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Psychology is one of those subjects that everybody likes to think they know something about. We love to go around diagnosing our friends and co-workers, both to make sense of the world and to make ourselves feel like we're smarter than they are. But like any science that makes its way into the pop culture, a lot of the "common sense" statements we hear every day are so wrong that they border on raving idiocy. Such as... #6.
"If You Let Your Anger Out, You'll Feel Better!"
You always hear people talk about how "cathartic" an experience was and how much better they feel, or you'll hear them say things like, "If you keep your anger bottled up, one day you'll just snap!" In fact the "about to go crazy because he can't express anger" character is a mainstay in television and movies (see that Simpsons episode where Ned Flanders finally loses it, and every movie where a renegade cop fires his gun into the air instead of unloading on the bad guy who just killed his wife). Things like squeezing stress dolls, screaming into a pillow, hitting a punching bag and strangling a kitten are all practices that we've seen offered as healthy alternatives to walking up to the fish counter at Farm Fresh and drowning the clerk in the lobster tank.
A lot of actual therapies have been constructed around this idea, and they all basically encourage you to curb your anger by feeding a knuckle sandwich to a punching bag, to prevent you from doing the same to your boss. It makes sense, right? Why throw your wife against the refrigerator when the casserole she under-cooked will shatter to pieces in a much more literal, and satisfying way? Why it is Bullshit: Research says it doesn't work. Expressing your anger, even against inanimate objects, doesn't make you less angry at all. In fact, it actually makes you want to get pissed off. Imagine if Bruce Banner walked around all day looking for an excuse to hulk-out, but replace the embarrassing shredded pants with friends and loved ones who are legitimately terrified every time his favorite sports team loses. See, we humans have these things called "habits." When we do something, and it makes us feel good, we want to do it again... and more often. This is why you don't see a lot of Buddhist monks throwing bricks through storefront windows on their path to enlightenment and Lifetime original movies spend more on broken casserole dishes than on acting. The rush of anger is addictive as hell, and letting yourself lash out as a means to control your anger is like drinking to control your urge to drink.
And that's bad news, considering there are lots of situations where you don't have an inanimate object to take it out on. If a person gets entrenched in the habit of beating the living shit out of an inanimate object every time they get upset, heads are going to roll if they can't excuse themselves from a meeting to go chokeslam the tank on the break room water cooler. #5.
"Just Believe in Yourself, and You'll Succeed!"
The "self-esteem" thing has been hammered into our brains for decades, based on the belief that high self-esteem types achieve more in school, make and keep more friends and, in general, function better as a member of society. Pretty much every single high school movie is a huge proponent of this theory. The fat, dumpy pariah, tired of years of depressing abuse, digs deep down and discovers his/her own self-worth in time for the big dance/game/senior trip. Then the entire student body takes notice of this radical change and raises this loser up to the most popular kid in school (roll credits to a Green Day song).
Numerous training programs and self-help books take this idea and run with it; promising that building self-esteem is the key to overcoming obstacles and failure. Even elementary schools jumped on board and started giving self-esteem classes to kids, because as all Americans know, the key to happiness is constant rewards for little to no actual accomplishments. Why it is Bullshit: This seems to be one of those deals where they've confused correlation and causation. Rather than thinking, "Maybe kids with high self-esteem feel good about themselves because they get good grades in school and have lots of friends," they decided that it's the other way around, that they succeed because they have self-esteem. So they tried to teach people to feel good about themselves for no other reason than pure entitlement, figuring the actual reasons for feeling good about themselves would follow at some later date. This results in some kids having too much self-esteem, a breed of human that scientists classify as "douchebag." [See Figure 1.1]
We're not kidding. Research shows kids who have an inflated sense of self-worth become aggressive when their sense of superiority is called into question, leading to a more damaging fall for little Billy when he realizes what a loser he is (whereas fat Ralph already knew himself to be a loser and is therefore immune to disappointment). We're certainly not experts, but it would, you know, seem like the solution would be to teach the stuff that leads to success (like social and communication skills, better strategies at dealing with stress, etc.) and just let that lead naturally to success and thus self-esteem, rather than just bypassing all that and going right for the self-esteem part. Mr. Miyagi didn't teach the Karate Kid to believe in himself. He taught him how to kick people in the fucking head. #4.
"Cult Members are Stupid, Gullible Sheep!"
Quick, go find an Internet article that mentions Scientology. Now check out the comments.
