User: stoaks

Re:Why Do Smart People Defend Bad Ideas?

On: Why Smart People Defend Bad Ideas

... More importantly, if we're a smart person, what's the fastest way to stop defending bad ideas? One goal in the study of social psychology is to identify the environmental and social factors around us that create bias in our decision making process. Understanding these influences before making decisions should, in theory, improve the quality of the decisions we make by removing this bias. I would imagine that any intro text on social psych would be helpful. One such text is "the person and the situation" by ross and nisbett (I am in no way affiliated with these guys). Short, to the point and immediately helpful. The painful part of studying this topic is you are constantly reminded of decisions you've made in the past but can now identify how biased your conclusions were and why. sigh ... live and learn ...