Revising Psychology Misconceptions by Integrating a Refutation-Style Text Framework Into Poster Presentations

Abstract

Refutation-style texts have been considered a viable strategy for changing psychological misconceptions. The current study aims to integrate refutation-style texts into a classroom-based method of learning. Psychology students were administered a true/false misconception survey and then viewed several refutation-style poster presentations containing information describing a misconception as false. Posters were created with the intent to revise psychological misconceptions. After the poster presentations, participants took the same true/false posttest survey and then were asked to explain their answer choice. Participants took the posttest survey several days later to assess long-term retention. Results revealed that the refutation-style poster presentations were successful in revising knowledge for psychology misconceptions. The benefits of integrating refutation-based learning into classroom and laboratory studies are discussed.

Keywords

psychology misconceptions refutation texts knowledge revision

Commonsense explanations for psychology dubbed pseudoscience saturate our media. Psychology suffers from a “preexisting bias” problem, as psychological knowledge is particularly vulnerable because people rely on emotionally held beliefs about human behavior to understand psychology (Stanovich, 2013 in How to Think Straight about Psychology). Moreover, the general public seeking psychological information likely finds suitable explanations of human behavior on the Internet such that there would be no reason to look for evidence supported by scientific rigor (for a comprehensive review of research on psychology misconceptions, see Hughes, Lyddy, & Lambe, 2013). This vulnerability extends to psychology students who, despite their interest in psychology knowledge, are also known for having persistent psychology misconceptions (for a recent review on the persistence of misconception knowledge among psychology students, see LaCaille, 2015).

In the last several years, psychology has seen a renewed interest in misconception identification. Much of this interest can be attributed to professional organizations such as The American Psychological Association (2010) and the Association for Psychological Science (Kraut, 2012; Lilienfeld, 2010) that have endorsed strategic plans to promote psychology as a science. Lilienfeld, Lynn, Ruscio, and Beyerstein’s (2010) book 50 Great Myths of Popular Psychology: Shattering Widespread Misconceptions About Human Behavior has been used to help update knowledge on the most currently held false beliefs. This text has stimulated new research on misconception identification; however, the findings have been the same; psychology students overwhelmingly believe misconceptions.

Thus, the research emphasis has shifted from concept identification (e.g., Gardner & Brown, 2013) to concept revision (e.g., Hughes et al., 2015). Research on knowledge revision provides several examples of how knowledge can be revised from false to true (e.g., Carey, 2009; Ohlsson, 2009; Uzuntiryaki & Geban, 2005; Vosniadou, Vamvakoussi, & Skopeliti, 2008). Knowledge revision is an imperative method for changing psychology misconceptions, but one would expect the process of knowledge revision to be a slow, incremental process. Consider the unlearning necessary to correct concepts that have been introduced over and over again in popular psychology such as “opposites attract” and “we learn better when the teaching style matches our learning style.” Chi (2008) explains that an individual belief such as “opposites” attract can change through the accumulation of individual belief revision.

An extensively studied technique designed to assist learners with knowledge revision is the use of refutation texts (e.g., Broughton, Sinatra, & Reynolds, 2010; Guzzetti, Snyder, Glass, & Gamas, 1993; Sinatra & Broughton, 2011; Tippett, 2010). Refutation texts are used to state previously acquired but incorrect knowledge, and then directly refute it while also providing correct information. Refutation-style texts have recently been considered a viable strategy for changing psychological misconceptions in the classroom (e.g., Hughes et al., 2013; Kowalski & Taylor, 2009, 2011; Taylor & Kowalski, 2004, 2012). Kowalski and Taylor (2009) tested students’ knowledge of misconceptions and then taught a course using either a traditional lecture and text or a combination of refutation-style texts and refutational lecture. Students exposed to refutation-based materials demonstrated significant changes in their prior beliefs when compared to learning with a standard classroom format.

