At this time, many people will have a question: Why are you so easily deceived when you are clearly not stupid? In our cognition, people with high IQ mean that they can make more correct and better decisions. Is that really the case?
The book Beyond IQ-Why Smart People Do Stupid Things tells you that it is wrong!
If you want to live a better life and achieve your life goals, it is not enough to have a high IQ, but also to have a high rationality. If individuals have rational obstacles, the direct consequence is that life is not satisfactory and they miss the achievements that life should have achieved.
Beyond IQ-Why do smart people do stupid things? Is this book Keith? Yasiniu Keith E. Stannow's masterpiece is the pioneering work of rational psychology, and won the 20 10 Gwenmel Education Award.
Next, let's see what this book is about.
In today's society, from kindergarten enrollment to the selection of future central defenders by the national football league, intelligence tests are used as evaluation tools. However, it is unreasonable to pay too much attention to intelligence and often ignore another vital ability-rationality.
This book adopts the narrow concept of intelligence, and defines intelligence as MAMBIT, which is the acronym for mental ability measured by intelligence test. It explicitly excludes the contents contained in many generalized theories: the ability to adapt to the environment, the decision-making ability in real life, wisdom and creativity.
Seeing this, we can understand why former US President George Bush's IQ test score was above 120, but he frequently said thoughtless things in public and made many wrong decisions. Yasiniu pointed out that he is likely to suffer from rational disorder. The so-called rational obstacle refers to the lack of rational thinking and action ability despite sufficient intelligence.
CHC theory, namely Cartel-Horn-Carroll intelligence theory, holds that intelligence includes two aspects: fluid intelligence and crystal intelligence.
Fluid intelligence (Gf) refers to the ability to use reasoning in different fields (especially new fields). This ability can be measured by abstract reasoning tasks, such as image classification, Raven test and sequential reasoning.
Crystal intelligence (Gc) refers to declarative knowledge accumulated through learning, which can be measured by vocabulary tasks, reading comprehension and general knowledge tests.
Usually people say that a person is smart, which refers to the mental function (MAMBIT, mainly Gf) clearly measured by intelligence tests.
Cognitive scientists divide rationality into instrumental rationality and intellectual rationality.
Instrumental rationality: to achieve personal goals in an optimal way (under the premise of limited resources, no pains, no gains. ), their behavior follows the principle of utility maximization.
Knowledge rationality: pay attention to the consistency between individual beliefs and the real world.
The bridge between knowledge rationality and instrumental rationality is the prediction of the occurrence probability of unknown time.
The working mechanism of the human brain is mainly composed of type I processing and type II processing. The first and second types of machining are the same as "system 1" and "system 2" mentioned by Daniel Kahneman in Thinking: Fast and Slow.
Type 1 machining is usually called heuristic machining, which means that it is fast, automatic, with low computational load, and does not need to analyze all possible situations.
The first kind of processing includes: the adjustment of emotion to behavior; Closed psychological module proposed by evolutionary psychologists to solve specific adaptability problems; Processing of implicit learning; Automatic activation caused by excessive learning connection. It plays a role in facial recognition, proprioception, ambiguity of miss language and depth perception.
Type 2 machining is relatively slow and requires a lot of calculation. It is the focus of consciousness, and it is often executed at the same time as the type 1 processing task. Based on language and rules, psychologists call it controlled processing. An important function of type 2 processing is to inhibit type 1 processing.
For example, when couples quarrel, it is easy to turn over old scores, and words that hurt people blurt out; Be in a bad mood and want to eat sweets, etc. It is the reaction of type one treatment.
A and B are quarrelling. Before A said something hurtful, Type II processing played a role in restraining impulse. At this time, a simulation was made in A's mind: if you say hurtful words, it will not only alleviate the status quo, but also intensify contradictions, so it is wrong to use hurtful words to fight back. Would it be better to show weakness first, calm each other's emotions and seek * * * knowledge and reconciliation? So make the right response-show weakness and calm your emotions.
The first kind of processing includes autonomous thinking, which is spontaneous, while the second kind of processing includes algorithmic thinking and reflective thinking.
Reflective thinking focuses on system goals, beliefs related to goals and optimization actions based on current system goals and beliefs. Only at the level of introspection and psychoanalysis can reason participate in it.
The difference between algorithmic thinking and reflective thinking;
(1) All intelligence tests or cognitive ability tests are optimal performance evaluations, while critical thinking and rational thinking are usually evaluated in typical performance situations.
(2) Individual differences in thinking tendency can be measured by reflective psychological operation, including: target management, cognitive values, self-management cognitive theory, etc.
(3) More importantly, the efficiency of algorithmic thinking can be quantitatively evaluated, but the efficiency of rationality cannot be evaluated.
The concept connotation of rationality includes two aspects (the thinking tendency of reflective mind and the efficiency of algorithmic mind), while the concept connotation of intelligence (at least the well-known operation definition) is limited to the efficiency of algorithmic mind, and the thinking tendency is not equal to rational thinking itself.
Rational needs have three different psychological characteristics.
First of all, we need to have the cognitive ability of algorithmic mind to maintain inhibition and simulation activities.
