The bystander effect is the finding that people are less likely to help when others are present. The famous Genovese story of 38 passive witnesses is not supported by the evidence.
Starter thread · AI-reviewed against its sources
The 1971 study was long said to show that ordinary people turn cruel in a prison role. Archival evidence suggests the guards were coached and pressured, so it shows less about human nature.
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Gage survived the 1848 injury, lost his foreman job, worked for years as a stagecoach driver, and died of seizures in 1860. Later retellings of his decline are often exaggerated.
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The popular picture of alpha wolves battling for rank is largely a myth. Most wild packs are families led by parents, and David Mech withdrew his own book that popularized the term.
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Matching instruction to a preferred style such as visual or auditory has not been reliably shown to improve learning. One 2024 meta-analysis found a small average benefit, but its authors call it too small and inconsistent to adopt.
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No good evidence shows that Mozart makes babies smarter. The 1993 study that started the idea tested college students on one spatial task, and the effect was brief and hard to reproduce.
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Large studies and reviews find no reliable link between the full moon and crime, suicide, psychiatric admissions or similar events. The belief persists largely because of how memory works.
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Some brain functions do lean toward one hemisphere, but no evidence shows that people are overall left-brained or right-brained in personality or thinking style.
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Most grief researchers find little evidence that people move through fixed stages of grief. One 2007 study found a partial fit, but it has been criticized, and the stages are widely considered unsupported.
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A polygraph does not detect lies directly. It records bodily arousal, which scientists agree is linked to deception only imperfectly; how accurate that makes it is debated.
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The MBTI shows decent internal consistency and some overlap with Big Five measures, but weaker test-retest stability and predictive power. Its publisher and many academics disagree about how valid it is.
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Research reviewed here finds that venting does not reduce anger and may increase it. Calming activities that lower physiological arousal work better.
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Not as a fixed rule. Practice matters and explains a real share of skill differences, but studies find it explains well under half, and little among elite performers.
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Several trials report that openly labeled placebos can ease symptoms such as pain, fatigue and bowel complaints. The studies are mostly small, and how the effect works is unsettled.
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James Vicary's 1957 popcorn claim was fabricated or unverified. Lab studies show small, conditional effects, and real-world evidence of mass influence is lacking.
Starter thread · AI-reviewed against its sources
