This seems to happen often. Are there any non-pseudoscientific psychology theories? AFAIK only IQ and (possibly) the "Big Five" personality traits.

Short list of (likely) "failed" (pop-)psychological theories:

- stereotype threat [1]

- implicit bias - specifically refers to unconscious prejudice that exist independently of any explicit / conscious bias; however, measurements of implicit bias do not predict biased behavior [2] and therefore implicit bias training is likely completely useless [3] (this is not to say that explicit bias doesn't exist or that bigots don't try to conceal their bigotry)

- power posing, the idea that putting your body in a "power" position (a pose that projects confidence) alters your hormonal levels - even the original author no longer believes [4] that this effect is real (although I personally still think that "power poses" can have an effect on other people and how they perceive you)

- growth mindset, the belief that you can learn and improve (which I personally think is probably better than the reverse), doesn't actually result [5] in better educational outcomes (but can result in millions of dollars wasted [6]). The original researcher since came up with [7] a convenient concept of "false" growth mindset - "saying you have growth mindset when you don't really have it" - but critics rightfully counter with (from the Wikipedia link above):

> "If your effect is so fragile that it can only be reproduced [under strictly controlled conditions], then why do you think it can be reproduced by schoolteachers?"

and

> to claim that your performance in a cognitive task is entirely dictated by how hard you try and is nothing to do with raw candle-power flies in the face of more than 100 years of intelligence research".

- Stanford Prison Experiment [8] (where participants were knowingly acting out their roles and which was never successfully replicated)

- Milgram Experiment (which, although somewhat replicated, was recently criticized [9] that few participants actually believed the experiment was real - a potential issue with any replication attempts as well)

Hope I didn't mess up any links. This is based only on my completely amateur research of online sources, I'm more than happy to be pointed in the opposite direction!

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotype_threat#Criticism

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implicit_stereotype#Statement_...

[3] https://qz.com/1144504/the-world-is-relying-on-a-flawed-psyc...

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_posing#Replication_failu...

[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carol_Dweck#Criticism

[6] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/05/180522114523.h...

[7] https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/12/how-pr...

[8] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment#Cri...

[9] https://www.discovermagazine.com/mind/the-shocking-truth-of-...