Furthermore, refutation-style texts have been proven effective in the revision of commonsense beliefs in the area of reading comprehension (e.g., Kendeou, Walsh, Smith, & O’Brien, 2014; Kendeou & van den Broek, 2005, 2007). Comprehension of text requires the continual integration of incoming information into the evolving discourse representation in memory. In addition, integrating new information during reading ultimately results in the updating or revision of the emerging discourse representation. It has been well established that knowledge revision or updating can occur during reading comprehension when new information is presented that negates earlier information (e.g., Cook, Halleran, & O’Brien, 1998; Kendeou, Smith, & O’Brien, 2013; O’Brien, Rizzella, Albrecht, & Halleran, 1998). Lassonde, Kendeou, and O’Brien (2016) demonstrated that cumulative belief revision within the discipline of psychology was possible with the use of a set of well-designed refutation texts proposed under the knowledge revision components (KReC) framework (for a detailed description, see Kendeou & O’Brien, 2014).

In these experiments, participants read a set of short vignettes that presented knowledge revision opportunities for psychological misconceptions. For example, participants were provided with a vignette that served to introduce the belief that it is best to stick with your initial hunch when you don’t know the answer to a multiple-choice question (see Table 1, e.g., refutation-style text).

Table 1.

Refutation Text Example.

Example refutation: If you’re unsure of your answer when taking a test, it’s best to stick with your initial hunch

Jeremy was finishing up with his biopsychology multiple-choice exam. He had time to spare so he decided to check over all his answers. As he looked at each question, he felt confident about most of his answers. However, he was second guessing his answers on a handful of questions. Jeremy considered changing his answers.

Misconception: He remembered being told it is best to stick with your first choice so he didn’t. When he got his exam back, he asked the teacher whether it was best to change an answer on a multiple-choice test or best to stick with your initial choice. The teacher said that it is widely accepted among students that changing answers on a multiple-choice test could actually lower your score.

Refutation: She wanted to explain to Jeremy this was actually not true.

Explanation: Students think it best to stick with their original answer on a multiple-choice exam. They are worried they might switch from a right to wrong answer. They fail to realize that in selecting their answer the first time they may be relying on instinct. If they take time to consider the choices more carefully, they tend to decide based on reason. Students may receive mixed messages from teachers who say it is best to stick with their initial choice. The truth is there is evidence that switching more often results in making a move from an incorrect to a correct answer.

Target sentence: The teacher said when unsure of an answer, it is best to switch from an initial hunch.

In the first part of the vignette, participants read a sentence that explicitly stated the incorrect belief (e.g., “The teacher said that it is widely accepted among students that changing answers on a multiple-choice test could actually lower your score.”). This was immediately followed by a second sentence that directly refuted this belief (e.g., “She wanted to explain to Jeremy this was actually not true.”). The refutation section was followed by an explanation in which the refutation was supported with a causal explanation. Finally, readers were presented with a correct outcome sentence that stated the correct belief and contradicted the reader’s belief prior to reading the refutation text (e.g., “The teacher said when unsure of an answer it is best to switch from an initial hunch.”). The refutation sentence plus explanation significantly reduced disruption during reading caused by the commonsense belief (e.g., it is best to stick to your initial hunch). This outcome demonstrated knowledge revision such that readers had successfully updated their knowledge base with the refutation and causal explanation and the commonsense belief was no longer disruptive.

Previous work demonstrates a need to blend well-controlled laboratory procedures for creating refutation texts into classroom-based learning. Integration is a good next step as each method alone requires a trade-off. A limitation of laboratory work is trading observing knowledge revision as it may more naturally occur in the classroom with experimental control; whereas, when working in the classroom, the refutation-based materials may not be as refined. For example, although Kowalski and Taylor (2009) found that exposing students to refutation-based materials in class resulted in significant changes in their prior beliefs when compared to the standard classroom format, the refutations were not controlled in important features such as length of text and/or duration of presentation.

The current research aimed to integrate the framework for constructing refutation texts for psychology misconceptions developed by Lassonde et al. (2016) into a classroom research project, centered on creating refutation-style poster presentations. Posters have recently been used to debunk psychological misconceptions (LaCaille, 2015). LaCaille found that introductory students who viewed posters during class time and students who created these posters as part of a research method course endorsed fewer myths compared to control groups. In the current experiment, participants were administered a psychology misconception survey and then viewed refutation-style poster presentations containing information describing a misconception as false.