You will find almost universal agreement that anyone who participates in a cult (or, organized religion of any kind) is either weak, retarded or some kind of weaktarded combination of the two. We tend to associate cults with fanaticism, assuming that they are all made up of people that wear bed sheets and live in backwoods communes pissing in Dixie cups. Thanks to high profile, apocalyptic and/or suicide cults like the Branch Davidians and Heaven's Gate, we don't have much reason to think otherwise. Why it is Bullshit: Studies show cult members are just as intelligent, if not more so, than the general public. And around 95 percent of cult members are perfectly sane (when they join up, anyway), with no history at all of real psychological problems. They're not stupid, and they're not crazy. Of course this only serves to make cults even scarier. How in the hell do these groups get people--who are every bit as sane and smart as your best friend--to join up? OK, ask yourself this: Why do rebellious biker types all immediately go out and start dressing and talking exactly like other biker types?
Why did you do, well, every single thing you did in your teenage years?
As social animals we are hard-wired to want to belong to a group. It's a need as basic and real as hunger or sex. When we get cut off from our group--say we lose a job, or move to a new city, or break up with our girlfriend--we go a little crazy. Cults are very, very good at finding people in that exact moment of weakness, and saying exactly the right things. Those pamphlets that sound so corny and transparent to you, read like a glorious breath of fresh air to somebody caught in one of those rough spots. So sure, when we're in our normal, stable state of affairs we like to imagine ourselves coolly shooting down all of the charismatic cult leader's stupid-ass claims with the power of pure critical thinking. But remember that the next time you're drunk dialing your ex-girlfriend in the middle of the night, or stalking her new boyfriend, sneaking into the parking lot where he works and pooping on the hood of his car. If you can't remember ever doing something dumb and embarrassing because you were feeling lonely and rejected, well, either you're very young, or you were just too drunk at the time to retain the memory. And once these people are in the cult they realize that, no, not all cult members wind up as part of some bizarre suicide ceremony. Most lead normal, successful lives.
And once they make friends with these normal, successful people, what are they going to do when they run into some smartass like the Internet commenters above, who talk about how only retarded sheeple believe that garbage? They stand up for the group, that's what. It's not even about defending the beliefs at that point, it's about defending their friends. And mindlessly doing things because all our friends do them is pretty much 90 percent of what society is.
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My experience with people who insist that if you're a h**ophobe you must be closeted gay is gay guys, who, if you're like, "that's too gay for me", decide that means you're a h**ophobe, and that means you're a closeted gay. These guys are basically hoping they'll bluff their way into you thinking maybe their right so they can have sex with you. It's like a straight guy meeting a lesbian who's like, "that's too straight for me", and he's like "you're getting awfully hot and bothered over this, so that just proves you must secretly crave dick". Either way it's because you secretly crave dick. The moral? Whether they're straight or gay, guys are dicks.
What if a h**ophobe has a large penis, would he then be like David Carradine? Well-hung and in the closet?
Wow, Shellylou, since the article said NO HOMOPHOBE AT ALL IS SECTRETLY GAY and if it's true for your ex-boyfriend THEN IT MUST BE TRUE FOR EVERYONE EVER, they must be wrong about number 1!
I agree with all but #1. I dated a guy who was incredibly h**ophobic (rage was induced when I mentioned one of my gay friends). But for a man who was incredibly straight, he LOVED having phallic objects inserted into his ass. In fact, he couldn't climax unless I was out of the picture and he had something up there. You can't tell me he wasn't at least borderline h**osexual...
"Hey I'm heading down to the Crocs store, wanna come with?" "We've got a confusion boner right now!" Totally awesome.
@: "We're certainly not experts, but it would, you know, seem like the solution would be to teach the stuff that leads to success (like social and communication skills, better strategies at dealing with stress, etc.) and just let that lead naturally to success and thus self-esteem, rather than just bypassing all that and going right for the self-esteem part." Teaching social and communication skills and better strategies at dealing with stress ain't never gonna happen. Because those are the keys to the fckin' kingdom. And we are NOT about to hand them out to every schoolkid with two brain cells to rub together. Better by far that a few tough bastards who are good at faking humanity can grab them and truly succeed. If all kinds of losers had the chance to become winners, we'd be effectively nationalizing the power, the money, and the women.
My friends recommended me a very interesting place __AgelessFriends.com__ It's a nice and free place for Younger Women and Older Men, or Older Women and Younger Men, to interact with each other. Age gap is not a problem there. You may wanna check it out and tell your friends.
