Douglas Bernstein

Douglas Bernstein is Professor of Psychology at the University of South Florida. Ph.D. in psychology, 1968. Professor of Psychology, University of Illinois, 1968-1998. Associate Head of Department, 1984-1998, Director of Introductory Psychology, 1986-1998. Chairman, National Institute on the Teaching of Psychology, 1978-2013.

The project

Title: Misconceptions about Human Behavior and Mental Processes

"To help psychology teachers recognize and correct the misconceptions about human behavior and mental processes that students carry with them, I am leading an international team of researchers who are studying the prevalence and nature of psychological misconceptions that remain in students who have just completed a course in introductory psychology. A paper summarizing our results from almost 1000 students has been accepted for publication in the journal Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology. The paper reveals that the introductory psychology course does little or nothing to combat common and potentially harmful misconceptions about human behavior and mental processes. To confirm these results and to begin developing methods for increasing the impact of psychology courses on psychological misconceptions, we have formed three research teams whose members work at universities in the US, Canada, France, the UK, and Italy. One team conducted our second study in which we employed a revised misconceptions quiz and a pre-post design to compare the misconceptions about psychology held by students before and after completing the introductory course. Those data were collected in the Spring of 2023 and are now being analyzed. This team is currently planning its third study, this time using the same quiz to compare the misconceptions of first-year students (in psychology and other disciplines) to those of advanced students, post-graduate students, and professors (in psychology and other disciplines). A second team is undertaking a review of published research on the effectiveness of efforts by psychology teachers to debunk their students’ misconceptions."

Hosting Institution: University of Paris Cité

Selective Bibliography

• Bernstein, D.A., Teachman, B.A., Olatunji, B.O., & Lilienfeld, S.O. (2021). Introduction to clinical psychology: Bridging science and practice (9th ed.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• 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
• Bernstein, D.A. (2023). The context of indoctrination in introductory psychology. Psychology Learning and Teaching, 22, 263-268. https://doi.org/10.1177/14757257231195353
• Bernstein, D.A. (2023) Teaching psychology in North America: Four case examples as cautionary tales. Human Arenas. DOI10.1007/s42087-023-00354-6
• 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