Douglas Bernstein

Douglas Bernstein has Bachelor's degree in psychology at the University of Pittsburgh in 1964; masters and Ph.D. in clinical psychology at Northwestern University in 1966 and 1968; professor of psychology University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, 1968 to 1998. Now Courtesy Professor of Psychology, University of South Florida. He founded the Biennial International Seminar on the Teaching of Psychological Science, Paris.

The project

Title: Promoting Excellence in the Teaching of Psychology - Combatting Misconceptions about Psychological Science

"Large majorities of students, teachers, and the general public in North America endorse a variety of misconceptions about behavior and mental processes. Some of these misconceptions are potentially harmful. They may guide—or more accurately, misguide—students’ later actions and decisions in their roles as consumers, voters, jurors, parents, and teachers. Even psychology students may be just as likely as other members of the general public to choose a useless but well-publicized treatment for physical or psychological problems because of the incorrect assumption that endorsements are as valuable as the results of controlled experiments. They may refuse vaccinations for themselves or their children because of belief in unfounded claims that vaccines contain tracking devices or cause autism. They may ignore red flags about incompatibility in romantic relationships on the false assumption that opposites attract. They may fail to take seriously a suicide threat because they have heard that people who die by suicide do not talk about it beforehand. Although the prevalence of these misconceptions is clear, current research indicates that efforts to correct misconceptions about learning (or other topics) are typically labor-intensive and their effects, if any, are short-lived. For the last 6 years, my collaborators and I have been conducting a program of research on this problem, beginning with the administration of a 40-item true-false survey designed to assess misconceptions among first-year psychology students in North America at the end of an introductory psychology course at 8 colleges and universities (Bernstein et al., 2023). Next, we administered an improved, 72-item survey that allowed students at 9 U.S. colleges and universities to rate on a 7-point scale their level of confidence that statements about behavior and mental processes were true or false. This survey was administered both at the beginning and at the end of the students' introductory psychology course."

Hosting Institution: University of Paris Cité

Selective Bibliography

• Cameron, E.L. & Bernstein, D.A. (2022).  Illustrating concepts and phenomena in psychology: A teacher-friendly compendium of examples. New York: Springer International Publishing.
• Burke, B.L., Wrona, M.C., Trost, S.E., deRoon-Cassini, T.A., & Bernstein, D.A. (2023). Abnormal psychology: A modern approach (3rd ed.). Cleveland, OH: Academic Media Solutions.
• Bernstein, D.A., Frantz, S., & Chew, S.L. (2025). Teaching psychology: A step by step guide (4th ed.) New York: Routledge.
• Bernstein, D.A., Teachman, B.A., Olatunji, B.O., & De Los Reye, A. (2025). Introduction to clinical psychology: Bridging science and practice (10th ed.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Bernstein, D.A. (2026, in press). Teaching critical thinking in an academic minefield. In R. J. Sternberg & W. Niu (eds), A Multidisciplinary Approach to Critical Thinking. New York: Palgrave.
• Bernstein, D.A., Cameron, E.L., Khanna, M.M., McGee, J., Smith, E.I., Bihun, J.T., McBride, E., Uruena-Agnes, A.R., Stanley, C. & Lamana-Finn, K. (2023). Misconceptions about psychology after taking introductory psychology. Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology. Advance online publication. https://doi-org.proxy2.library.illinois.edu/10.1037/stl0000374