Thread by @drlouisehansen

Inaccurate or Misleading Psychological and Psychiatric Terms to Avoid:
“Hard-wired. The term “hard-wired” has become enormously popular in press accounts and academic writings in reference to human psychological capacities presumed by some scholars to be partially innate, 1/23

such as religion, cognitive biases, prejudice, or aggression. For example, one author team reported that males are more sensitive than females to negative news stories and may be “hard wired for negative news” (Grabe and Kamhawi, 2006, p. 346). 2/23

Nevertheless, growing data on neural plasticity suggest that, with the possible exception of inborn reflexes, remarkably few psychological capacities in humans are genuinely hard-wired, that is, inflexible in their behavioral expression (Huttenlocher, 2009; Shermer, 2015). 3/23

Moreover, virtually all psychological capacities, including emotions and language, are modifiable by environmental experiences (Merzenich, 2013). 4/23

A gene for. The news media is awash in reports of identifying “genes for” a myriad of phenotypes, including personality traits, mental illnesses, homosexuality, and political attitudes (Sapolsky, 1997). 5/23

For example, in 2010, The Telegraph (2010) trumpeted the headline, “‘Liberal gene’ discovered by scientists.” Nevertheless, because genes code for proteins, there are no “genes for” phenotypes per se, including behavioral phenotypes (Falk, 2014). 6/23

Moreover, studies of major psychiatric disorders, such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, suggest that there are probably few or no genes of major effect (Kendler, 2005). These disorders are unlike single-gene medical disorders; Huntington’s disease or cystic fibrosis. 7/23

The same conclusion probably holds for all personality traits (De Moor et al., 2012). The evidence for a “God gene,” is arguably even less impressive (Shermer, 2015) and no more compelling than that for a “God spot” in the brain (see “God spot”). 8/23

Incidentally, the term “gene” should not be confused with the term “allele”; genes are stretches of DNA that code for a given morphological or behavioral characteristic, whereas alleles are differing versions of a specific polymorphism in a gene (Pashley, 1994). 9/23

Family genetic studies. The phrase “family genetic studies” is commonly used in psychiatry to refer to designs in which investigators examine the familial aggregation of one or more disorders, such as panic disorder or major depression, 10/23

within intact (i.e., non-adoptive) families (e.g., Weissman, 1993). Given that the familial aggregation of one or more disorders within intact families could be due to shared environment rather than—or in addition to—shared genes (Smoller and Finn, 2003), 11/23

the phrase “family genetic study” is misleading. This term implies erroneously that familial clustering of a disorder is necessarily more likely to be genetic than environmental. It may also imply incorrectly (Kendler and Neale, 2009) 11/23

that studies of intact families permit investigators to disentangle the effects of shared genes from shared environment. Twin or adoption studies are necessary to accomplish this goal. 13/23

Genetically determined. Few if any psychological capacities are genetically “determined”; at most, they are genetically influenced. Even schizophrenia, which is among the most heritable of all mental disorders, 14/23

appears to have a heritability of between 70 and 90% as estimated by twin designs (Mulle, 2012), leaving room for still undetermined environmental influences. Moreover, data strongly suggest that schizophrenia and most other major mental disorders are highly polygenic. 15/23

In addition, the heritability of most adult personality traits, such as neuroticism and extraversion, appears to be between 30 and 60% (Kandler, 2012). This finding again points to a potent role for environmental influences. 16/23

God spot. Seizing on functional imaging findings religious ideation is associated with activations in specific brain regions, such as areas of the temporal lobe, some media and academic sources have referred to the discovery of a “God spot” in the brain (Connor, 1997). 17/23

Such language is scientifically dubious given that complex psychological capacities, including religious experiences, are almost surely distributed across several sprawling networks that themselves encompass multiple brain regions. 18/23

Not surprisingly, studies of people undergoing mystical experiences have reported activation in many brain areas, including the temporal lobe, caudate, inferior parietal lobe, and insula (Beauregard and Paquette, 2006; Jarrett, 2014). 19/23

As one researcher (Mario Beauregard) observed, “There is no single God spot localized uniquely in the temporal lobe of the human brain” (Biello, 2007, p. 43). The same absence of localizational specificity holds true, such as “irony spot” or “humor spot” (Jarrett, 2014).” 20/23

“If names be not correct, language is not in accordance with the truth of things.” (Confucius, The Analects) 21/23

Source: Lilienfield, S., Sauvigne, K., Lynn, K., Cautin, R, Latzman, R., & Waldman, I. (2015). Fifty psychological and psychiatric terms to avoid: a list of inaccurate, misleading, misused, ambiguous, and logically confused words and phrases. 22/23

Adapted to be Twitter friendly. This thread does not include the whole article. To read the whole article click here. | doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.… 23/23