I’m an introvert:  have I mentioned that before?  I used to think I was in the minority of “the population” based on common knowledge, plus other research that I did on the subject.  Yesterday I read an article at Penelope Trunk’s blog which referenced reasonably recent research (starting in 1998 and repeated afterward) which says that the old wisdom about extroverts outnumbering introverts is wrong.  Previous research claimed that extroverts outnumbered introverts by a ratio of 3:1 or some similar number.  It turns out that the older research was based on limited samples and extrapolation of those results.

In a way, I feel a little less special today.  Perhaps I should feel a little less weird.  I don’t know.  It’s not something that I lost any sleep over last night and life will carry on as normal.

However, changes in world view get you thinking.

Off the top of my head, here are a number of theories that have entered into common knowledge and may need to be questioned:

• Dunbar’s number – a limit of 150 significant relationships that each person can have with other people – extrapolated from the cortex size of certain kinds of primates
• Six degrees of separation – common wisdom popularized based on the results of research conducted about 50 years ago; calculated as an average of experimental results based on a limited sample
• Homosexuality - what percentage of the population is supposed to be interested in the same-sex?  It seems to vary from study to study.
• Depression/mental illness – similar to the above
• BMI (Body Mass Index) – these measurements are averages based on previous studies.  Other studies question these measurements and some worry that these guidelines are too strict.
• Verbal vs. non-verbal communication – in public speaking circles (e.g.Toastmasters), there’s a rule of thumb that effectiveness of communication comes from the following:  7 percent by the words used; 38 percent by voice quality; and 55 percent by the nonverbal communication (body language).  However, other, more recent research, suggests that words ARE more important than previously thought and the original percentages came from extrapolation from a limited study.
• Any generalizations based on a person’s ethnicity, race, culture, etc. – for example, I’m Canadian and I have no genetic predisposition towards liking hockey or Molson Canadian (sorry guys).
• The center of the universe – we’re pretty sure now that the Earth orbits the Sun and therefore it’s not the center of the universe.

And so on.

I’m all for debunking myths and replacing them with facts or better theories, although it’s extremely tempting to rely upon common knowledge at times to make a point.  More often than not, however, people will grab for a simple, handy “fact” that helps to build their case with “logic” that seems reasonable.  Shame on us for doing that.

What common knowledge, that was later proven wrong, surprised you?

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