Why Smart People Are Stupid

nicholast writes "There's a good piece by Jonah Lehrer at the New Yorker about why smart people are often more likely to make cognitive errors than stupid people. The article examines research about the shortcuts that our brains take while answering questions, and explains why even the smartest people take these shortcuts too. Quoting: 'One provocative hypothesis is that the bias blind spot arises because of a mismatch between how we evaluate others and how we evaluate ourselves. When considering the irrational choices of a stranger, for instance, we are forced to rely on behavioral information; we see their biases from the outside, which allows us to glimpse their systematic thinking errors. However, when assessing our own bad choices, we tend to engage in elaborate introspection. We scrutinize our motivations and search for relevant reasons; we lament our mistakes to therapists and ruminate on the beliefs that led us astray. The problem with this introspective approach is that the driving forces behind biases—the root causes of our irrationality—are largely unconscious, which means they remain invisible to self-analysis and impermeable to intelligence. In fact, introspection can actually compound the error, blinding us to those primal processes responsible for many of our everyday failings.'"

Comments

Makes sense

[Anonymous Coward]

The article examines research about the shortcuts that our brains take while answering questions, and explains why even the smartest people take these shortcuts too.

Because without taking shortcuts those very smart people wouldn't be able to achieve their goal of getting first post.

Yeah...

[fredprado]

Yes you commit more mistakes when you think more about things. Guess what, you also reach a lot more correct conclusions. The best way to avoid making mistakes is not doing anything at all. Same principle.

Re:Yeah...

[Hope Thelps]

The best way to avoid making mistakes is not doing anything at all.

Unfortunately it's not that easy. My biggest mistakes have consisted of not doing things.

Re:Yeah...

[pitchpipe]

The best way to avoid making mistakes is not doing anything at all.

A guy at my work has a good safety slogan: Nobody moves, nobody gets hurt.

Re:Yeah...

[Culture20]

A guy at my work has a good safety slogan: Nobody moves, nobody gets hurt.

You work in a bank or post office?

Re:Yeah...

[reboot246]

My guess would be that he works at the DMV.

SAT socres?

[whoever57]

Although we assume that intelligence is a buffer against biasâ"thatâ(TM)s why those with higher S.A.T. scores think they are less prone to these universal thinking mistakesâ"it can actually be a subtle curse.

Or perhaps high SAT scores do not correlate well with intelligence, but rather correlate with being able to answer questions quickly through the use of mental shortcuts or the ability to recall what was learned through rote learning?

Re:SAT socres?

[ShanghaiBill]

Or perhaps high SAT scores do not correlate well with intelligence,

SAT scores strongly correlate with life time earnings, probability of going to prison, life expectancy, divorce rate, and many, many other things. Out of political correctness, you may not want to call it "intelligence", but you cannot deny it is measuring something much more significant than an ability to take tests.

Re:SAT socres?

[ShanghaiBill]

SAT scores strongly correlate with...

That's become a self-fulfiling prophecy in the US. Hig SAT scores are required (often) to get to the next stages of education, and education correlates with success, so it makes high SAT scores correlate with success.

But even if you account for that, by only comparing people of similar education levels, people with high SAT scores do better on a wide variety of metrics. In fact, someone's SAT score is a better predictor of their success than their educational level. That is not what you would expect if a high SAT score was just a "door-opener".

My theory

[Jamu]

My theory is that smart people are mostly stupid, and that stupid people are fully stupid.

Case in point.

[dmomo]

Try reading that article. It's full of smart sounding long-winded sentences, which all basically translate to: "Dude, you're overthinking it".

Then, the article ronically ends with: "We spin eloquent stories, but these stories miss the point. The more we attempt to know ourselves, the less we actually understand."

Dude...

The article is written by a fucktard.

[Gordonjcp]

Hereâ(TM)s a simple arithmetic question: A bat and ball cost a dollar and ten cents. The bat costs a dollar more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?

The vast majority of people respond quickly and confidently, insisting the ball costs ten cents. This answer is both obvious and wrong. (The correct answer is five cents for the ball and a dollar and five cents for the bat.)

Why on earth would you ever think that it was 10 cents for the ball and a dollar for the bat? You'd have to be stupid, or something.

In a lake, there is a patch of lily pads. Every day, the patch doubles in size. If it takes 48 days for the patch to cover the entire lake, how long would it take for the patch to cover half of the lake?

Your first response is probably to take a shortcut, and to divide the final answer by half. That leads you to twenty-four days. But thatâ(TM)s wrong. The correct solution is forty-seven days.

What the fuck? Do I need to to take a dope test or something? Why the hell would you think I'd "take a shortcut" and divide the answer by two? Fuck's sake, the clue is right there! IT DOUBLES IN SIZE EVERY DAY! So it's twice as big today as it was yesterday, so if it fills the lake in 48 days it half-fills it in 47 days. Jeez, how the hell can you even think people would say 24 days? Is there something wrong with your brain?

Also, what the hell kind of lilies grow in your lake, that they crowd the whole damn thing out in a month and a half? Don't you ever rake them back and dredge it? Your fish are going to suffer from lack of light and oxygen with all that crap in there.

Ghod pop-psychologists make my piss boil.

Re:The article is written by a fucktard.

[serviscope_minor]

Also, what the hell kind of lilies grow in your lake, that they crowd the whole damn thing out in a month and a half? Don't you ever rake them back and dredge it?

If they grow that fast, dredging is the least of your worries. In another 48 days, they'll have covered the entire earth. Oh, and if you leave even a single lily cell behind, they'll have covered the earth AGAIN in another 90 days or so. You're basically doomed.

Re:I feel stupider just reading the summary

[MightyMartian]

Indeed. One of the things that I find is a problem with really bright people is overconfidence, a belief that because they are brilliant in one area, they therefore are brilliant in all areas. You find this sort of thing with engineers who think they are scientists, doctors who think they are scientists, or scientists who make fools of themselves by making elaborate and tragically awful claims in areas where they have no expertise.

True polymaths are probably so rare that even the most seasoned and well-connected academic won't meet one.

Fortunately, the solution is obvious.

[mosb1000]

Perhaps our most dangerous bias is that we naturally assume that everyone else is more susceptible to thinking errors, a tendency known as the “bias blind spot.” This “meta-bias” is rooted in our ability to spot systematic mistakes in the decisions of others—we excel at noticing the flaws of friends—and inability to spot those same mistakes in ourselves.

So other people, even stupid people, will have a relatively easy time spotting my mistakes? Meaning that all I have to do is listen to them when they try to point them out to me. Problem solved.

Re:I feel stupider just reading the summary

[jaymzter]

I agree. It's like how economists are always so shocked that girls with the least principle always seem to draw the most interest.