What Intelligence Tests Miss: The Psychology of Rational Thought
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Last annotated on February 28, 2017
PRead more at location 16
Note: razionalità e intelligenza sono cose separate...iq test misurano solo la seconda persone intelligenti che fanno cose stupide... xchè? razionalità nn significa nemmeno intelligenzs emotiva o intelligenza sociale Edit
"the analysis of human judgment and decision-making by cognitive psychologists."Read more at location 18
the most influential and highly cited studies in all of psychology,Read more at location 21
"Kahneman and Tversky discovered how judgment under uncertainty systematically departsRead more at location 22
Being rational means acting to achieve one's own life goals using the best means possible.Read more at location 23
Every person, on some occasions, overrides the tendency to make these reasoning errorsRead more at location 27
there are systematic differences among individuals in the tendency to make errorsRead more at location 28
My own research group has tried to find out what predicts these individual differences. Read more at location 29
It is a curious fact that none of these critical attributes of human thinking are assessed on IQ testsRead more at location 30
most laypeople are prone to think that IQ tests are tests of, to put it colloquially, good thinking.Read more at location 32
A second, and related, point is that when people use the term intelligence (again, laypersons and psychologists alike), they often talk as if the concept of intelligence encompassed rationality.Read more at location 34
If by smart we mean IQ-test smart and by dumb we mean poor decision making, then the source of the phenomenon is clear.Read more at location 38
Rational thinking skills of the type studied by Kahneman and Tversky show only small-to-medium correlations with intelligence test performance-not surprisingly,Read more at location 41
Intelligence tests are thus radically incomplete as measures of cognitive functioning.Read more at location 47
We do not need to stretch to noncognitive domains - to notions such as emotional intelligence or social intelligence-to see important lacunaeRead more at location 49
emotion, creativity, aesthetic sensibility, interpersonal skills)Read more at location 51
ORead more at location 77
Note: non c è da sorprendersi se l iq di bush è pati a quello di kerry dysrationalia: incapacità di pensare nonostante l intelligenza iq cosa misura: la capacità di manipolare informazioni fornite in modo chiaro asettico assieme agli obiettivi da xseguire. non misura la capacità di valutare le informazooni ricevute o di fissare obiettivi razionali i dati del problema forniti dall esaminatore vengono da fonte certa non richiedono valutazione. la domanda finale posta dall esaminatore fissa già un obiettivo certo non ci viene richiesto di fissarne uno congruo x conto nostro... insomma la logica deduttiva predomina su quella induttiva nel valutare l intelligenza. ma x la razionalità tutto ciò non vale. esempio: l economista postula l esistenza di funzioni di utilità come se cadessero dall alto come se noi nascesimo con gli obiettivi incorporati ma una delle cose più importanti nella vita è proprio saper costruire o scoprire le ns funzioni di utilità ovvero le ns priorità e i ns obiettivi sia chiaro: l intelligenza è importantissima anche nella vita reale... specie in quest epoca 1@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ Edit
or years, there have been debates about George W. Bush's intelligence. His many opponents never seem to tire of pointing out his mental shortcomings.Read more at location 79
used as evidence by his opponents to argue that this is a man of truly inferior intelligence.Read more at location 81
a surprise when scores on various college placement exams and Armed ForcesRead more at location 83
The president's score was approximately 120-roughly the same as that of Bush's opponent in the 2004 presidential election, John Kerry,Read more at location 83
The mistake they make is assuming that all intellectual deficiencies are reflected in a lower IQ score. Read more at location 87
"he is impatient and quick to anger; sometimes glib, even dogmatic; often uncurious and as a result ill-informed"Read more at location 88
"has neither the inclination nor the ability to make sophisticated judgmentsRead more at location 89
considerable agreement that President Bush's thinking has several problematic aspects:Read more at location 90
lack of intellectual engagement, cognitive inflexibility, need for closure, belief perseverance, confirmation bias, overconfidence, and insensitivity to inconsistency.Read more at location 90
His cognitive deficiencies instead are the causes of "dysrationalia"Read more at location 94
I define dysrationalia as the inability to think and behave rationally despite having adequate intelligence.Read more at location 95
we have come to overvalue the kinds of thinking skills that IQ tests measureRead more at location 97
undervalue other critically important cognitive skills, such as the ability to think rationally. Read more at location 98
To think rationally means adopting appropriate goals, taking the appropriate action given one's goals and beliefs, and holding beliefs that are commensurate with available evidence.Read more at location 99
do not assess at all whether a person has the tendency to develop goals that are rationalRead more at location 101
