Scientific shortcuts, "guru effect"... Personal development with Aberkane sauce

Editor’s note:

As part of an article on Idriss Aberkane’s personal development training, L’Express interviewed the person concerned, in accordance with journalistic practice and ethics. The interview took place by visioconference. It was previously agreed that Mr. Aberkane could record the exchange in order to reassure him that any quotes chosen by our journalists would not be distorted, as he seemed to fear. Never, on the other hand, was consent granted to him broadcasting this interview, for commercial use or not, on social networks or elsewhere. This opposition was made known to him at the start of the interview and recalled at the end, when Mr. Aberkane allowed himself paranoid and contemptuous remarks which, if they will not deceive informed listeners, may fuel the hatred of journalists in conspiratorial networks. Idriss Aberkane then declared that he still intended to broadcast his recording. L’Express therefore sent him a formal notice to remind him of his commitment, which he used to victimize himself and shout at the censorship attempt. Unsurprisingly, our journalists were immediately targeted on social media and received dozens of derogatory and insulting messages. Such practices of exposing journalists to the vindictiveness of thousands of “followers” in order to intimidate them are obviously unacceptable. They make it difficult to do our job. But we are not giving it up. Here is our article.

What do trade routes, a Viking sword called “the Lamborghini of the Middle Ages”, the five continents and our temporal lobe have in common? A priori nothing, if not to contribute to the development of a metaphor of the functioning of our brain signed Idriss Aberkane, self-proclaimed “hyperdoctor” and “world-renowned neuroscience specialist”. And this is only the introduction of his training called “Unleashing your full potential”, which L’Express followed. The rest of the 19 videos – 4h20 -, accessible on the MentorShow platform for 197 euros, is in keeping and constitutes an illustration of the techniques used by Idriss Aberkane in his many other fields of predilection: speed of speech, anecdotes and neologisms by the dozens, name dropping galore. Everything is there to impress the viewer.

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The credibility of his method – in addition to his demonstration of eloquence – rests above all on scientific justifications. “The logic is clear, the works cited are impressive and cause a ‘wow’ effect, analyzes Bastien Blain, associate researcher at University College London in neuroscience, who watched this master class for L’Express. But the link between the cited scientific experiences and personal development is not obvious and is only established by analogies that often fall within the big gap (overinterpretation, misinterpretation, overgeneralization) Neuroscientific packaging is used like pixie ball powder. ” L’hyperdoctor calls for example on neuroergonomics, a discipline that, according to him, makes it possible to improve cognitive performance – memory, concentration – and general well-being. This quasi-secret field of study would even be “too serious to be left to the military”, he slips. The reality is quite different. “Neuroergonomics is a real scientific field, unlike neurowisdom, which he invented. But it is a confidential field, with a very low level of applicability; only a few researchers – of which he is not one – publish studies on the subject, and the results are generally disappointing”, explains Sébastian Dieguez, neuroscientist at the University of Fribourg.

An opinion shared by Bastien Blain. “This course is about personal development, not neuroergonomics, which is an applied science and not very conceptual, contrary to the use he makes of it, he analyzes. When you do neuroergonomics, you test interfaces brain-machine. We limit ourselves more to the work of an engineer.” The specialist notices an emblematic passage from the approach of Idriss Aberkane, when he presents an experience of electrical stimulation of the tongue which would restore a form of vision to blind patients. “The example seems spectacular, but the limits are not really pointed out: the experience does not make it possible to replace the sense of sight itself, notes the neuroscientist. He wraps it all in a metaphor suggesting that the brain is so plastic that we could change it completely and ‘liberate’ it. But the relationship with the data of the cited studies is very loose, the generalization and the conclusion are contortional.” Critics that Idriss Aberkane brushes aside, believing that these are only worthless opinions, rhetorical confusion, and fallacious arguments. Neuroergonomics is indeed, according to him, a cutting-edge field little known or accessible to ordinary mortals because it is mainly used by the military and in the industrial environment, for which he claims to have worked, without being able to say more. Practice.

Succession of banalities

If we rely on the dozen comments under these videos, many viewers are nevertheless seduced. Ironically noted by the two neuroscientists, there are studies explaining this success. One of them, published in 2008 in Trends in Cognitive Sciences, demonstrates that non-behavioural scientists place greater importance on explanations that contain neuroscientific detail, even if they provide no explanatory value. “Other works emphasize that it is enough to talk about the brain or show an image of it to make an explanation more convincing, adds Sébastian Dieguez. And scientific formulas, acronyms, mnemonic tricks and neologisms also help to arouse an interest, even in mundane things.”

L’hyperdoctor do not ignore these different techniques. He also evokes, from his second video, the case of a scammer managing to pay traders with white sheets instead of tickets by drowning them under a flood of words. He also uses the neologism “psycatrice” to describe psychological suffering, and proposes the mnemonic tool “so-con-wicked” (astonishment, confirmation, memorization, sampling) in order to avoid the amazement bias according to which bad news is better remembered. And, from the 11th course, he presents the acronym SAINELP (subjectivity, application, impotence, neophilia, exploration, places, peers), an exclusive method allowing to approach the level of his idol Richard Francis Burton, “who spoke 29 languages”. He thus suggests writing down his fears on an object – especially not on a white sheet! – to materialize them then “uninstall” them from his brain, to grant himself microvictories in his activities, “like the stars of the video game Sonic“, to discover new areas, or to improve his memory with the method of the palate. “He invented note taking, jokes Sébastian Dieguez. It’s typical of coaching: stating trivialities and pretending that they will change your life. If the average person said that, no one would take it seriously.”

But Idriss Aberkane is not an average person. Evidenced by his CV … which he has also greatly boosted, as L’Express has shown in particular. He is neither a researcher at CentraleSupélec, nor a doctor from the Ecole polytechnique, nor a normalien, nor a researcher at Stanford or Cambridge. “He gives interesting lectures and tells stories by opening many drawers, but science popularization is not limited to ‘being interesting'”, indicates Thomas Durand, videographer author of the channel La Tronche en bias, who was the one of the first to denounce its excesses. And as he highlights ‘three doctorates obtained at the age of 30’ – two, in fact – he seduces the curious who seek a hidden meaning in his banalities. It is an illustration of the guru effect, a mechanism that leads individuals to admire and deeply judge statements they do not understand.” The recipe works. Idriss Aberkane has 31 million views on his YouTube channel and has sold over 265,000 copies of his book Free your brain (Robert Laffont and Pocket). A lucrative business to which must be added his training. Besides MentorShow, the BeBooda platform offers, for 126 euros, a “master class in neuroergonomics” with almost identical content. And Scanderia charges 80 euros for a course on “trading and investing as an opportunity for personal development”.

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Its aura can also be explained by the strong media coverage from which it benefited. Ex-columnist at Point, which dedicated its front page to him in 2016, he toured television sets and still enjoyed rave interviews until 2021. “Today, it is ‘grilled’ and turns to the conspiratorial sphere”, analyzes Thomas Durand. He thus defended the controversial Pr Didier Raoult, seeing in his decline the hand of the big laboratories. “His video is dishonest, badly sourced: a mise en abyme of the imposture “, summarizes the videographer. Idriss Aberkane also turns to more promising subjects. He provides his analyzes on bitcoins – he devotes a dedicated channel to it on the Telegram application -, on the war in Ukraine, or even politics. , in collaboration in particular with Nicolas Dupont-Aignan. Each time, with the same techniques as for personal development. And a real talent to pass for a genius in the field.

Alix L’hospital and Victor Garcia