10 Mind-Myths: Do Any of These Catch You Out?

Think our attitudes predict our behaviours? Think we only use 10% of our brains? Think blind people's other senses are more acute? Think again.

[Click the titles for the full posts]

1. Seriously, Would You Admit to Only Using 10% of Your Brain?
   It's a nice thought that we might have spare capacity, but there's no evidence for it.
2. Blind People's Other Senses Not More Acute
   Blind people might learn to use their other senses better, but they are no more acute.
3. Why Psychology is Not Just Common Sense
   If you want to see a psychologist's head explode, tell them psychology is just common sense.
4. The Attitude-Behaviour Gap: Why We Say One Thing But Do The Opposite
   Even when people are doing their best to tell the truth, there's still only a small relationship between people's attitudes and their behaviours.
5. Newborns Don't Bond Immediately with their Mothers
   Infants don't care who looks after them for the first three months, so long as someone does.
6. 50% of College Students Think We See Like Superman, Despite Perception Course
   Our eyes are only receptors, we don't see by sending out rays. But even after being told the truth, people still revert almost immediately to the myth that we see like Superman.
7. Two Brains for the Price of One?
   The famous left-brain/right-brain split in functioning isn't nearly as dramatic as you've been led to believe.
8. Graphology: Connections Between Handwriting and Personality are Illusory
   It really seems like handwriting should tell us something about personality - but it doesn't.
9. The Mind Cannot Beat Cancer
   If only it could. Psychological interventions can, however, help people deal with the disease.
10. Is a Bigger Brain Really Better?
    It's the old, old story: it's not how big it is, it's what you do with it.

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