Psychology myths among psychology students Cover Image

Mity psychologiczne wśród studentów psychologii
Psychology myths among psychology students

Author(s): Joachim Kowalski, Piotr Litwin, Daniel Pankowski, Anna Cierpka
Subject(s): Philosophy, Social Sciences, Education, Higher Education
Published by: Instytut Badań Edukacyjnych
Keywords: psychology; psychology studies; psychology myth; naive science; misconceptions

Summary/Abstract: A psychology myth is a belief concerning the psyche or behaviour that is contradictory to accessible scientific knowledge. This issue is especially important in reference to human behavior specialists (i.e. psychologists, psychotherapists) or students of such disciplines. There are no studies concerning this issue in Polish literature, which inspired the authors to analyse the dissemination of such myths among psychology students. 241 psychology students participated in the study. They were asked to determine the veracity of a given statement, the degree of certainty and eventually, to name the source of their knowledge on the given issue. Results show a high degree of the dissemination of psychology myths among psychology students, with little difference between first year and last year students. This may indicate a need to supplement psychology study programmes and serves as evidence of the persistence of psychology myths.

  • Issue Year: 137/2016
  • Issue No: 2
  • Page Range: 100-112
  • Page Count: 13
  • Language: Polish