WEBVTT

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So you've heard of your IQ,

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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 peoples' behavior

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or even your own?

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

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

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

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man and women are very different.

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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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So to find out, let's start by looking
at something on which men and women

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really do differ

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and plotting some psychological
gender differences on the same scale.

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So one thing that men and women

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do really differ on 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,

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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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So any psychologist will tell you
that men are better

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at spacial awareness than women,

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so things like map-reading, for example,

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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
that 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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And it's worth bearing in mind
that this difference

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and the next one I'm going to 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 to the men.

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Again, yes, women are better on average,

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but the lines are so close

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that 33 percent of men

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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, you know,

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one's maybe slightly
nuttier than the other.

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I won't say which.

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Right. 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 don't know
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,
that means you're a bit more

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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?
This isn't really a voting one,

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so on three, everyone
shout out what you see.

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One, two, three.

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(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

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where there's a lot going on.

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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

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that when you do try
to diagnose people's personality

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using Rorschach inkblot tests,

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schizophrenia was diagnosed

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in about one sixth of apparently
perfectly normal participants.

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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

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- 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

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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,

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it means that you're
a kinesthetic learner,

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that you learn best when you get stuck in

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and do things with your hands.

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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

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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

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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,

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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

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the material to be learned
to the presentation format,

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not you.

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So, I know many of youare 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

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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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So that sounds a very precise figure,

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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 share100 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,

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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.

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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,

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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

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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.

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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.

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That said, it is of course true

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that most of us don't use our brainpower

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quite as well as we could
most of the time.

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So what could we do
to boost our brain power?

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Maybe we could listen
to a nice bit of Mozart.

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So have you heard of the idea
of the Mozart effect?

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So the idea is that listening to Mozart

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makes you smarter and improves
your performance on IQ 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,

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there is a grain of truth to it.

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So the original study found

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that participants who were played
Mozart music for a few minutes

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did better on a subsequent IQ 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 IQ 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 IQ boost

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from listening to the Stephen King stories
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 IQ 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.

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So 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,

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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?

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

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is that our preferences
in a romantic partner

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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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So 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

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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."

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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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So the myth here is that sportsmen

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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,

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like this guy here.

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

00:11:03.731 --> 00:11:05.176
of hits and misses statistically,

00:11:05.176 --> 00:11:07.641
it turns out that it's
nearly always at random.

00:11:07.641 --> 00:11:10.011
Your brain creates patterns
from the randomness.

00:11:10.011 --> 00:11:11.914
So if you toss a coin, you know,

00:11:11.914 --> 00:11:15.405
a streak of heads or tails is going to
come out somewhere in randomness,

00:11:15.405 --> 00:11:17.967
and becomes the brain likes
to see patterns where there are none,

00:11:17.967 --> 00:11:20.336
we look at these streaks
and attribute meanings to them

00:11:20.336 --> 00:11:22.381
and say, "Yeah he's really on form today,"

00:11:22.381 --> 00:11:24.354
whereas actually you would
get the same pattern

00:11:24.354 --> 00:11:28.458
if you were just getting
hits and misses at random.

00:11:29.838 --> 00:11:32.851
So an exception to this, however,
is penalty shootouts.

00:11:32.851 --> 00:11:36.320
A recent study looking
at penalty shootouts in football

00:11:36.320 --> 00:11:38.518
shows that players who represent countries

00:11:38.518 --> 00:11:40.900
with a very bad record
in penalty shootouts,

00:11:40.900 --> 00:11:42.633
like, for example, England,

00:11:42.633 --> 00:11:47.199
tend to be quicker to take their shots
than countries with a better record,

00:11:47.199 --> 00:11:50.652
and presumably as a result,
they're more likely to miss.

00:11:50.652 --> 00:11:52.055
Which raises the question

00:11:52.055 --> 00:11:55.545
of if there's any way that we could
improve people's performance,

00:11:55.545 --> 00:11:57.432
and one thing you might think about doing

00:11:57.432 --> 00:11:59.260
is punishing people for their misses

00:11:59.260 --> 00:12:01.062
and seeing if that improves things.

00:12:01.062 --> 00:12:04.709
This idea, the effect that punishment
can improve performance,

00:12:04.709 --> 00:12:06.599
is what participants
thought they were testing

00:12:06.599 --> 00:12:09.480
in Milgram's famous learning
and punishment experiment

00:12:09.480 --> 00:12:12.172
that you've probably heard about
if you're a psychology student.

00:12:13.552 --> 00:12:16.200
The story goes that participants
were prepared to give

00:12:16.200 --> 00:12:20.014
what they believed to be fatal
electric shocks to a fellow participant

00:12:20.014 --> 00:12:22.126
when they got a question wrong,

00:12:22.126 --> 00:12:24.611
just because someone
in a white coat told them too.

00:12:24.611 --> 00:12:27.244
But this story is a myth
for three reasons.

00:12:27.244 --> 00:12:30.174
Firstly and most crucially,
the lab coat wasn't white.

00:12:30.174 --> 00:12:31.741
It was, in fact, grey.

