Pop Psychology Is Harming Us More Than Helping Us

By: Victoria Santos

People with ADHD have superior pattern recognition, the color blue says something about your personality, narcissists tend to walk ahead of you instead of behind you. All of these claims have circulated around social media frequently, but aren’t backed in rigorous psychological research or study. 

Psychology misinformation tends to be spread widely on social media, and its prevalence is a problem because it distorts people’s views on what psychology is and what is done in the field, as well as destroys psychology’s credibility as a science.

First, how do we actually “prove” something in psychology? Well, we can’t. Because psychology is a science, we can’t actually prove or disprove things. Dr. Inna Kanevsky states that in psychology we test things to see if they support or don’t support a hypothesis. However, things aren’t exactly proven or disproven. Yet, you will see all kinds of TikToks and videos and YouTube shorts claiming that psychology has “proven” claims that have very flimsy evidence behind them. Some of these claims look absolutely ridiculous when even given a little bit of critical thought.

The wealth of psychology misinformation that exists also affects how we communicate with each other regarding the psychology field. You may have noticed that there has been an uptick in “therapy-speak” in recent years. People claiming that someone is a narcissist or codependent just based off of a few behaviors.

You may also see that there’s a rising uptick in the behaviors people label as symptoms of certain conditions. In some of these videos, people will assert that experiencing a certain behavior is a symptom of a condition like ADHD or trauma. One example of this has been when people have claimed that “cricketing”, a type of movement where you rub your feet together over and over, is a sign of narcissistic abuse. Firstly, narcissistic abuse as a term is mostly inaccurate and even ableist, but that’s besides the point. “Cricketing” can also be a symptom of anxiety, OCD, or can even be a body-focused-repetitive behavior (BFRB), according to psychologist Dr. Ana Yudin.

There is also the issue of people trying to diagnose others. Just now, a YouTube short appeared on my feed that showcased a person telling another person which celebrities they think are psychopaths. This is a dangerous route to go down. Laypeople can’t diagnose individuals with disorders. Only professionals can diagnose others adequately as they know the patient well enough to do so. 

In regards to self-diagnosis, it is a practice that when done correctly, can be greatly beneficial (I am aware this is a controversial opinion). However, if done carelessly, can lead to one misattributing the cause of their problems or feelings.

There’s also the issue of pathologizing normal human experience. A lot of misinformed self-diagnosing can be attributed to assuming that certain feelings or experiences are inherently pathological. The reality is a lot of what we feel and experience is just a part of the regular human experience. It isn’t necessarily a sign of pathology or a disorder or anything. It’s just general feelings.

A lot of psychology misinformation is misunderstanding human experience and what is or isn’t “normal”. It is also a lack of critical thinking skills about the information that we see online. We should both normalize regular human emotions and use our common sense.