There are many popular misconceptions

about the way the mind works and about

human psychology. So today we're going

to talk about popular misconceptions

about psychology, what the science

really says, why people believe these

things, and if despite being a

misconception, they actually contain a

significant grain of truth. We'll talk

about that, too. Is willpower like a

muscle that gets tired out as you use

it? There's a popular theory known as

ego depletion that says that

self-control draws on a finite resource.

So, as you exert self-control, for

instance, deciding not to eat that

cupcake and eat that vegetable instead,

it's drawing on this finite resource,

which means you have less available

later on. So, later on, if you're trying

to decide between reading this

intellectual book or simply doom

scrolling, you're likely to go with doom

scrolling because you're out of this

finite resource of self-control. So, why

do people believe in this? Well, there's

a really clear answer. It's because

there are literally hundreds of studies

about it and they either show it's real

or they treat it as though it's a real

effect and then they go study properties

of it. But there is a big problem with

this. It's that the research seems to be

When people go and try to redo

some of the major studies from scratch,

carefully checking their work, they find

that they don't get the same effect. In

other words, a bunch of the classic

findings seem to be false positives.

Now, think for a moment about how crazy

that is. Hundreds of scientific studies

seem to either find an effect or study

that effect and yet the effect doesn't

seem to exist at all. To understand how

this could possibly be the case, we have

to understand the replication crisis in

social science. Studies more than 15

years ago were very commonly run using

not very robust methods. So people would

get statistical significance, but the

study wouldn't hold up if someone were

to replicate it. And replication was

very rare. So it was very easy to get

away with this for a long time.

Thankfully, progress has been made.

Methods have improved. The field is not

yet where it needs to be, but it is

making significant gains towards doing

more robust research. We have a project

called transparent replications where we

replicate new papers in top psychology

journals to see if they actually hold up

to scrutiny. This allows us to see

where's the field right now and to give

recommendations for how to make it

better. But does this mean that ego

depletion actually maps on to nothing at

all? Well, I'm not so sure. It sounds a

lot like normal fatigue, boredom, or

frustration that many people are used to

when they have to exert willpower or

make many decisions in a row. I think

that often people have an experience

when planning a wedding that by the

400th decision where they're deciding

about napkins or whatever, they're just

phoning it in. They're so bored or tired

or frustrated that they actually don't

do a good job with decision-m at that

point. But it doesn't mean that ego

depletion theory is correct or really

adding much to the story. We do get

fatigued the more we do things, but we

don't need a fancy theory to tell us

that. You've probably heard of the idea

of learning styles. The concept that

some people are auditory learners, some

visual learners, some kinesthetic

learners. You may even have had teachers

that try to integrate this into the

classroom when growing up. But why do

people believe this is true? Well, I

think on the one hand, they have

personal experience. They think, well,

for me, it's easier to learn visually,

so I'm a visual learner. On the other

hand, I think there's a conception that

there's a lot of scientific evidence

about this, that this is something

that's been proven. Ironically, the

opposite is true. There's a lack of

experiments demonstrating that you can

actually get people to learn better by

matching the content to their learning

style. And interestingly enough, for

most people, we know that the visual

part of the brain actually is better at

remembering things than other types of

processing. For example, we can see this

with professional memorizers. Well,

they'll leverage the visual part of the

brain by assigning interesting and

bizarre visualizations to things. By

leveraging our visual memory, we often

can remember things better. There may

also be an element of what we like

learning because the things we learn

kinesesthetically through body movement

tend to be different sorts of things

than the things we learn visually or

auditorially. That means if someone says

they're a kesthetic learner, maybe it

just means that they gravitate and enjoy

and are good at the sorts of things you

learn with your body. So, does this mean

that we've proven learning styles don't

exist? Well, science can often struggle

to prove a negative. For example, let's

suppose you designed an experiment where

you developed three versions of all your

curricula. You measured students

learning styles. You then had one group

that got matched to the learning style

content appropriate for them. And you

had another group that got randomized

content that didn't match their learning

style. And you compared the two groups

and you showed no effect. Well, someone

could just say your assessment for

learning styles wasn't accurate enough

or you didn't do a good enough job with

the curriculum design or your auditory

learning content wasn't as good as your

visual learning content and that created

a weird confound in the result. So while

it could be the case that people of

different learning styles learn faster

with different curricula that are suited

for them, it seems likely that if there

are such differences, they're quite

small on average because if they were

large, studies very likely would have

found them by now. And the fact that

they haven't means they probably either

don't exist or just small differences.