IQ tests are good measures of how well a person can hold beliefs in short-term memory and manipulate those beliefs,Read more at location 102
do not assess at all whether a person has the tendency to form beliefs rationally when presented with evidence.Read more at location 102
IQ tests are good measures of how efficiently a person processes information that has been provided, but they do not at all assess whether the person is a critical assessor of information as it is gathered in the natural environment. Read more at location 103
It is ludicrous for society to be so fixated on assessing intelligence and to virtually ignore rationalityRead more at location 113
I have discovered that there is enormous resistance to the idea of giving full value to mental abilitiesRead more at location 114
would you want someone with an IQ of 92 doing surgery?"Read more at location 116
I also would not want someone with a rationality quotient (RQ) of 93 serving on the judicial bench, someone with an RQ of 91 heading a legislature, someone with an RQ of 76 investing my retirement funds, someone with an RQ of 94 marketing the home I am selling, or a guidance counselor with an RQ of 83 advising the children in my school district. Read more at location 116
there is now enough knowledge available so that we could, in theory, begin to assess rationality as systematically as we do IQ.Read more at location 121
cognitive scientists have developed laboratory tasks and real-life performance indicators to measure rational thinking tendencies such as sensible goal prioritization, reflectivity, and the proper calibration of evidence. Read more at location 126
some people can have very high IQs but be remarkably weak when it comes to the ability to think rationally. Read more at location 128
the reader probably expects me to reveal that this book is about the importance of the emotionsRead more at location 129
many readers might well expect me to say that IQ tests do not measure anything important,Read more at location 131
critiques of intelligence tests often contain the unstated assumption that although intelligence tests miss certain key noncognitive areas, they encompass most of what is important cognitively.Read more at location 136
IQ tests measure something that is cognitively real and that does relate to real life. Read more at location 142
Bush's supporters like his actions but admit that he has "street smarts," or common sense, rather than "school smarts." Assuming his "school smarts" to be low,Read more at location 152
Dysrationalia is the inability to think and behave rationally despite having adequate intelligence.Read more at location 161
TWO Read more at location 166
Note: paulos e la borsa: intelligentoni che fanno cose stupide david denby, altro fenomeno che si butta in borsa 2@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@ Edit
ohn Allen Paulos is a smart man. He is a professor of mathematics at Temple University and the author of several popular books, including the best-selling Innumeracy. On any existing intelligence test, Professor Paulos would score extremely high.Read more at location 168
Nevertheless, Paulos did a very stupid thing-in fact, a whole sequence of stupid things. The sequence began with a single action that, itself, may or may not have been stupid: Professor Paulos bought the stock of WorldCom at $47 per share in early 2000. Whether or not that act was wise, the act of buying even more of the stock when it had fallen to $30 later in the yearRead more at location 169
Paulos admits that he "searched for the good news, angles, and analyses about the stockRead more at location 172
His purchases became even less rational later in October 2000, when the stock was at $2o and he continued to buyRead more at location 173
Paulos concealed from his wife that he had been buying stock on marginRead more at location 176
Paulos began e-mailing the CEO of WorldCom in a desperate attempt to gain controlRead more at location 177
Professor Paulos could not stand to be out of contact with the stock's price for even an hour.Read more at location 178
Paulos meditates on the mental states that led him to violate every principle of sound investing (diversification, etc.).Read more at location 183
Denby is also a very intelligent man. He is a staff writer and film critic for The New YorkerRead more at location 185
He lived in a valuable New York apartment and wanted to continue to own it after his divorce. That meant buying out his ex-wife. Except that the numbers didn't add up.Read more at location 186
Denby decided that he would try to make $i million in the stock market in the year 2000.Read more at location 188
That makes sense, doesn't it? Exactly the sort of thing for any reasonable fellow to do, right? Read more at location 188
Denby tells us how, in late 1999 and early 2000 he liquidated all of his conservative investment vehicles (index stock funds, bonds, insurance policies) and invested in technology funds and dot-com stocks. His entire 4o1(k) accumulation was rolled over into a fund that invested in nothing but volatile NASDAQ companies. All this took place in late 1999 and early 2000, remember (the NASDAQ peaked at over 5000 in March 2000-in May 2004 it was trading under 2000, and in May 2007 it was still under 3000).Read more at location 189
"I was ignorant. I understood only the most rudimentary things about the stock market;Read more at location 192
he admitted that he heard, but ignored, very clear warnings even from market enthusiastsRead more at location 195
