5 Psychology Terms You’re Probably Misusing (Replay)

We all like to throw around terms that describe human behavior — “bystander apathy” and “steep learning curve” and “hard-wired.” Most of the time, they don’t actually mean what we think they mean. But don’t worry — the experts are getting it wrong, too.

• SOURCES:
  • Sharon Begley, senior science writer for Stat at The Boston Globe.
  • Jerome Kagan, emeritus professor of psychology at Harvard University.
  • Bibb Latané, social psychologist and senior fellow at the Center for Human Science.
  • Scott Lilienfeld, professor of psychology at Emory University.
  • James Solomon, director and producer of The Witness.

• RESOURCES:
  • “Tech Metaphors Are Holding Back Brain Research,” by Anna Vlasits (Wired, 2017).
  • Can’t Just Stop: An Investigation of Compulsions, by Sharon Begley (2017).
  • The Witness, film by James Solomon (2016).
  • “Fifty Psychological and Psychiatric Terms to Avoid: a List of Inaccurate, Misleading, Misused, Ambiguous, and Logically Confused Words and Phrases,” by Scott Lilienfeld, Katheryn Sauvigne, Steven Jay Lynn, Robin Cautin, Robert Latzman, and Irwin Waldman (Frontiers in Psychology, 2015).
  • SuperFreakonomics, by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner (2011).
  • Fifty Great Myths of Popular Psychology, by Scott Lilienfeld, Steven Jay Lynn, John Ruscio, and Barry Beyerstein (2009).
  • Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain, by Sharon Begley (2007).
  • “Kitty, 40 Years Later,” by Jim Rasenberger (The New York Times, 2004).
  • “37 Who Saw Murder Didn’t Call the Police,” by Martin Gansberg (The New York Times, 1964).

• EXTRAS:
  • "Academic Fraud," series by Freakonomics Radio (2024).
  • “This Idea Must Die,”Freakonomics Radio (2015).