Psychological misconceptions are claims about behavior and mental processes that are not supported or are contradicted by high-quality psychological research (Bensley in Lilienfeld, 2017). The aim of this master's thesis was to examine levels of psychological misconceptions among psychology students, based on their levels of study. We also wanted to compare misconception levels of psychology and non-psychology students and research how psychological misconception levels are related to paranormal belief, objectivism, Big Five personality traits and sensation seeking. We administered the Misconceptions in Psychology Test, the Revised Paranormal Belief Scale (R-PBS), Objectivism Scale, the Big Five Inventory (BFI) and the Sensation Seeking Scale V (SSS-V). The questionnaires were completed by 227 psychology students and 196 non-psychology students, aged up to 30. The results showed statistically significant differences in misconception levels, inside the psychology student group. First year psychology students had higher levels of misconceptions than upper-level undergraduate students, and the latter had higher levels of misconceptions compared to postgraduate students. We also compared psychology and non-psychology students based on their levels of misconceptions. The results showed that psychology students had lower levels of misconceptions. The results showed a statistically significant, moderately high and positive relationship between misconception levels and paranormal belief. The relationship among misconception levels and objectivism was not statistically significant. The sample showed statistically significant but very low relationships between misconception levels and extraversion, openness and sensation seeking. The relationship with extraversion was positive, while the relationship with openness and sensation seeking was negative.
|