There are important distinctions between the work of LaCaille and the present study. Presently, posters were created using the framework of refutation-style texts; that is, the psychological misconception was presented and then it was clearly stated in the poster that the misconception is false. Although much of the content in the LaCaille posters was also used to refute misconceptions, the refutations used in these posters rely on presenting the misconception explicitly with the mention that it is untrue. This is an integral piece of the knowledge revision process, explained by Kendeou and O’Brien, 2014 in the KReC framework, as it allows for previous knowledge activation and the potential of revising this knowledge with new information. Finally, the posters contained scientific information (e.g., citations/details) that provided explanations for why the common belief is false (for an example refutation poster, see Figure 1). In addition, this work advances that of LaCaille as the poster viewing and misconception knowledge assessment occurred in a controlled laboratory experiment.

Figure 1.

Refutation-style Poster Example.

Immediately after poster presentations, participants took the same misconception survey; this survey was then administered again to the participants several days later. During each of these posttest surveys, participants were also required to explain why she or he chose the answer they did. We hypothesized that participants’ performance on the immediate posttest survey would improve in that they would answer more of the psychology misconceptions correctly as “false.” This is a unique aspect of the present study as the methodology provides an opportunity for participants to justify their answers. If refutation-style posters were successful in promoting knowledge revision, then we anticipated similar results on the long-term assessment. The explanatory responses on posttests were not only used to assess accuracy but also would reveal underlying knowledge for beliefs. Results and how they apply to current initiatives to target psychological misconceptions will be expanded upon in the general discussion.

Method

Participants

Eighteen psychology students, 12 females and 6 males with the average age of 23, from a mid-sized Midwestern university comprised of 15,193 students with 2,250 students of color and most between the ages of 19 and 24 enrolled in psychology courses received partial course credit for their participation. Participants were recruited from those currently enrolled in psychology courses using an online experiment management system. Sixty-seven percent of the participants were seniors. All of the participants had either completed introduction to psychological science (i.e., 67%) or were currently enrolled in it (33%). The majority of the participants were psychology majors and had completed several courses in psychology. Psychology majors at the university are comprised of 539 students: 75% female and 25% male of whom range in age from 18 to 54, the majority of students being traditional aged with 99 students of color.

Materials

Misconception questionnaire

A questionnaire was created composed of 20 true/false statements. Ten of the statements were misconceptions of psychology taken from the book 50 Great Myths of Popular Psychology by Lilienfeld et al. (2010; e.g., “Most people experience a mid-life crisis in their early 40s or 50s”). These 10 misconceptions were found by Lassonde (2012) to be believed by more than 50% of their participant sample (for a list of these 10 misconceptions as well as the percent each was believed to be true, see Appendix A). The remaining 10 statements were psychology facts from an Introductory Psychology book by Myers (2011; e.g., “Memory capacity is present in infants”). These statements were included to prevent a response bias of false. The misconception questionnaire was administered before refutation posters (i.e., pretest), immediately after (i.e., pretest short-term), and then again 7–10 days later (i.e., posttest long-term).

Refutation-style posters

Students in an introduction to psychological sciences honors course engaged in a semester-long research project with the final goal of creating and presenting refutation-style posters. In teams, 20 students investigated two psychology misconceptions from Lilienfeld et al.’s (2010) 50 Great Myths of Popular Psychology: Shattering Widespread Misconceptions About Human Behavior. For each misconception, students were required to write a research paper describing its history (e.g., why it is commonly believed in society), its prevalence, and how factual psychological research could be used to revise it (e.g., refutation information; for information about classroom “workshops” students completed with the goal of creating refutation-style posters, see Table 2). The section of the research paper that refuted the psychology misconceptions later became the foundation for the refutation-style posters used in the experiment.

Table 2.

Student Misconception Research Project Workshops.

Workshop Topic	Learning Process	Learning Outcome Goal
Topic #1 Project Introduction	Introduction to psychological research; discussion of psychological misconceptions.	Understand foundation for psychological misconceptions.
Topic #2 Misconception Identification	Use Lilienfeld texts to target misconceptions interested in studying; identify peer-reviewed and popular press articles.	Choose two psychological misconceptions for students to further research in teams.
Topic #3 Research Discussion	Compare/contrast peer-reviewed and popular press articles.	Introduce students to research process and provide examples of appropriate source materials.
Topic #4 Misconception Research	Research the history and persistence of misconceptions.	Understanding background and prevalence of misconceptions.
Topic #5 Misconception Writing–1	Engage students in writing guidelines for final APA-style paper; draft writing describing the misconceptions.	Draft descriptions of misconception history and persistence.
Topic #6 Misconception Refutation	Describe and provide examples of knowledge refutation for misconceptions.	Draft refutations for misconceptions.
Topic #7 Misconception Writing–2	Share drafted papers with peers and professor.	Receive writing feedback for final development of paper.
Topic #8 Poster Development	Poster requirements were presented and drafts workshopped.	Receive feedback on poster development.
Topic #9 Poster Practice	Present misconception posters for practice audience.	Gain feedback and continue to prepare for experimental poster session.

