Popular Myths in Psychology

Myths about Psychological Treatment

Myth – Electroconvulsive (“Shock”) Therapy is a Physically Dangerous and Brutal Treatment

by Amy Webber

Most of you have probably heard of Electroconvulsive Therapy, commonly referred to as Shock Therapy or ECT, and you may have even seen it depicted in films, such as in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.  Many people hold negative views of ECT, believing it to be cruel, painful, harmful, and unsafe, and films often depict ECT in this negative light, often showing it as being used by staff in psychiatric hospitals as a means to control or punish misbehaving patients.  These films show ECT being forced upon people, leading to violent convulsions and causing severe memory loss and zombie-like side effects.

It’s true that in the past, convulsive therapy was indeed unsafe and often caused harmful side effects, and in some non-western developing countries today, ECT may still be administered without the proper procedures.  However, current methods of ECT have come a long way since the treatment was first introduced, and over the past five decades in the United States and most other Western countries, ECT has been administered in a way that is much more humane and much safer.  It is only administered under informed consent of the patient, and the procedure includes giving patients and general anesthetic and a muscle relaxant, and then placing electrodes on the patient’s head, and delivering an electric shock to induce a seizure, while the patient’s movements during the seizure are inhibited by the anesthetic and the muscle relaxant.  This method has been effective in treating many individuals with severe depression, and it is typically recommended as a last resort for those whose severe depression has failed to respond to other treatments.

While ECT does carry risks, the death risk is no higher than anesthesia alone.  Of course, it can have unpleasant side effects such as headaches and nausea.  Memory loss is also a risk factor for ECT, although the loss is usually of events that happened right before the therapy.

In conclusion, as with any medical procedure, ECT does have the potential for negative side effects; however, it is not the “barbaric” procedure depicted in the media, and has actually helped many individuals with severe depression and other disorders that have no responded to other treatments.  In fact, patients who have undergone ECT actually hold less negative views of ECT than the general public, and most of them actually report it to be “less frightening than a trip to the dentist.”  (Lilienfeld, Lynn, Ruscio, & Beyerstein, 2010, p. 241).

References:

Lilienfeld, S. O., Lynn, S. J., Ruscio, J., & Beyerstein, B. L. (2010). 50 great myths of popular psychology: Shattering widespread misconceptions about human behavior. West Sussex, United Kingdom: John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Study Sessions

November 23, 2011

Study Review

Peer Mentor: Alicia Kassian

Time: 2:00 – 4:00 pm

Room: A248

November 24, 2011

Study Review

Peer Mentor: Amy Webber

Time: 1 – 3:00 pm

Room: A247B

December 1, 2011

Study Review

Peer Mentor: Sylvia Tsang

Time: 2 – 4:00 pm

Room: A051

December 5, 2011

Study Review

Peer Mentor: Kat Nipcon

Time: 12 noon – 2:00 pm

Room: A247B

December 6, 2011

Study Review

Peer Mentor: Kent Bastell

Time: 1:30 – 3:30 pm

Room: A247B

December 8, 2011

Study Tips and Review                                   

Peer Mentor: Amy Webber

Time: 1 – 3:00 pm

Room: A247B

Popular Myths in Psychology

Myths about Emotion and Motivation

Myth: The Validity of the Polygraph Lie Detector Test

by Alicia Kassian

I was watching Maury the other day and a women was featured because she believed her husband was cheating on her. She was desperate to find out if he was lying to her so he was asked to take the polygraph lie detector test. In fact, he was lying and he had slept with over ten women since their relationship started. Now, that seemed true because his face said “uh oh” and he stormed off the stage, but most polygraph tests are not very valid. This particular guy was definitely guilty because he was caught cheating on his wife on camera at the filming of Maury (yikes). But, polygraphs in general are given heavy importance with a ton of flaws and many false positives (a non liar is given failing grade). Polygraphs only really work if the people being tested don’t know how they work. They measure changes in blood pressure and respiration and these supposedly go up if you are lying…unless you’re a “good liar” which means you do not get stressed or experience fear responses after or during a lie. So why do we still use them in the court of law? Because it can benefit either the defense or state depending on the results and then you can always dispute the reliability of the test. If you know of the movie Meet the Parents I’m sure you remember the father giving his future son-in-law a lie detector test to get into his “circle of trust.” Of course, he is rather a failure of a son-in-law in the movie and doesn’t do very well in his father in law’s opinion. The movie portrays the polygraph as a pretty accurate lie detector; which it isn’t! Also, a great number of people administering polygraphs are intimidating and use intimidation techniques to try and force a confession when that person may be innocent. This means that the person is likely stressed and fearful when the question is asked not because they are lying but because they are scared that they might go to jail or that people might not believe them, how sad is that? This happens to 40% of innocent people that are required to take a polygraph lie detector test. So, the next time you are watching Maury just know that polygraphs may not be so confirmatory, regardless of how guilty that alleged cheater may look.

