"Do people use ten percent of their brain power?" Psychology Myths (Part 1 of 5)
Myth #1 People Use Only 10% of Their Brain Power A long time ago, I learned about the myth that people only use 10% of the brain. At first, I thought that only individuals who were not in the field of psychology or neurology would believe this misconception. However, this changed when I read a study that found that one-third of psychology students believed that people only use one-tenth of their brain power (Higbee & Clay, 1998, p. 471). Then, when people kept asking me what I thought about humans only being capable of using ten percent of their brain and reading similar articles like one that found that 59% of a sample of individuals who went to college in Brazil believe the ten percent myth and that six percent of neuroscientists agreed (Herculano-Houzel, 2002), I understood that I was reading about one of the most prevalent myths in psychology. (If you would like to learn more about this and other myths check out 50 Great Myths of Popular Psychology by cli