Note. APA = The American Psychological Association.

Ten 4- by 3-feet posters were created and contained the following requirements: First, the misconception was described in close language to Lilienfield et al.’s (2010) original description. Second, it was clearly stated in the poster that the misconception is incorrect. Third, refutation information described why the refutation was false and contained citations (for an example refutation-style posters, see Figure 1). It should be noted that the introductory psychology students who created the posters were not the participants in the study.

Procedure

First, participants were asked to complete a pretest questionnaire. The first part requested information about gender, age, courses taken in psychology, and whether students were majoring in psychology or not. The second part of the survey included 20 true/false questions, 10 being psychology misconceptions and 10 being psychology facts. Participants were then taken to a separate room where the 10 posters were displayed. Each poster was accompanied by two students who created that particular poster. Participants viewed each poster for 1 min; this time was designed to emulate self-paced reading of the poster. After this 1 min was up, the two student presenters explained the content of the poster to the participant for 2 min; this time was designed to depict classroom-type instruction. Participants viewed each of the 10 posters in this manner for 30 min. After viewing all the posters, participants were taken back into the room they were given the pretest in and were administered a posttest questionnaire.

The posttest (short-term) was the same as the pretest with the following modification, participants were asked to respond “true” or “false” to each of the 20 items and, for each item, were asked to provide a written explanation of their belief. A participant would receive a score comprised of the following possibilities: Correct false response and a correct explanation = 3 points, incorrect true response and correct explanation = 2 points, correct false response and incorrect explanation = 1 point, and incorrect true response and incorrect explanation = 0 points. Finally, participants were sent an invitation to complete the posttest online (posttest long-term) and did so 7–10 days later. This final test was used to measure long-term retention of misconception information and was the same format as the posttest short-term.

Results

Separate analyses on the pre and posttest responses as a function of gender, number of psychology courses taken, and major versus non-major did not reveal any significant differences. This is not a surprising result as research widely confirms that students hold psychology misconceptions even after completing several courses of psychology and, in some cases, have performed as poorly as the general population on assessments. Additionally, the 10 misconceptions assessed in this study were previously normed as false beliefs by 50% or more of students (Lassonde, 2012).

The average number of misconceptions and facts answered correctly and standard deviations (SDs) on the pre- and posttest short-term and posttest long-term are reported in Table 3. A two (misconception vs. fact knowledge) by three (time periods of pretest, posttest short-term, and posttest long-term) repeated measures analysis of variance was conducted to compare the effect of refutation posters on misconception knowledge at all three time periods, F(2, 28) = 96.64, p =.000, MSE = 154.31, η² = .87. Paired sample t-tests revealed a significant difference in the average number of misconceptions answered correctly between the pretest to the posttest short-term, t(17) = 12.00, p < .01, d = 2.83, and also between the pretest and the posttest long-term, t(14) = 13.78, p < .01, d = 3.56. There was no difference in the average number of misconceptions answered correctly between the posttest short-term and posttest long-term, t(14) = .90, p = .38, d = .32. Although participants agreed to complete the entire experiment, participation was voluntary and 3 of the original 18 participants did not complete the posttest long-term survey.

Table 3.

Number of Psychology Misconceptions and Psychology Facts Answered Correctly.

	Pretest M (SD)	Posttest Short-Term M (SD)	Posttest Long-Term M (SD)	Measure of Effect Size Cohen’s d
Misconceptions	3.73 (1.67)	9.87 (.35)	9.67 (.82)	.82, .11, .87^a
Facts	7.40 (1.24)	6.60 (1.80)	4.80 (1.97)

^aEffect sizes are for pretest to posttest short-term, posttest short-term to posttest long-term, and pretest to posttest long-term in that order.

