Debunking myths: a behavioural science rulebook

Crawford Hollingworth

This article argues that myths are easy to form, but hard to shift and provides a guide for how to potentially debunk myths.

Debunking myths: a behavioural science rulebook

Crawford HollingworthThe Behavioural Architects

Myths are easy to form and hard to shift. Remember Popeye and how he gulps down a tin of iron-rich spinach to boost his strength and save the day? The truth is he would have been stronger eating venison and mussels, which have a higher and more easily absorbed iron content.

The Popeye cartoon helped to propagate a 50-year-old myth that spinach is incredibly iron rich and can make you stronger. The myth itself stems from work by a German chemist called Erich von Wolf.

In 1870, researching the...

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