Psychobabble and Biobunk

Carol Tavris earned her Ph.D. in the interdisciplinary program in social psychology at the University of Michigan, and as a writer and lecturer she has sought to educate the public about the importance of critical and scientific thinking in psychology. In addition to this text, she and Carole Wade have written Psychology; Psychology in Perspective; and The Longest War: Sex Differences in Perspective. Dr. Tavris is also coauthor, with Elliot Aronson, of Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts; and author of The Mismeasure of Woman and Anger: The Misunderstood Emotion. She has written on psychological topics for a wide variety of magazines, journals, edited books, and newspapers, some of which have been collected in Psychobabble and Biobunk: Using psychological science to think critically about popular psychology. Dr. Tavris lectures widely on topics involving science vs. pseudoscience in psychology and psychiatry, on writing about science for the public, and many other subjects of contemporary interest. She has taught in the psychology department at UCLA and at the Human Relations Center of the New School for Social Research in New York. She is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and a charter Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science; a member of the editorial board of the APS journal Psychological Science in the Public Interest; and a member of the international advisory board of the Institute for Science and Human Values.

• Thinking Critically–and Why We Often Don’t1. “Why won’t they admit they’re wrong? And other skeptics’ mysteries” by Carol Tavris and Elliot AronsonPersonality, Motivation, and Development2. Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell3. Men to Boys: The making of modern immaturity, by Gary Cross4. Understanding Attachment, by Jean Mercer5. Love at Goon Park: Harry Harlow and the Science of Affection, by Deborah Blum6. Happiness: Lessons from a new science, by Richard Layard; Making Happy People: The nature of happiness and its origins in childhood, by Paul Martin; and Going Sane, by Adam Phillips 7. Bright-Sided: How the relentless promotion of positive thinking has undermined America,by Barbara Ehrenreich8. The Nurture Assumption, by Judith Rich Harris9. Personality, by Daniel Nettle10. “Are Girls As Mean As They Say They Are?” (review essay)Psychotherapy and the Scientist-Practitioner Gap11. The Body Never Lies, by Alice Miller12. Into the Minds of Madmen, by Don DeNevi & John Campbell13. Remembering Trauma, by Richard McNally14. In Therapy We Trust, by Eva Moskowitz15. Prisoners of Hate, by Aaron T. Beck16. Making Us Crazy: DSM–The psychiatric bible and the creation of mental disorders,by Herb Kutchins and Stuart A. Kirk17. Of Two Minds: The growing disorder in American psychiatry, by T. M. LuhrmannResearch Methods and Social Issues18. The Hungry Gene, by Ellen Ruppel Shell19. The Genius Factory, by David Plotz20. Rape: A history from 1860 to the present, by Joanna Bourke21. Sex and the Psyche, by Brett Kahr