Secondly, reflective thinking must have the following two characteristics:
(1) Initiate the inhibition of secondary reactions produced by autonomous mind;
(2) Start the simulation that produces the optimized response.
Finally, in the process of simulation activities, the mental program needed for rational response calculation can be obtained.
The reason why Bush is stupid is mainly because he only has one of the three characteristics of rational thinking: the cognitive ability at the algorithm level. He lacks two other core factors-the mental program supporting rational behavior and the thinking tendency of reflecting on the mind supporting rational thinking.
Why do smart people often do stupid things? Because the brain has two characteristics that make human beings irrational. One is the defect in information processing, and the other is the defect in content. Let's take a look at them one by one.
Cognitive miser means that when human beings think about problems, the brain is extremely stingy with the allocation and use of cognitive resources. We call it "cognitive miser".
1, complete disjunctive reasoning failed.
People tend to make the simplest (wrong) reasoning based on known information, rather than complete disjunctive reasoning which is slightly complicated but can get the correct answer.
Complete disjunctive reasoning refers to the thinking process of analyzing and selecting all possibilities and their results when making multiple-choice decisions or choosing the best solution to a problem in reasoning tasks.
If we want to do complete disjunctive reasoning, we should avoid giving answers on the basis of surface processing of information.
Let's look at a question:
Many people will blurt out the immediate answer: 0. 1 without thinking carefully about whether this answer is correct or not. Imagine that if the price of the ball is $ 0. 1, then the racket is $ 1 more expensive than the ball, that is, $ 1. 1, and the total price of the ball and racket is $ 1.2 instead of $1. After a little thinking, you can know that the answer of $ 0. 1 is wrong.
2, cognitive miser's usual trick: attribute replacement.
Attribute replacement means that when people need to evaluate attribute A, they find it easier to evaluate attribute B (there is a certain relationship between A and B), so they change it to evaluate attribute B. In the specific situation of real life, the strategy of replacing attribute with excessive probability often leads to serious mistakes.
3. Tools to identify misers: vivid effects.
(1) Cognitive miser is extremely sensitive to the vividness and image of information. For example, most people think that flying is more dangerous than taking a car, because in our minds, the picture of a car accident is not as vivid and real as the scene of a plane crash. But the fact is that the probability of an accident by car is much higher than that by plane.
(2) Cognitive misers like to process unusual information, which often leads them astray.
Many people will think that the risk level of the former disease is higher. But as long as you think about it a little, you will know that the real situation is that the second risk level is higher. Why is this happening? That's because when people read "1286 people died", the picture that comes to mind is definitely more vivid than an abstract percentage figure, and the emotional reaction caused by this picture leads to inaccurate judgment.
4. Three manifestations of cognitive miser:
(1) Heuristic Machining
Heuristic processing can help us save cognitive resources to some extent, but if we rely too much on heuristic processing, we will lose our autonomy. Therefore, in the important decision that determines our life, we should overcome the influence of heuristic processing.
(2) Heuristic anchoring and adjustment
The heuristic method of anchoring and adjustment was discovered by Amos Tworth and Daniel Kahneman. When using this cognitive strategy, we will first anchor a relevant number that is most easily extracted from the brain, and then adjust it according to the known specific information to obtain the desired result.
For example, when we buy things in the mall, we will be influenced by the price tag when bargaining with the salesperson.
(3) Use the default value directly.
Sometimes, people will give different answers to the same question because of the different expressions of the question. This phenomenon is called "framing effect".
Also as a tax reduction policy to stimulate consumption, the use of "tax dividend" can promote people's consumption more than "tax rebate". Because a word "refund" means that the money that once belonged to you is back, and your finances are in a state of "maintaining the status quo". Prospect theory predicts that you are unlikely to spend money under the condition of "maintaining the status quo" But the word "tax interest" means that the money is "additional", that is, it is increased on the basis of the current state. In contrast, people are more willing to spend this "extra money".
Advertisers are fully aware of the importance of the framework. For example, on milk, commercial advertisements will mark "95% skimmed" instead of "containing 5% fat".
People need to learn to think about the same problem from multiple angles, learn to break the framework habitually and reset the framework by themselves.
One of the defects of cognitive miser: the processing of our position information
Because it is a matter of consuming cognitive resources to consider problems from the standpoint of others, people tend to evaluate situations only from the perspective of self.
The processing of our position information will not only damage our ability to objectively evaluate evidence, but also have a negative impact on our ability to present evidence.
Its performance mainly includes:
(1) Overconfidence: People will overestimate the accuracy of their predictions of future events such as sports competition results, behavioral consequences and economic trends.
(2) Planning fallacy: People often underestimate the time required to complete a task (such as completing an excellent paper, completing the tax bill of the year, and completing an infrastructure project).
(3) Spiral cycle: People always think that others are more susceptible to cognitive bias than themselves.
(4) Control illusion: refers to the individual's belief that the results of random events can be controlled through personal ability and efforts. For example, when choosing lottery numbers, people believe that the winning rate of their chosen numbers will be higher than that of the system.
