Priming metacognition and critical thinking to dispel psychological misconceptions.

Abstract

Psychological misconception endorsement often is due to a failure or inability to think critically about information that may or may not be accurate. This study examined to what extent undergraduate introductory psychology students' personality traits and the supraliminal, semantic priming of their metacognition and critical thinking predict their ability to dispel common psychological misconceptions. Fitting hierarchical regression models, exploratory analyses found that Black/African American persons, Hispanic/Latino/a persons, and persons from other ethnic minority groups exemplified greater psychological misconception endorsement than White persons. Also, assertiveness (an aspect of extroversion on the Big Five), intellect (an aspect of openness/intellect), and orderliness (an aspect of conscientiousness) significantly predicted misconception endorsement. Controlling for demographics and personality, the prime was not a significant predictor of misconception endorsement. Despite this, 46.52% of the variation in misconception endorsement was explained by the complete set of predictors. In terms of the potentially metacognitively advanced response of "don't know" on the misconceptions test, as students' year level of college when they took an introductory psychology course increased, their frequency of endorsement of "don't know" increased, while their endorsement of misconceptions decreased. Also as orderliness decreased, endorsement of "don't know" increased. Again, controlling for demographics and personality, the prime was not a significant predictor. Nevertheless, a majority of undergraduate introductory psychology students still endorsed and believed in many common psychological misconceptions. The implications of these results for teaching are that the use of equitable and inclusive classroom activities geared toward student diversity in misconception endorsement and the collaborative construction of knowledge should be emphasized.

Misconceptions about psychology after taking introductory psychology.

“…Decades of data from a variety of misconception tests show that introductory psychology students are no exception. They typically enter the course endorsing 24%–71% of incorrect statements about behavior and mental processes (e.g., Bamberger et al, 2023; Best, 1982; McKeachie, 1960). For example, most students believe, often with great confidence, that eyewitness testimony is the most reliable kind of evidence in criminal trials, that polygraphs are infallible lie detectors, that people learn best when teaching methods match their personal learning styles, and that to be successful, psychotherapy must delve into childhood problems.…”