It takes 21 days to build a habit,

right? Well, first let's clarify what a

habit is. A habit when speaking

technically is a behavior that's become

subconscious. So there's a trigger, you

do the behavior without even thinking

about it. Often this is confused with a

routine, which is something you do

regularly, for example, at a particular

time or a particular place, but there's

a conscious element. You're choosing to

do it, like you read the newspaper every

Sunday morning. So now that we can

distinguish between habits and routines,

let's go back to that claim. It takes 21

days to form a habit. Where does that

actually come from? Well, it's hard to

know absolutely for sure where it came

from. The most likely provenence is a

plastic surgeon named Maxwell Maltz. and

he was writing about how long it would

take his patients to get used to their

surgical changes. Well, he suggested

that it was about 21 days. Now, I want

to point out one, this wasn't about

habits already. That's a huge problem.

Two, this wasn't even a study. It was

just his anecdotal observations. But

somehow, it seems that this idea stuck

and it stuck with habits in particular,

as though all types of getting used to

things or changing would take the same

amount of time. So, that's a ridiculous

origin story. And obviously this doesn't

provide good evidence that it takes 21

days to change. On the other hand, 21

days is a pretty reasonable estimate. I

think it doesn't seem crazy. If you said

habits occur after 1 day, most people

wouldn't believe that. And if you said

it takes 300 days, I think most people

would think that takes too long. So I

think part of why this sticks is

probably that it's a pretty plausible

estimate. So we don't immediately get

skeptical. So how long does it actually

take to form new habits? Well, research

that looks into this finds that it's

pretty variable. Sometimes it's 30 days,

sometimes it's 100 days. It really can

vary. But what does it vary based on?

And I think it's much more useful

thinking in terms of number of

repetitions rather than number of days.

So for example, let's suppose you wanted

to form a habit that every time you walk

into your kitchen, you drink a glass of

water. Well, you might actually go into

your kitchen quite a few times a day.

Suppose that it's seven times a day on

average. Well, that means you have seven

repetitions every single day to practice

that habit. And if for the first, let's

say, 3 days, you never miss it a single

time, you now have 21 practice sessions,

you might actually be able to form the

habit after just 3 days because you have

enough practice session. On the other

hand, if you often miss the trigger,

let's say only half the time during

those first three days when you go in

the kitchen, you drink a glass of water.

You're not going to reinforce the habit

as effectively. And it might be

flimsier. It might take more days to get

put in place. So, how long does it

actually take to form a new habit? Well,

it's going to depend on how many

practice sessions you get in, how

reliably you do the habit when you see

the trigger, also how consistent the

trigger is. If you're in someone else's

kitchen, sometimes it might be harder to

form the habit because you don't have a

consistent stimulus. And if there's a

reward, it can make the habit go faster.

So, if you really enjoy drinking water,

then maybe the habit will go faster than

if you don't like the taste of water and

you find it repugnant. Let's talk about

multitasking. You probably have heard

the claim that multitasking makes people

more efficient. But you might have heard

the contrary claim that actually

multitasking is impossible. On the one

hand, almost everyone has had some

experience of successful multitasking.

Maybe you were working out while

listening to your favorite podcast and

that worked totally fine. On the other

hand, there are some very interesting

scientific studies that show that some

types of multitasking simply don't work.

If you were trying to listen to an audio

book and understand it while holding a

conversation on a separate topic, it's

nearly impossible. So, what's going on

here? Well, certain types of tasks

actually can be paired together. you can

multitask them. Other types of tasks you

can't do this for though. So what's the

difference? Well, usually when we can

multitask successfully, it's because we

can push one of the tasks into the

subconscious. In fact, this is a

critical concept in skill development

for many skills. For example, if you've

been driving for many years, there's a

pretty good chance that most of your

driving is actually subconscious. So you

might be able to listen to a podcast at

the same time and do so successfully.

Now, that could degrade your performance

if you suddenly have to make a conscious

decision while driving. If you get into

a tricky situation and you have to

decide what to do, the fact that you're

listening to a podcast, might actually

slow that down. But as long as you're

doing driving that stays in the

subconscious realm, you're going to be

able to do something else at the same

time. You've probably heard the claim

that power posing, maybe postures like

this or this that make you look

powerful, could actually change your

behavior for the better. Now, the reason

people believe this is actually really

clear. It's because one of the most

popular TED talks of all time claimed

that power posing works and the video

was actually based on a study that the

author conducted. Unfortunately, as

people dug into the research, they saw

that it was seriously methodologically

flawed. And others who tried to

replicate it had trouble replicating

some of the findings like changes in

cortisol levels or changes in

risk-taking behavior. But as we were

digging into the research on this, we

noticed something really interesting.