00:12:32.589 --> 00:12:36.722
Secondly, the participants
were told before the study

00:12:36.722 --> 00:12:39.197
and reminded any time
they raised a concern,

00:12:39.197 --> 00:12:42.139
that although the shocks were painful,
they were not fatal

00:12:42.139 --> 00:12:44.956
and indeed caused
no permanent damage whatsoever.

00:12:44.956 --> 00:12:47.116
And thirdly, participants
didn't give the shocks

00:12:47.116 --> 00:12:49.924
just because someone
in the coat told them to.

00:12:49.924 --> 00:12:52.032
When they were interviewed
after the study,

00:12:52.032 --> 00:12:54.260
all the participants said
that they firmly believed

00:12:54.260 --> 00:12:58.027
that the learning and punishment study
served a worthy scientific purpose

00:12:58.027 --> 00:13:00.276
which would have
enduring gains for science

00:13:00.276 --> 00:13:04.398
as opposed to the momentary
non-fatal discomfort

00:13:04.398 --> 00:13:07.123
caused to the participants.

00:13:08.143 --> 00:13:11.109
Okay, so I've been talking
for about 12 minutes now,

00:13:11.109 --> 00:13:12.765
and you've probably been sitting there

00:13:12.765 --> 00:13:15.573
listening to me, analyzing
my speech patterns and body language

00:13:15.573 --> 00:13:19.306
and trying to work out if you should
take any notice of what I'm saying,

00:13:19.306 --> 00:13:21.679
whether I'm telling the truth
or whether I'm lying,

00:13:21.679 --> 00:13:23.911
but if so you've
probably completely failed,

00:13:23.911 --> 00:13:26.100
because although we all think
we can catch a liar

00:13:26.100 --> 00:13:28.210
from their body language
and speech patterns,

00:13:28.210 --> 00:13:31.154
hundreds of psychological tests
over the years have shown

00:13:31.154 --> 00:13:33.694
that all of us, including
police officers and detectives,

00:13:33.694 --> 00:13:36.876
are basically at chance when it comes
to detecting lies from body language

00:13:36.876 --> 00:13:38.585
and verbal patterns.

00:13:38.585 --> 00:13:40.598
Interestingly, there is one exception:

00:13:40.598 --> 00:13:42.791
TV appeals for missing relatives.

00:13:43.103 --> 00:13:47.123
It's quite easy to predict
when the relatives are missing

00:13:47.123 --> 00:13:50.275
and when the appealers have in fact
murdered the relatives themselves.

00:13:52.963 --> 00:13:56.726
So hoax appealers are more likely
to shake their heads, to look away,

00:13:56.726 --> 00:13:58.753
and to make errors in their speech,

00:13:58.753 --> 00:14:00.441
whereas genuine appealers are more likely

00:14:00.441 --> 00:14:02.811
to express hope that the person
will return safely

00:14:02.811 --> 00:14:04.455
and to avoid brutal language.

00:14:04.455 --> 00:14:08.506
So, for example, they might say
"taken from us" rather than "killed."

00:14:09.402 --> 00:14:10.589
Speaking of which,

00:14:10.589 --> 00:14:11.924
it's about time I killed this talk,

00:14:11.924 --> 00:14:13.827
but before I do, I just want to give you

00:14:13.827 --> 00:14:15.080
in 30 seconds

00:14:15.080 --> 00:14:17.959
the overarching myth of psychology.

00:14:18.276 --> 00:14:21.325
So the myth of psychology, as I see,

00:14:21.325 --> 00:14:24.873
and one that I don't think textbooks
about psychology

00:14:24.873 --> 00:14:27.517
and even universities courses
do enough to dispel,

00:14:27.517 --> 00:14:29.261
the myth is that psychology

00:14:29.261 --> 00:14:31.477
is just a collection
of interesting theories,

00:14:31.477 --> 00:14:33.114
all of which say something useful

00:14:33.114 --> 00:14:34.964
and all of which have something to offer.

00:14:34.964 --> 00:14:37.224
What I hope to have shown you
in the past few minutes

00:14:37.224 --> 00:14:38.639
is that this isn't true.

00:14:38.639 --> 00:14:42.224
What we need to do is assess
psychological theories

00:14:42.224 --> 00:14:43.917
by seeing what predictions they make,

00:14:43.917 --> 00:14:46.550
whether that is that listening to Mozart
makes you smarter,

00:14:46.550 --> 00:14:49.088
that you learn better when information

00:14:49.088 --> 00:14:51.300
is presented in your
preferred learning style,

00:14:51.300 --> 00:14:54.892
or whatever it is, all of these
are testable empirical predictions,

00:14:54.892 --> 00:14:57.115
and the only way we can make progress

00:14:57.115 --> 00:14:59.036
is to test these predictions
against the data

00:14:59.036 --> 00:15:01.202
in tightly controlled
experimental studies,

00:15:01.202 --> 00:15:03.771
and it's only by doing so
that we can hope to discover

00:15:03.771 --> 00:15:06.712
which of these theoriesare well-supported,

00:15:06.712 --> 00:15:10.040
and which, like all the ones
I've told you about today, are myths.

00:15:10.040 --> 00:15:11.341
Thank you.

00:15:11.341 --> 00:15:12.705
(Applause)