Participant explanations demonstrated even more robust evidence for knowledge revision as participants could answer the misconception correctly and provide an explanation consistent with details presented in the posters. For each of the posttests, participants demonstrated knowledge of why the misconceptions were false. A perfect score of 30 would indicate that participants earned a 3 (1 point for the correct response of false and 2 points for a correct explanation) on each of the 10 misconceptions. There were three scorers reviewing the explanations. Two initially scored the open-ended responses, separately. Scores were checked for reliability. In all cases in which a different score was given (e.g., Scorer 1 indicated a “2” and Scorer 2 indicated a “3”), Scorer 3 assessed the open-ended response. The average score for the two-tiered explanations on the posttest short-term was 29.47 (SD = 1.68) and posttest long-term was 22.07 (SD = 4.20), respectively, which suggests that participants responded to the majority of misconceptions as false and also provides a correct explanation. However, there was a significant difference in the average score for the explanations between the posttest short-term and posttest long-term, t(15) = 7.79, p < .01, d = 2.01. Results reveal that with just over a week delay, participants were able to respond correctly to misconceptions; however, their ability to produce correct explanations decreased in quality.

Discussion

The impact of misconceptions on the scientific understanding of psychology is well-documented. Psychological organizations and instructors of psychology have taken a keen interest in promoting the science of psychology, seeing that psychology misconceptions are very persistent. This study was aimed at moving beyond misconception identification toward a process of revision by integrating refutation-style posters, created in the foundation of refutation texts, into a classroom-based research project.

Students in an introduction to psychological science class created refutation posters as part of a semester-long research project. Participants’ psychology knowledge was assessed for misconceptions, and then the refutation-style posters were presented. Results on two posttests, one taken immediately after the poster presentations, and then one taken 7–10 days later revealed psychology knowledge revision had occurred. Participants answered significantly more misconceptions correct on both posttests compared to their pretest results. Of additional importance was the manner in which knowledge for misconceptions was validated on the posttests. Participants were required to describe either their true or false response with a written explanation. On the posttest short-term, participants were able to produce an explanation consistent with information presented in the refutation poster to each misconception nearly 100% of the time. Explanations on the posttest long-term were also supported with information from the posters; however, the detail and accuracy of participant responses was significantly less than the posttest short-term. Overall, this result is important because it demonstrates the utility of refutational-style posters in mitigating psychology knowledge.

The significant difference in misconceptions answered correctly from pretest to posttests can be explained by participant exposure to the refutation posters. However, an alternative explanation for the significant difference in pre- and postsurvey scores may be that multiple exposures to psychological misconceptions led to a response bias of false. For example, participants may become aware that we were presenting information about psychology knowledge that was untrue. Thus, they may have responded false more often on all items, not just the misconceptions, as a strategy. The average number of psychology facts answered correctly can be found in Table 3. The number of facts answered correctly does not differ significantly from pre- to posttest short-term; however, there was a significant difference between the pre- and posttest long-term and the posttest short-term and long-term. Thus, it is possible that participants developed a response bias for false. To address this, future work could involve reversing the wording of misconceptions in the posttests such that a true response would have been correct (e.g., replace “If you’re unsure of your answer when taking a test, it’s best to stick with your initial hunch” to “If you’re unsure of your answer when taking a test, it’s best to switch your answer from your initial hunch.”). Still, the effect sizes and degree of change for the misconceptions provides some validation in the benefit of the refutation-style posters. The refutation-style posters proved to influence both short-term and long-term knowledge for psychology misconceptions. Kendeou, Walsh, Smith, and O’Brien (2014) for general knowledge and Lassonde et al. (2016) for psychological knowledge have demonstrated that refutation texts have been found to create optimal learning conditions resulting in both short- and long-term effects.

Many measures of psychology misconceptions have included multiple-choice or true/false formats, an approach we also adopted in our experiment. However, one possible limitation of these types of questions is that they may reveal whether or not a person has knowledge on a concept and not assess whether that person has an incorrect belief (Taylor & Kawolski, 2012). In this experiment, we adopted the two-tiered approach to answering questions (see Kendeou et al., 2014; Tan, Goh, Chia, & Treagust, 2001) to avoid true/false limitations and to have more information about learning outcomes afforded by refutation-style posters.

One limitation of the study is that the longer lasting effects of the poster content are unknown. Because psychology misconceptions are so pervasive, we would anticipate that, over time, without consistent exposure confirming newly learned information, that prior knowledge would again take over. However, if students learn to approach psychology knowledge using refutation-style learning, then correct information will eventually prevail, which would result in a broader and deeper understanding of the fundamental principles of basic knowledge within psychology.

