception to this, however,is penalty shootouts. 00:11:24.872 --> 00:11:27.957 A recent study lookingat penalty shootouts in football 00:11:27.957 --> 00:11:29.977 shows that players who represent countries 00:11:29.977 --> 00:11:32.601 with a very bad recordin penalty shootouts, 00:11:32.601 --> 00:11:34.784 like, for example, England, 00:11:34.784 --> 00:11:38.545 tend to be quicker to take their shotsthan countries with a better record, 00:11:38.545 --> 00:11:41.865 and presumably as a result,they're more likely to miss. 00:11:41.865 --> 00:11:43.560 Which raises the question 00:11:43.560 --> 00:11:47.229 of if there's any way that wecould improve people's performance, 00:11:47.229 --> 00:11:48.947 and one thing you might think about doing 00:11:48.947 --> 00:11:50.596 is punishing people for their misses 00:11:50.596 --> 00:11:52.546 and seeing if that improves things. 00:11:52.546 --> 00:11:55.998 This idea, the effect that punishmentcan improve performance, 00:11:55.998 --> 00:11:58.204 is what participantsthought they were testing 00:11:58.204 --> 00:12:00.736 in Milgram's famous learningand punishment experiment 00:12:00.736 --> 00:12:03.814 that you've probably heard aboutif you're a psychology student. 00:12:03.814 --> 00:12:06.566 The story goes that participantswere prepared to give 00:12:06.566 --> 00:12:09.867 what they believed to be fatalelectric shocks to a fellow participant 00:12:09.867 --> 00:12:11.888 when they got a question wrong, 00:12:11.888 --> 00:12:14.697 just because someonein a white coat told them too. 00:12:14.697 --> 00:12:17.112 But this story is a mythfor three reasons. 00:12:17.112 --> 00:12:20.246 Firstly and most crucially,the lab coat wasn't white. 00:12:20.246 --> 00:12:21.988 It was, in fact, grey. 00:12:21.988 --> 00:12:26.423 Secondly, the participantswere told before the study 00:12:26.423 --> 00:12:28.930 and reminded any timethey raised a concern, 00:12:28.930 --> 00:12:31.763 that although the shocks were painful,they were not fatal 00:12:31.763 --> 00:12:34.505 and indeed causedno permanent damage whatsoever. 00:12:34.505 --> 00:12:36.825 And thirdly, participantsdidn't give the shocks 00:12:36.825 --> 00:12:39.473 just because someonein the coat told them to. 00:12:39.473 --> 00:12:41.515 When they were interviewedafter the study, 00:12:41.515 --> 00:12:44.023 all the participants saidthat they firmly believed 00:12:44.023 --> 00:12:47.807 that the learning and punishment studyserved a worthy scientific purpose 00:12:47.807 --> 00:12:50.245 which would haveenduring gains for science 00:12:50.245 --> 00:12:53.844 as opposed to the momentarynon-fatal discomfort 00:12:53.844 --> 00:12:57.025 caused to the participants. 00:12:57.025 --> 00:12:59.603 Okay, so I've been talkingfor about 12 minutes now, 00:12:59.603 --> 00:13:01.429 and you've probably been sitting there 00:13:01.429 --> 00:13:04.509 listening to me, analyzingmy speech patterns and body language 00:13:04.509 --> 00:13:08.116 and trying to work out if you shouldtake any notice of what I'm saying, 00:13:08.116 --> 00:13:10.577 whether I'm telling the truthor whether I'm lying, 00:13:10.577 --> 00:13:12.759 but if so you'veprobably completely failed, 00:13:12.759 --> 00:13:15.104 because although we all thinkwe can catch a liar 00:13:15.104 --> 00:13:17.197 from their body languageand speech patterns, 00:13:17.197 --> 00:13:19.870 hundreds of psychological testsover the years have shown 00:13:19.870 --> 00:13:22.561 that all of us, includingpolice officers and detectives, 00:13:22.561 --> 00:13:26.061 are basically at chance when it comesto detecting lies from body language 00:13:26.061 --> 00:13:27.642 and verbal patterns. 00:13:27.642 --> 00:13:29.686 Interestingly, there is one exception: 00:13:29.686 --> 00:13:31.938 TV appeals for missing relatives. 00:13:31.938 --> 00:13:34.923 It's quite easy to predictwhen the relatives are missing 00:13:34.923 --> 00:13:38.254 and when the appealers have in factmurdered the relatives themselves. 00:13:38.254 --> 00:13:41.769 So hoax appealers are more likelyto shake their heads, to look away, 00:13:41.769 --> 00:13:43.483 and to make errors in their speech, 00:13:43.483 --> 00:13:45.498 whereas genuine appealers are more likely 00:13:45.498 --> 00:13:47.843 to express hope that the personwill return safely 00:13:47.843 --> 00:13:49.584 and to avoid brutal language. 00:13:49.584 --> 00:13:54.187 So, for example, they might say"taken from us" rather than "killed." 00:13:54.187 --> 00:13:55.184 Speaking of which, 00:13:55.184 --> 00:13:56.864 it's about time I killed this talk, 00:13:56.864 --> 00:13:58.772 but before I do, I just want to give you 00:13:58.772 --> 00:14:00.033 in 30 seconds 00:14:00.033 --> 00:14:03.423 the overarching myth of psychology. 00:14:03.423 --> 00:14:05.550 So the myth is that psychology 00:14:05.550 --> 00:14:07.708 is just a collectionof interesting theories, 00:14:07.708 --> 00:14:09.297 all of which say something useful 00:14:09.297 --> 00:14:11.251 and all of which have something to offer. 00:14:11.251 --> 00:14:13.740 What I hope to have shown youin the past few minutes 00:14:13.740 --> 00:14:15.325 is that this isn't true. 00:14:15.325 --> 00:14:18.584 What we need to do is assesspsychological theories 00:14:18.584 --> 00:14:20.468 by seeing what predictions they make, 00:14:20.468 --> 00:14:23.289 whether that is that listening to Mozartmakes you smarter, 00:14:23.289 --> 00:14:25.796 that you learn better when information 00:14:25.796 --> 00:14:28.072 is presented in yourpreferred learning style, 00:14:28.072 --> 00:14:31.521 or whatever it is, all of theseare testable empirical predictions, 00:14:31.521 --> 00:14:33.306 and the only way we can make progress 00:14:33.306 --> 00:14:35.426 is to test these predictionsagainst the data 00:14:35.426 --> 00:14:37.755 in tightly controlledexperimental studies, 00:14:37.755 --> 00:14:40.889 and it's only by doing sothat we can hope to discover 00:14:40.889 --> 00:14:43.513 which of these theoriesare well-supported, 00:14:43.513 --> 00:14:46.903 and which, like all the onesI've told you about today, are myths. 00:14:46.903 --> 00:14:48.412 Thank you. 00:14:48.412 --> 00:14:51.872 (Applause)