A major (overlooked) reason why smart people fall for stupid things

September 13, 2024

Photo by Elimende Inagella from Unsplash

Why do smart people fall for stupid things? Here is what I think is an important part of the answer that almost never gets discussed. It's easy to look around at the stupid seeming things that other people believe (e.g., people who join harmful cults, get scammed by a con artist, become vocal evangelists for a placebo treatment, or jump on the hype train of some outrageous new bubble) and wonder: "How on earth can they be so dumb?" The answer, a lot of times, is simply the trust they have...

Describing Your Group Identity

August 18, 2017

A thought experiment about the pros and cons of describing your group identity in different ways: should the person in this example identify as being a member of the group or not? Suppose that the vast majority of people identify themselves as being either part of group Apple, Banana, or Cherry and that these groups are typically viewed as being mutually exclusive (e.g., few people say they are "Apple-Bananas"). Furthermore, suppose that on the issues where Apples, Bananas, and Cherries all ...

Are you a “credentialist” or “non-credentialist”?

July 21, 2017

Are you a "credentialist" or "non-credentialist"? Here's a test I designed so that you can find out. After noticing a number of times that people's feelings about formal credentials can differ dramatically and that this seems to impact their views on certain important topics, I've been working on defining a "credentialist" trait (or attitude). In a nutshell, the non-credentialist/credentialist spectrum, as I'm defining it, captures how important a person thinks formal credentials are, as ...