This was great
thecityforyou: They could ban it if it was bulls**t, because the 'they' in question is politicians, who are people just as inclined to fall for bulls**t facts as anyone on the street (half of the House of Commons would probably ban rap music if they could getthe other half to vote for such a ban). Subliminal messages can occasionally work, but only weakly and on account of associations pre-existing in the brain. For instance, a study found that smokers shown pictures of F1 cars get a slightly stronger urge to have a smoke. Only slightly, though. And even then, it was because they watched F1 at the time when the cars were plastered with Malboro and Camel logos, so they made an association between smoking and F1. Derren Brown, likewise, does most of his magic not by telling people what to do, but just being really good at predicting what they will do, and then making a song and dance about it. (And kudos to him for it - he also is a staunch and vocal campaigner against the scam artists who do this to genuinely con people). So what he does is akin to jumping out at someone doing their weekly shop on a Saturday afternoon just like they always do, and then insisting that you used your psychic powers to make them do it.
i would like to point out that subliminary messages DO work, im an A-level psychology student, then do affect your judgement. but the reasons they arnt used, is because its illegal (in the uk) (or rather, there are MAJOR restrictions) if you dont believe me, check the science behind it, check the laws, they wouldnt ban it if it was just bulls**t.
at #4 the commenters dont really think cult members are sheeps. its about the stupid beliefs that cult members and theists believe in. you'll often get on youtube people claiming that any evidence that proves the flood caused by euphrates 4000 years ago, also proves biblical global flood. we know they are sane and good people, its their wacky theories and insane ideas they believe in that are wrong, like creation week is true while the big bang is false, h**osexuality is wrong simply because the book says so while they have no good reason to forbid it. or burning in the lake of fire if you wont convert and accept jesus the magician in your heart. yes, a bowl was found that refers to jesus as a magician. there are even people that refuse blood transfusions, they cant realise that the verse is about forbidding immoral behaviour that was common in middle east. orgies, sacrifice, drinking blood, it happened daily back them. the verse has nothing to do with the cure that can save lives. its the same with h**osexuality, the verse says that gay sex is wrong and not gay love. proposition 8 clearly shows half of the people arent sane. religion raised millions for advertisements to ban a simple human right. not to mention extremists who defend god's mass killings, they dont mind if god killed egyptian babies because according to them "god made us and he can do whatever he wants to". thats sheeple! thats the kind of people that are a problem, even if psychologists find out that they are sane. and there are plenty of people like this on youtube or yahoo answers, you'll always see them defending god, how "loving" he is, but they have no idea why are these immoral verses in the bible. you can find arabs sane, smart and succesful, all until they mention surgical removal of children's foreskin and c**toris under anaesthesia. is that sane? well at least they dont cut it off with a rusty razor like they usually do.
i agree with all of em!and i like to cut/burn/beat my own body,not because i'm angry or abused or Borderline Personality or age under 30-or on drugs/alcohol/cultist i really physically get my rox off feeling extreme levels of bodily injuries.i do not have tattoos or body jewelry,not psychotic or depressed.for 10 years i get sexual release from sadomasochism.the Sado half of that is 100% Fatal so i choose to only torture myself because i'm scared of the death penalty.i've been on meds and therapy yet i just like how pain feels to my body.the word is Algolagnia,masochists prefer partners to hurt them and do crap like role playing and nerdy crap like bondage and calling a whore Mistress.it is not a mental or trauma issue-i am just an extreme badass who laughs when others cry-that's simple.no medication can alter my Physical needs.And what's ill about fearing death/cursing suicide victims to burn in Hell- and enjoying pain too?Superman does the same!
Everything works till it gets to #1. The author is all over the place trying to equate h**ophobia to...well, first something that isn't a thing, then to mean anyone with a negative opinion about h**osexuality to morals. No, it means someone who has hatred for h**osexuals. Hatred, not an opinion or moral standard, but an adverse, highly negative reaction involving anger and rage at the mere mention of h**osexuals. The reason for most people's assumption that the majority of h**ophobics are h**osexuals doesn't stem from that stupid test. It comes from us thinking "boy, you harp on this subject a little too long and a little too often." We then attribute it to, whether we know the word or not, projection. The article would have been great had he left out #1 as it ended on a weak argument stemming from barely pinpointing a counterpoint.