This idea is consistent with work on conceptual change learning in which there are several examples of knowledge revision. In fact, there are many ways that educators could foster knowledge revision; presenting refutation-style narratives in text or poster format provide just a few examples. The underlying mechanism promoting knowledge change would stay the same. In the context of conceptual change, knowledge revision is perceived as an incremental, conservative, and slow process consisting of several intermediate steps (Vosniadou et al., 2008). The target knowledge involves complex knowledge structures consisting of interrelated networks of concepts, which in turn, consist of interrelated networks of individual beliefs (Chi, 2008).

These results are well situated within current theories of knowledge revision, particularly within the KReC framework (Kendeou & O’Brien, 2014) which has recently been used to explain the role of refutation texts on knowledge updating (e.g., Kendeou et al., 2014; Lassonde et al., 2016). Consider, for example, a learner who holds the psychology misconception that it’s better to express anger than it is to hold it in; this information is part of their prior knowledge and cannot be erased (encoding principle). When the learner reads the text on the poster and listens to the explanation that states the correct information (e.g., “Expressing anger actually increases aggression in everyday life and it’s not better to express anger to others than to hold it in”), then the psychological misconception (i.e., “it’s better to express anger openly to others than to hold it in”) will also be activated via passive activation processes (passive activation principle). These passive activation processes produce the coactivation of the commonsense belief and the correct belief, a necessary condition for knowledge revision (coactivation principle). When the correct belief is integrated with the commonsense belief, some degree of knowledge revision has occurred (integration principle). As the amount of correct belief information is increased, for example, by including a causal explanation (e.g., The feeling of relief after expressing anger is confused with the natural tapering of anger, and with time anger will subside on its own without being expressed), the correct information will begin to dominate the integrated network of information regarding the belief. As this occurs, the correct information will begin to draw increasing amounts of activation to itself, and at the same time, draw activation away from the psychology misconception so that any interference from the latter is reduced and/or eliminated (competing activation principle).

Certainly, there are other theories that could be used to understand knowledge revision for incorrect beliefs such as Eagly and Chaiken’s (1993) theory on attitude change. Eagly and Chaiken explain that even if people incorporate new information and update an initial belief (i.e., attitude change), that it is common for this updated information to decay overtime such that their attitude shifts back to the original belief. Similarly, a theory called the backfire effect (Nyhan and Reifler, 2010, 2015) has explored difficulty in belief revision. Nyhan and colleagues describe a process though which in the face of corrective information (e.g., vaccines do more good than harm) people actually double down on their prior beliefs by ignoring corrective information and becoming more firmly committed to incorrect information.

The discipline of psychology has suffered from an image problem, likely the result of years of the general public referencing common sense to explain human behavior, rather than scientific fact. Psychological organizations understand the general public’s perception that psychology is unscientific and have launched campaigns to emphasize scientific foundations of psychology. The current work adds to previous research that attempts to go beyond misconception identification toward a process of revision. Here we have found a useful method for engaging both students and participants in the process of psychology knowledge revision. This is beneficial to teachers of psychology since it provides additional evidence of the benefits of using refutations in classroom learning. It adds to this body of work by providing a classroom-based framework for which refutation information can be both taught and presented in an experimental context. The students who participated in the semester-long research project cited gains in their understanding of psychology in general and an appreciation for the research process involved in uncovering the root of psychological misconceptions. Overall, the study provides an example of how classroom foundations can be blended with a controlled experimental process for broad learning gains.

Footnotes

Appendix

Table A1.

10 Misconceptions Used to Create Refutation-Style Posters and Percentage Believed to Be True.

If you’re unsure of your answer when taking a test, it’s best to stick with your initial hunch	97%
Individuals commonly repress memories of traumatic experiences	89%
Hypnosis is a unique “trance” state that differs from wakefulness	83%
Men and women communicate in completely different ways	74%
Raising children similarly leads to similarities in their adult personalities	74%
It’s better to express anger openly to others than to hold it in	73%
When dying, people pass through a universal series of psychological stages	69%
Criminal profiling is helpful in solving cases	67%
Recently, there has been a massive epidemic in infantile autism.	53%
Electroconvulsive “shock” therapy is a physically dangerous and brutal treatment	53%

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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