The second defect of cognitive miser: failure after careful consideration
As we mentioned before, the process of human brain activity is composed of type I processing and type II processing, and the main function of type II processing is to inhibit type I processing. But sometimes, failure will be suppressed, so what are the consequences of suppressing failure?
1, failed to suppress emotions.
Tram problem: flip the switch and sacrifice one person to save five people. Most people think it is worthwhile. (Personal problems, involving less personal difficulties)
Overpass problem: Push the stranger down and the other five people will be saved. Most people say they won't do it. (Non-personal issues, involving more personal difficulties)
People generally think that the second scenario is embarrassing and annoying, while the first scenario will not bring unpleasant troubles to people. This shows that people are easily influenced by emotions when making decisions.
2. Conscious thinking is often replaced by unconscious thinking.
For example:
In fact, as long as you know a little bit about probability theory, you can know the winning probability of two packages, A package 10% and B package 8%, but many people still choose to touch the ball from B package.
Why? Because people see more red balls in B bags, it seems that there are more chances to win money. But in fact, there are more white balls in the B bag. This shows that when people know which is the best choice, the preference for absolute quantity trumps the rational rule.
The third defect of cognitive miser: the irrational behavior of "cross-time preference flip"
Lack of ability to evaluate timely rewards and delayed rewards is the root of many people's irrational behavior, which hinders the maximization of goals.
For example:
Why is a week's waiting time important in one situation, but it seems irrelevant in another? It can be explained by double discount curve. Hyperbola is a function of expected income discount rate.
Hyperbolic function can make people overestimate the immediate return and ignore the long-term goal. It will also make people's preferences change over time.
"Mental program" refers to the rules, knowledge, procedures and strategies that individuals can extract from memory to assist decision-making and problem-solving process.
The problem of psychological procedure is an important reason for decision-making mistakes. Sometimes, individuals are not equipped with enough mental programs, that is, mental program defects, such as ignoring substitution assumptions and not being good at seeking to falsify focus assumptions; Sometimes, it is installed with contaminated mental programs, such as believing in astrology and graphology.
The development of probability theory, empiricism concept, logic and scientific thinking in 2 1 century provides conceptual tools for human beings to form beliefs, correct beliefs and reasoning from actions. The rational tools such as probabilistic thinking, logic and scientific reasoning are usually not mastered by many individuals, so they will cause defects in mental programs.
(1) Lack of knowledge of probability theory-ignoring substitution hypothesis
People will find it difficult to find evidence that may overturn the focus hypothesis, and it is also difficult to test this evidence. The reason is that people's natural thinking tendency is to look for evidence of hypothesis, not evidence of falsification.
Therefore, seeking falsifiability is a very useful principle in the process of reasoning.
(2) Beware of the fallacy of probability theory: conditional probability inversion.
Conditional probability inversion means that the probability of a given b is equivalent to that of b, but in fact, they are not the same. In probability evaluation, people should pay more attention to the relationship between subsets and complete sets, and should not make judgments based on similarity evaluation.
(3) Lack of procedural knowledge
Procedural knowledge refers to the strategy and tendency to process information in a specific way. The principle of probabilistic reasoning can be divided into declarative knowledge, and the dimension of ambivalence is the representative of strategic mental program.
Ponzi scheme and pyramid scheme: Why are people cheated? It is because people whose mental programs are polluted begin to think that the economic laws they see around them every day and experience all their lives can be violated.
The rational obstacles caused by contaminated mental programs include astrological prediction, unconscious weight loss, life rhythm, taking vitamin B 17 (a fake anticancer drug), Ponzi scheme, pyramid scheme, psychiatry, out-of-body experience and fire accidents.
Being smarter intellectually does not guarantee not to do stupid things. On the contrary, research shows that polluting mental programs is more attractive to those with higher IQ.
Only when individuals are in a certain knowledge field where most beliefs are correct can they use the existing knowledge structure to help them absorb new knowledge more quickly. However, if the belief subset used by individuals contains a lot of false information, knowledge expectation will delay the absorption of correct information. This is the key to understanding creationism or Holocaust deniers.
Why are people affected by contaminated mental programs?
Most people agree that our beliefs will certainly help to achieve a certain goal. But what if this "purpose" is not what we really want?
Because memes play a role, the belief that memes can spread is not necessarily correct, nor is it necessarily beneficial to communicators. In other words, the beliefs that exist in our minds are not necessarily in the interests of people.
When installing mental programs, avoid installing mental programs that may cause physical harm to you, be wary of mental programs that cannot be falsified, list the costs and benefits before installing mental programs, and install correct mental programs.
1. Irrationality caused by mental program defects is the easiest to be cured, because the reason for this mental defect is the lack of some strategies and declarative knowledge that can be mastered through learning.
2. Learn the knowledge of probability theory and scientific thinking.
3. Test some mental programs with falsifiability principle.
4. A very common behavior strategy-using execution intention. That is, "when x happens, I will do y"
Reason can change people's lives in many ways. Compared with intelligence, rationality is more important in people's important decisions in life. Many times, instead of changing people, it is better to change the environment to stop irrational behavior.