7 Ideas in Psychology That Must Die: Scientific Theories That Are Blocking Progress

We know more today than we did 100 years ago, and we knew more 100 years ago than we did 1,000 years ago.

From generation to generation, we discover more and more of the truth. This is due to the beauty of language, culture, science, and being able to pass knowledge between each other.

As we discover more of what’s true, we also discover more of what’s not true. Misunderstandings, myths, and lies. Everyone used to believe the Earth was flat and was the center of the universe. Common knowledge changes as we learn new things.

What we thought was “true” yesterday may not be what we find to be “true” tomorrow. This is why we should always be open to questioning our ideas and changing them in the face of new evidence.

In the new book This Idea Must Die, different scientists, philosophers, journalists, and professors share their view of a particular idea or theory that they think needs to be done away with.

While the book covers many subjects including biology, physics, economics, and sociology, in this article I’ll focus on 7 ideas in psychology that need to die.

Human Nature

According to professor Pete Richerson, the idea of “human nature” can be misleading because human nature is constantly changing.

We can’t look back on our evolutionary past and know how we are supposed to be living in the present, because we have continued to evolve since then – if not by genetic variation, then through technology and culture.

The concept of “human nature” leads us to ask questions about the relationship between nature and nurture, but this relationship is hard to disentangle.

We know through epigenetics that environmental factors can turn different genes on and off. We also know that these epigenetic changes can sometimes be inherited from parents and grandparents.

In other words, we are constantly changing from generation to generation. Evolution is a spontaneous process, and we can’t possibly know where exactly it is heading.

Anti-Anecdotalism

According to journalist Nicholas G. Carr, we can’t dismiss the value of anecdotes.

It’s common among scientists to claim anecdotes are irrelevant to science and the truth. It’s not considered “real data” because it’s only one data point and therefore we can’t infer a pattern from any one personal story.

However, this view reduces our perspective of people to only mathematical averages and other measurements which are themselves abstractions from “real world experiences.”

You can know all the facts and statistics about something, but you still have a limited perspective on it until you’ve experienced it for yourself.

Anecdotes are empirical observations. And just because they can’t be neatly measured doesn’t mean they can’t be truthful and insightful.

Combining statistical evidence with anecdotes can often give us a much deeper picture of a phenomenon rather than just one or the other. This is why “case studies” are still important in psychology and sociology – we should accept all forms of observation.

Cognitive Agency

According to philosopher Thomas Metzinger, we need to let go of the idea that we always control what we are thinking and feeling.

Most of the time thinking isn’t something you do, but it’s something that just happens to you. Recent research shows a significant portion of our waking hours is spent mind-wandering – ruminating, planning, fantasizing, etc.

If you’ve ever tried meditation then you know firsthand that you aren’t in very much control of what goes on in your mind.

Letting go of the need for complete “cognitive agency” is important, because it teaches you that you don’t need to beat yourself up over every thought or emotion.

This is often the exact opposite of what is taught in a lot of self help circles – where people are told to monitor every single thought and make sure it’s positive and uplifting. And if their minds are negative, then it’s ultimately their fault.

Altruism vs. Egoism

According to science writer Tor Nørretranders, the idea of “altruism” as sacrificing yourself for the sake of others is unhelpful and outdated.

First, the concept implies that there is a conflict between “helping yourself” and “helping others,” and that we have to always make a choice between altruism vs. egoism.

But this doesn’t accurately reflect the world. We are deeply social creatures and most of our actions are reciprocal. Focusing only on our own interests while ignoring others often leads to weak relationships and deep unhappiness.

Studies show that when individuals act in kind and pro-social ways, they often experience a boost in mood and positive emotions. In this simple way, helping others is a way of helping ourselves.

In many ways, it’s in our own self-interest to be altruistic. There’s nothing “sacrificial” about it. Our happiness depends on other people’s happiness and vice versa.

Once you let go of this idea, you find that you can “help others” not through a sense of obligation or sacrifice, but because deep-down you really want to.

Mental Illness Is Nothing But Brain Illness

According to psychiatrists Joel Gold and Ian Gold, one misleading but popular idea is that all mental illness is nothing but brain illness.

While it’s true that all mental illness will correlate with brain changes, it doesn’t follow that all mental illness is necessarily caused solely by defects in the brain.

Only looking at biology ignores the cognitive, behavioral, social, and environmental components that can also influence the onset of different mental illnesses.

For example, research shows that you have an increased risk of developing certain mental illnesses depending on your childhood, your socioeconomic background, your habits, your education, your relationships, your health, your job, and even where you live.

If we want a full picture of mental health, we need to look at the potential causes and influences behind “mental illness” that lie outside the brain.

Bias Is Always Bad

According to psychologist Tom Griffiths, bias is often portrayed as a bad thing – but it can also reflect a very useful adaptation of our brains.

A bias is nothing more than a heuristic (or “rule of thumb”) that our brain uses to solve a problem. While these heuristics can be incredibly prone to error, they can also be useful guidelines for making decisions.

One example is our brains are hard-wired to detect faces. When this system makes an error, we end up seeing faces where there aren’t any (in clouds, furniture, cars, etc.) But this bias is also a function of our natural tendency to see other humans and relate to them.

Heuristics and biases are helpful because they save our brains energy. Instead of having to look at everything and consciously ask ourselves, “Is that a face?” our brains automatically take the general outline (2 eyes, 1 mouth) and infer “face.”

The same is true not only for perceptual biases, but cognitive biases too. For example the Dunning-Kruger effect (or “illusory superiority”) can be an adaptive bias because it’s often better to overestimate your abilities than to underestimate your abilities.

It’s impossible for our brains not to be biased in some way. But that can be a good thing, because our biases are the “guidelines” our minds use to make decisions and function in our everyday world.

Emotions Are Peripheral

According to psychologist Brian Knutson, many of us still underestimate the role of emotions and only see them as a “byproduct” of our minds.

We often fall into the trap of believing only our thoughts and behaviors are what really influence the outcomes in our lives, and our our emotions are just the result of that.

Scientific models of the mind have included behaviorism (mind as a reflex) and cognitivism (mind as a computer), but they usually don’t think of emotions as central.

However, research shows that emotions aren’t just reactive to our circumstances, they are proactive too. Your emotions aren’t just a consequence of your thoughts and behaviors, they can also drive your thoughts and behaviors.

This is also one common criticism of artificial intelligence (AI). Many engineers only focus on the “thoughts” and “behaviors” of machines without considering how to recreate “emotions” in machines.

Conclusion

This Idea Must Die: Scientific Theories That Are Blocking Progress is a very interesting read that will definitely get you thinking about many ideas in a different way.

In truth, I don’t agree with about half of the ideas in this book, but I appreciate the exercises in critical thinking. This article only covered psychology ideas, but there’s a lot of other subjects from physics, biology, economics, anthropology, and sociology.

Each chapter is written by a different thinker, including many recognizable names like Steven Pinker, Richard Dawkins, Jared Diamond, Daniel Kahneman, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Daniel Goleman, Matt Ridley, Helen Fisher, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, and Sam Harris.

If you want to challenge your beliefs and learn different perspectives, this is a nice book to check out.

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