he clearly processed, but willfully ignored, the warning of one investment specialistRead more at location 196
Neither verbal cognitive ability (Denby) nor quantitative cognitive ability (Paulos) in large amounts seemed to have helped much here.Read more at location 199
We are astounded that there are highly trained scientists who are creationists. We cannot figure out why an educated professional would ignore proven medical treatment and instead go to Mexico for a quack therapy. We are puzzled when we hear that some Holocaust deniers are university professors with degrees in history. When our neighbors, who are high school teachers, ask us to become involved in a pyramid sales scheme, we are flabbergasted. In short, we find it paradoxical when smart people believe preposterous things and take disastrous actions. Read more at location 200
-flaws that are fostered by the confusing ways that psychologists themselves speak about concepts such as intelligence. Read more at location 205
Robert Sternberg once edited a book titled Why Smart People Can Be So Stupid,Read more at location 206
A typical dictionary definition of the adjectival form of the word smart is "characterized by sharp quick thought; bright" or "having or showing quick intelligence or ready mental capacity."Read more at location 207
a stupid person is "slow to learn or understand; lacking or marked by lack of intelligence."Read more at location 209
by the law of contradiction, someone cannot be intelligent and not intelligent,Read more at location 210
Harvard cognitive scientist David Perkins likewise prefers the term follyRead more at location 216
intelligence define it, at least in part, as the ability to adapt to one's environment.'Read more at location 221
If we are concerned with cases where intelligent people make foolish decisionsRead more at location 222
Broad theories include aspects of functioning that are captured by the vernacular term intelligence (adaptation to the environment, showing wisdom and creativity, etc.),Read more at location 225
performance on established tests and cognitive ability indicators.Read more at location 228
the theory of fluid and crystallized intelligence (symbolized Gf/Gc theory),Read more at location 230
Fluid intelligence (Gf) reflects reasoning abilities operating across of a variety of domains-inRead more at location 231
measured by tasks of abstract reasoning such as figural analogies, Raven Matrices, and series completionRead more at location 232
Crystallized intelligence (Gc) reflects declarative knowledge acquired from acculturated learning experiences. It is measured by vocabulary tasks, verbal comprehension, and general knowledge measures.Read more at location 233
intelligence-as-process (Gf) and intelligence-as-knowledge (Gc). Read more at location 234
adaptation to the environment, real-life decision making, showing wisdom and creativity, etc.Read more at location 238
Under the broad view, smart people who continually act foolishly are simply not as smart as we thought they were. Read more at location 246
some psychologists have encouraged this folk psychological tendency by adopting broad definitions of intelligenceRead more at location 255
Adaptive behavioral acts, judicious decision making, efficient behavioral regulation, sensible goal prioritization, reflectivity, the proper calibration of evidence-all of the characteristics that are lacking when we call an action foolish, dumb, or stupid-are precisely the characteristics that cognitive scientists study when they study rational thought. Read more at location 263
Cognitive scientists recognize two types of rationality: instrumental and epistemic. The simplest definition of instrumental rationality-the one that emphasizes most that it is grounded in the practical world-is: Behaving in the world so that you get exactly what you most want, given the resources (physical and mental) available to you.Read more at location 268
The other aspect of rationality studied by cognitive scientists is termed epistemic rationality. This aspect of rationality concerns how well beliefs map onto the actual structure of the world.'Read more at location 274
We can see the discrepancy notion at work in, for example, the diagnostic criterion for developmental reading disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders IV (DSM IV) of the American Psychiatric Association. The criterion for reading disorder is: "Reading achievement that falls substantially below that expected given the individual's chronological age, measured intelligence, and age-appropriate education"Read more at location 285
So, similarly, the diagnostic criterion for mathematics disorder (sometimes termed dyscalculia) in DSM IV is that "Mathematical ability that falls substantially below that expected for the individual's chronological age, measured intelligence, and age-appropriate education" (p. 50)-Read more at location 290
Dysrationalia is the inability to think and behave rationally despite adequate intelligence. It is a general term that refers to a heterogeneous group of disorders manifested by significant difficulties in belief formation, in the assessment of belief consistency, and/or in the determination of action to achieve one's goals.Read more at location 293
Dysrationalia is my intuition pump to help people see that rationality and intelligence are two different things,Read more at location 300
IQ tests do not encompass all of the important mental faculties.Read more at location 302
I still contend that most of the time most people forget this fact.Read more at location 303
