6 Bullshit Facts About Psychology That Everyone Believes

Psychology is one of those subjects that everybody likes to think they know something about. We love to go around diagnosing our friends and co-workers, both to make sense of the world and to make ourselves feel like we're smarter than they are. But like any science that makes its way into the pop culture, a lot of the "common sense" statements we hear every day are so wrong that they border on raving idiocy. Such as... "If You Let Your Anger Out, You'll Feel Better!" You always hear people talk about how "cathartic" an experience was and how much better they feel, or you'll hear them say things like, "If you keep your anger bottled up, one day you'll just snap!" In fact the "about to go crazy because he can't express anger" character is a mainstay in television and movies (see that Simpsons episode where Ned Flanders finally loses it, and every movie where a renegade cop fires his gun into the air instead of unloading on the bad guy who just killed his wife). Why it is Bullshit: Figure 1.1

5 Logical Fallacies That Make You Wrong More Than You Think The Internet has introduced a golden age of ill-informed arguments. You can't post a video of an adorable kitten without a raging debate about pet issues spawning in the comment section. These days, everyone is a pundit. But with all those different perspectives on important issues flying around, you'd think we'd be getting smarter and more informed. #5. Think about the last time you ran into a coworker or family member spouting some easily disproven conspiracy theory -- somebody who still thinks Obama's birth certificate is a fake or that Dick Cheney arranged 9/11 to cover up his theft of $2.3 trillion from the government. That has literally never happened in the history of human conversation. Getty"OK, so Dick Cheney doesn't have a third arm. The Science: It's called the argumentative theory of reasoning, and it says that humans didn't learn to ask questions and offer answers in order to find universal truths. Yes, kids, being a dick works. So During Your Next Argument, Remember ... #4.

5 Psychological Experiments That Prove Humanity is Doomed Cracked.com's new book is now on sale. What follows is one of 22 classic articles that appear in the book, along with 18 new articles that you can't read anywhere else. Psychologists know you have to be careful when you go poking around the human mind because you're never sure what you'll find there. A number of psychological experiments over the years have yielded terrifying conclusions about the subjects. Oh, we're not talking about the occasional psychopath who turns up. The Asch Conformity Experiment (1953) The Setup: Solomon Asch wanted to run a series of studies that would document the power of conformity, for the purpose of depressing everyone who would ever read the results. Subjects were told that they would be taking part in a vision test, along with a handful of people. The Result: Questions the subjects were asked were like the puzzle shown here: All they had to do was say which line on the right matched the one on the left. ... and make sure you conform to it perfectly. C.

5 Unexpected Downsides of High Intelligence You're More Likely to Believe Bullshit Getty We're sure that at some point, someone has told you that you can't get anywhere without an education, and for the most part, they're right. And you're much more likely to pursue that education if you're starting out with a high IQ. According to renowned intelligenceologists who painstakingly measured every goddamn thing that you can associate with IQ, test scores were "the best single predictor of an individual's years of education." Photos.comThough some measurements were admittedly questionable. Why? So What's the Problem? It turns out that all this book learnin' is teaching you more than just the Pythagorean theorem -- it's also making it easier for you to believe some laughably wrong and even seriously weird stuff. Via Mastermarf.com One problem is that education leads to one overall inaccurate belief: You think you're smarter than you are. Via Smartiq.comWhoa! You're More Likely to Be Self-Destructive Makes sense. Photos.com"Duuuuude.