Category: That’s not quite right…
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Does everything come in twos? Problems with dual-process theories
Dual process theories are everywhere in psychology [zotpressInText item=”{5421944:A45HTJM4}”]. From decision making to emotions, the idea that complex cognitive phenomena can be categorised into two classes with specific common features is very alluring. [zotpressInText item=”{5421944:DT8HLGCV}” format=”%a% (%d%, %p%)”] identified psychologists’ penchant for dichotomies (nature vs nurture etc.) but this dichotomisation began with the cognitive revolution.…
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Is there good evidence for the ‘paradox of choice’?
The paradox of choice seems relevant in our modern consumer culture. Though it goes by many names[note]Choice overload, overchoice.[/note] it was popularised by Barry Schwartz in his 2004 book ‘The Paradox of Choice – Why More Is Less’. The concept as was initially proposed is straightforward: when presented with a large number of options, consumers…
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Do bilinguals enjoy enhanced executive functioning?
Many believe people who speak more than one language are smarter (just Google ‘bilingualism’ and ‘smarter’ and you’ll see many articles putting this idea forward). This popular meme arose due to a number of studies finding bilinguals scored higher on executive functioning (EF) tests compared to monolinguals [zotpressInText item=”{5421944:ZY8QPLW8}”]. Executive functioning is a broad concept…
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Does grouping students by ability work?
Academic achievement in England is strongly impacted by class, with those of a higher socioeconomic status (S.E.S.) more likely to achieve than than those of a lower S.E.S. (Clifton & Cook, 2012). These gaps between students can be seen between students as early as three years old (Feinstein, 2003) and continue to widen as the…
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Do video games cause violence? A deeper look at the evidence
For almost as long as there have been video games, there have been people arguing that they are bad for you. There also seems to be a wealth of experimental evidence behind it (Hasan et al., 2013, to name just one of many). But there have been suggestions that these negative outcomes are oversold. Problems…
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Are people’s performance impacted by negative stereotypes?
Don’t you just love being wrong? Of course you don’t, no one does. But there is a grim satisfaction in no longer believing something that there isn’t good enough evidence for. This is what I experienced after examining the phenomenon known as ‘stereotype threat’. In short, it’s the idea that groups with negative stereotypes about…
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The benefits of single-sex schooling
Many people claim that single-sex (SS) education is better for students than co-educational (CE) e.g. Jackson (2016). There have been criticisms of this idea e.g. Halpern et a. (2011) but generally it is believed to be beneficial. But what does the evidence suggest? A large-scale meta-analysis by Pahlke et al. (2014), involving 184 studies and…
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Learning styles
The idea of learning styles is that people have a preference for which mode information is presented in and that they learn better when the information is presented in this modality. There have been a huge number of different types but I’m going to focus on VAK (visual, auditory and kinaesthetic) as it’s the most…
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The seductive allure of neuroscience scans
An article by Farah & Hook (2013) examined the much discussed idea that attaching fMRI scans to an article (even if they are unrelated or totally meaningless) makes said article appear more “scientific” and that they “overwhelm critical consideration” (Uttal, 2011). This is obviously not a good thing, as it could lend undue credibility to “bad science”. The…
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Internet addiction
It is quite common to hear people being described as “addicted to the internet” or that we are a culture of “internet addicts”. Unfortunately, this impossible. This classification is a category error. ‘The Internet’ is a medium for information. You cannot be addicted to a form of transferring information. You can no more be addicted…
PsychBrief 