CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
EN/FR
Search
Menu
Research dossier · Arts & Letters

50 Great Myths of Popular Psychology

Popular science book

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 4, 2023
Entity authorityQ16823978 ↗
Source-derived summary

50 Great Myths of Popular Psychology: Shattering Widespread Misconceptions about Human Behavior is a 2009 book written by psychologists Scott O. Lilienfeld, Steven Jay Lynn, John Ruscio, and Barry Beyerstein, and published by the Wiley-Blackwell publishing company.

The book is a guide to critical thinking about psychology. It has 11 chapters categorizing 50 subtopics of psychology. This book discusses a number of most widespread and believed myths of popular psychology — a type of psychology that is not based on scientifically proven facts, but are well known by the general public — and helps people learn how identify false claims. It has received positive reviews from both academic and popular reviewers.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “50 Great Myths of Popular Psychology” as popular science book. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Great, Myths and Popular.

Editorial reviewA productive route into publication, performance and collection histories when the underlying object or edition remains clearly identified. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2009—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 2009. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Great, Myths and Popular providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “50 Great Myths of Popular Psychology”, the useful work is to connect “popular science book” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 4, 2023. The linked authority identifier is Q16823978. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2009.

Critical limits

Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “50 Great Myths of Popular Psychology”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow 50 Great Myths of Popular Psychology primary sources, 50 Great Myths of Popular Psychology archive and Great research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “50 Great Myths of Popular Psychology”?
  2. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
  3. Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “50 Great Myths of Popular Psychology” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.