Meetings Canceled

Please note that the peer mentor meeting schedule for November 8, 2011 at The Den is canceled. We will return next week complete with plenty of study tips for your upcoming exams. 


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Bonus Question

The Psychology 203 exams will now feature a bonus question that relates back to our blog posts, in particular, our discussion of popular myths in psychology. 

Please feel free to comment or discuss these myths in the discussion board on Blackboard, it just might help with that extra mark on the exam.

Blackboard

Exciting peer mentor news . . . we now have our own section on Blackboard. You can find our contact information and a brief summary of our roles on Blackboard.

We are also going to be starting discussion groups on Blackboard to answer any burning psychology questions, thoughts, or myths that were driving you crazy. 

Please feel free to comment on our discussion, we would love to hear your opinion.

Popular Myths in Psychology

Myths about Development

Myth: From Baby Mozart to Baby Genius: Does playing Mozart's Music to Infants Boost Their Intelligence?

by Kat Nipcon

There are few qualities in North American culture that are more prized than intelligence. Over the last few decades it has become increasingly popular for parents to employ various tricks to give their young offspring a competitive edge. Due to influences from the popular media and pseudo-science, many parents have tried to boost their babies IQ in hopes of giving them a better start in life.

One method of supposedly boosting an infant's IQ, has been a widely-popularized phenomena refereed to as the Mozart Effect. Follow this link for details: www.mozarteffect.com

It all started in 1993 with the publication of a paper on the effects of Mozart's music, in one of the most prestigious science journals, Nature. The paper itself investigated the effects of listening to various types of sound (Mozart, a relaxation tape or silence) on the performance of collage students on a spatial reasoning task. Check out this link to see what this type of task looks like and try it on your own: http://www.fibonicci.com/spatial-reasoning/test/

The researchers found that those students who listened to only 10 minutes of Mozart's music, showed a significant improvement on a spatial reasoning task. This immediate effect translated into an increase of about 8 to 9 IQ points... You may think that this sounds great...but how does this lead to an assumption that Mozart's music increases IQ in babies?

The original study did not in fact imply anything about permanently raising IQ. It did not even claim that listening to Mozart's music results in long-term enhancement of spatial ability. Neither did the study make any claims about the effects of classical music of abilities of infants. After all, the study was done on a group of collage students, not babies.

These facts did not stop the popular media and toy companies from making the Mozart Effect the next big thing. By 2003, the Mozart Effect CDs had sold over two million copies.

One may ask: How is it that more people did not question the validity of the Mozart Effect?

For one thing: clever marketing to receptive parents explains the vast success of the Mozart Effect products. Another reason is that many people often tend to confuse correlation and causation. For example, studies have shown that there is a positive association between musical talent and intelligence. What that means, is that there is a direct relationship between these two variables, in that as one increases, the other one also increases. Yet, a correlation does not imply that musical talent causes a rise in intelligence, or vice versa. All it means is that these two variables tend to occur together.

In case of the Mozart Effect, toy companies and the media made an erroneous leap from the correlational findings of one study to a conclusion that exposure to Mozart's music raises IQ in infants. Moreover,the claims pertaining to the Mozart Effect became even more exaggerated and distorted over time. All the media attention given to this phenomena affected the public perceptions. According to survey data, by 2004 over 80% of Americans were familiar with the Mozart Effect. A 2003 survey of introductory psychology students revealed that over 73% of them firmly believed that listening to Mozart's music does in fact increase IQ. A few years ago, the coach of a New York Jets Football team tried to increase performance of the players by playing Mozart's music during practice sessions. Some colleges in the states implemented special Mozart Effect study rooms. The public craze over the Mozart effect reached its peak  when Georgia Governor Zell Miller increased the state budget by $105,000 to ensure that each newborn baby will receive a copy of a Mozart CD. Other politicians in the U.S joined the mission to boost the nations IQ.

So is anything about the Mozart Effect real,or is it all clever marketing?

Actually,some of the more recent studies found an alternative explanation for the Mozart Effect: short-term arousal. A study by Jones et al (2006) found that an increase in performance on mentally demanding tasks can be achieved through anything that increases one's alertness. Thus, listening to Mozart's music may cause short-term increase in performance in this manner, but we are likely to obtain the exact same effect by drinking a cup of coffee. So, the Mozart Effect is "real" in a sense that  listening to music causes temporary arousal which in turn increases one's immediate performance. Yet, it is important for us to remember that this effect is only temporary and it is not exclusive to Mozart's music. Nor does it result in increase in anybody's intelligence, including that of babies.

You may think that there is nothing wrong with playing classical music to babies, and you are right. Even if it doesn't magically make them into infant-prodigies, it certainly will have not have negative effects. The only potential downside is the frustration of "ambitious" parents at finding that such miracle products do not work. Thus, the one thing to learn from this story is the importance of being an educated consumer.