Wow, thank you SO much for mentioning American Beauty. Personally, I found that to be one of the most embarrassingly overrated movies I have ever seen, and the ludicrous stereotype/plot point mentioned here is a very large part of the reason why. But the first two points I disagree with a bit. With the whole "releasing your anger" thing, I think people confuse the motivation for physically expressing rage with that for merely TANGIBLY expressing it. For people who ordinarily repress their anger, unleashing it in some form actually can be cathartic, not because of the physical act of attacking something, but because they are making the abstract emotion tangible. By turning something that had previously only existed in their head into tangible words or action, they are removing it from the murky realm of abstraction and making it real, thus making it far easier to accept, acknowledge and come to terms with. But, again, this only applies to people who DON'T normally express their anger openly; people who are already let the world know in no uncertain terms every time they're upset probably will indeed simply fall into an addictive cycle of "anger high". Also, with the whole "self-esteem" thing, which I've been hearing a lot of people complaining about lately: while many kids (and subsequently adults) do indeed have overinflated egos due to relentless "feel-good" regimens that place no emphasis on actual accomplishment, the opposite is also true: kids who already have exceptionally poor self-esteem but are pushed to accomplish RATHER THAN to believe in themselves are more likely to shut down entirely, convinced that they are both worthless and incapable of doing anything productive. For a worst-case example of this effect, running as a direct opposite to (most of) America's "believe in yourself" egocentricity, look at Japan and their "hikokomori" phenomenon. Now, it isn't exactly a little-known fact that Japan is a very group-oriented, performance-focused society. The traditional social values of the culture emphasize the greater good of society over the needs of the individual, and people's self-worth (and worth in the eyes of others) is very much influenced by, say, how well they perform in school and how many friends they have. The hikokomori phenomenon is a relatively recent trend wherein increasingly large numbers of young people (usually males, though there are some exceptions) basically become completely despondent and literally shut themselves off from the outside world. Since they have been overwhelmingly subjected to the pressures of fitting in and accomplishing the goals set out for them by society, rather than being instilled with any sense of individuality or self-worth, these people have completely buckled; their self-esteem has hit absolute zero, and they have basically concluded that they are both worthless as human beings and incapable of doing anything productive for society or even doing anything good for other people at all. They've become modern-day hermits, without the whole spiritual focus thing. Now, I know that that is a bit of an extreme example, (although a very real one,) and in America things are somewhat different. But the principle is still there - focusing too much on self-esteem can produce self-obsessed douchebags, but the opposite approach can produce kids (sometimes kids who may have the potential to become outright geniuses) who literally make nothing of their lives for the sole reason that they don't believe they're capable of doing anything of worth. I personally know some really smart guys who are on the verge of becoming completely despondent themselves because the performance-oriented communities they grew up in shunned them for not being masters of the American school system or having dozens of "friends". Now I'm not trying to defend all these wishy-washy self-help programs, or suggest that we set (even) lower standards for our kids; but when I see people getting all up over the whole issue of "self-esteem" I like to remind them that the opposite direction can be equally devastating, if not moreso.
@amaru: 1) that's his character. Why is any a*****e character the way they are? 2) If you saw more than 2 episodes you'd know. They talk about it a ton of other episodes. They dont have to explain everything about every character in every episode 3) His acting is still better than your grammar 4) It's a tv show. Every character acts like what they're doing is important...that's why the cameras are on THEM and not you.
gah. f**k house. saw two episodes on a flight. s**ttiest, most frustrating show ever. why is this doctor such an a*****e? why does he have a cane? why is this actor not want to act? why the f**k do a bunch of doctors think they r james f**king bond?
gah. f**k house. saw two episodes on a flight. s**ttiest, most frustrating show ever. why is this doctor such an a*****e? why does he have a cane? why is this actor not want to act? why the f**k do a bunch of doctors think they r james f**king bond?
As someone in the field. Of course this is all bulls**t. A credible Psychologist would never make these assumptions. Next time do some research instead of looking at Wikipedia.
I agree wholeheartedly with your view on #6. Expressing your anger in such a negative fashion is both juvenile and irrational. It makes no sense whatsoever and for the life of me I can't see what it would accomplish.
I see that some other people also had some beef with #4. Um if in your moment of loneliness you choose to join a cult, doesn't that make you weak? Yeah you know, alcoholics aren't weak. Alcohol just came into their lives at the right time, said things they wanted to hear, made certain people appear more attractive. Tricky, tricky.
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