While it's true that the replications

didn't tend to find those other effects

like risk-taking, they did sometimes

report increased feelings of power. In

other words, participants felt an

increase in power or rise in mood after

doing power posing. It didn't always

occur in the studies, but it sometimes

did. This got us wondering, could the

effect actually be real, but just really

small? So, we actually ran what at the

time was the largest ever study on power

posing. We randomized people. So, some

did power poses, some did neutral

positions, and some did low power

positions, and we looked at their

feelings of power and their mood before

and after. So, what did we find? Well,

we found that power posing did increase

people's sense of perceived power and

how good they felt at the time. That

being said, the effects are very small.

So, whereas in the original claims, it

seemed that this would be life-changing,

in reality, it's a pretty mild effect.

But if you just want to feel a little

more powerful, for example, before going

on stage, or you just want to give

yourself a quick mood boost, you could

try a power pose and see if it works for

you. It takes 10,000 hours of practice

to become a world-class expert. Or does

it? Why do people believe this? Here, we

actually have a really clear story. It's

from Malcolm Gladwell's phenomenally

popular book, Outliers, where he

summarized the research of Anders

Ericson about how it takes 10,000 hours

of deliberate practice to become a

world-class expert at complex skills

like playing music. But there's a

problem here. Anders Ericson himself

denies this is an accurate

characterization of his own research.

The reality is it's cherrypicking and

oversimplifying. For instance, if

Gladwell had looked into international

pianists, he might have found that it

takes more like 20,000 hours for them to

start winning international competitions

that typically occur around the age of

30. The amount of practice we need

actually varies based on the complexity

of the skill and also how competitive

the field is. If it's a field where

there aren't that many competitors, it

may take less practice. If it's a less

complex skill, it also will take less

practice. What we know is that with all

skills, there's diminishing marginal

return. When you're first learning a new

skill, you get better very, very quickly

and then it starts to taper off. When

you're at 10,000 hours, for almost every

skill, you're going to be very deep in

the marginal benefit. So, every

additional hour is going to cause very

little improvement. We also know that

aptitude matters. While just about

anyone can get better at just about any

skill by practicing, some people are

going to improve a lot faster. For

example, if you don't learn perfect

pitch by a young enough age, you'll

probably never learn it, and that will

be a disadvantage for certain types of

musical tasks compared to people who do

have it. Or if you're born with, let's

say, dyslexia, that's going to make it

harder to learn certain types of tasks.

Yes, you can work around it, but you're

going to be at a disadvantage, and it

might take you more hours to get to the

same level because of that disadvantage.

There's some interesting research in the

sports domain that tells us about

deliberate practice and performance.

They find that there's a point43

correlation between how many hours

people do deliberate practice and how

good they are at their sports. So that's

not nothing, that's substantial, but it

leaves a lot of variability unexplained

by deliberate practice. Even more

intriguingly, they found that in the

most elite athletes, there's almost no

correlation between deliberate practice

and their ability. This makes sense

because there's diminishing returns to

practicing. At the very elite levels,

other things besides number of hours

practiced might matter more like how

exactly they practice, what techniques

they use, and so on. Why do so many

psychological misconceptions exist in

the first place? I think sometimes it

stems from our own intuitions. We feel

that something works a certain way and

then we tend to believe it even though

it might not actually be right. Think

about this compared to physics. We have

an intuitive sense of how physics works,

but experiments sometimes show that

that's not the way things really work.

When you get into really big things, for

example, or really small things, we find

that physics violates our intuitions.

But another big reason why we have a lot

of psychological misconceptions is that

sometimes people put these ideas out

there that are false, but they get a lot

of attention for them. If they get

millions of eyeballs, the idea spreads

even if it's not true. And in fact,

sometimes it not being true helps it

spreads because it's a nice, simple, and

exciting story about what is truly a

complex and nuanced topic. If you're

interested in psychological

misconceptions, check out our

transparent replications project where

we go replicate new papers coming out in

top psychology journals when we say,

"Are they actually true? And if not,

what went wrong in the research?" And

one more thing, I've curated my top 10

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