What pop psychology gets wrong

Power corrupts, crowds are violent and depression is just a chemical imbalance. Right? The classic psychology theories often have a nice ring to them, creating a mythology that persists throughout the media, cinema and literature. But new research is revealing that the human mind isn’t as simple as we’d like to think…

When eye-catching theories emerge in the field of psychology, they often take on a life of their own. Just look at the idea that oxytocin is the ‘cuddle hormone’. This captures our imaginations, but research has shown that oxytocin can also increase feelings of intolerance and aggression. We are all amateur psychologists, and the field provides an appealing way for us to make sense of our feelings and behaviour. If it can confirm our own beliefs about human nature, then even better. But just like every science, psychology is a messy, ongoing process, and many headline-grabbing results have not been replicated, or are far more nuanced than first realised. Here are eight widely believed pop psychology ideas that are probably wrong, or at least overly simplistic.