Even intelligent people can be silly sometimes, but if you do these 12 things, you might have issues with rational thought.
Following the crowd
If you have to watch everyone else react to a movie before you decide if it was good or read everyone’s thoughts on a joke before deciding if it was funny, you rely too heavily on herd mentality.
Weak-minded people outsource their decision-making process to everyone else. Research in social psychology has found that extreme levels of conformity are usually attached to lower abilities of reasoning independently. And for these people, thinking for themselves is mentally exhausting.
Anecdotes over facts
Mocking large scale facts or scientific research because of one example that had the opposite results (“seat belts aren’t useful, my buddy proved it by surviving without one.”) is an obvious lack of understanding simple probability.
Cognitive psychologists refer to this process as relying on easily accessible memories over concrete facts.
Critical thought involves understanding one person’s situation with only one anecdote. Weak minds focus too heavily on anecdotes because creating narratives around large quantities of numerical data is boring and mentally laborious.
Moral absolutism
Low effort thinkers will argue over basic tastes like phone companies, whether or not you eat meat, or what shoes you wear as if it’s a black-and-white moral issue.
What neuroscientists have observed is that a failure to perceive subtle differences prompts the brain to compensate by applying overarching black-and-white frameworks to simplify life.
This is why low effort thinkers can’t understand how you can both like different things without one being wrong and evil.
Certainty bias
One of the biggest indicators that someone has a low capacity for nuance is that they have zero uncertainty in their everyday speech.
If someone routinely says words like “always,” “never,” or “definitely,” they are likely terrible with variables and nuance because they struggle with probabilities.
According to research on mindfulness, individuals scoring lower on emotional intelligence tend to be overly confident, largely because they’re not conscious of their own unknowing.
Premature responses
It’s never just rude to interrupt someone while they’re speaking. It also shows that you have a poor working memory.
Chronic interrupters aren’t listening to what you’re saying; they’re just waiting for a chance to say their one big idea that they think of before you beat them to it. Standard memory tests verify this.
People who are terrible listeners tend to have a low information processing capacity when it comes to taking in new information while formulating a response. Their brain just can’t do both at once.
Rejecting new ideas
If someone tells you about something strange they learned, do you ask questions or do you get angry or laugh?
Sudden anger acts as a protective shield against having to think through something difficult. Research into Psychology explains that smarter people can entertain an idea without trying to violently tear it apart, while less-flexible people immediately react emotionally and reject it.
It takes far less effort for a broken mind to explode in rage than to comprehend new information.
Seeing intentions everywhere
It’s illogical to feel personally attacked by little things that happen throughout your day. When you do, it’s called hostile attribution bias. People who suck at logic often attribute coincidence to conspiracy.
Experts suggest that not being able to tell the difference between innocent and malicious motives marks underdeveloped reasoning abilities.
Remember, it takes far less energy to see enemies everywhere than it does to accept that random things can roll both ways.
Sunk cost thinking
Continuing a bad movie, unpleasant food, or dull book just because you paid for it reveals faulty reasoning.
Proper processing allows individuals to forget about the lost expenditures and deal with what is currently logical.
Economists have found that individuals who suffer from continuation bias have a difficult time visualizing future scenarios. They spend more time and money that they could be spending elsewhere just trying to validate their prior decision.
Hiding behind jargon
If you have to resort to buzzwords, overly complicated jargon or meaningless phrases to have a simple conversation, you probably have nothing intelligent to say.
If you cannot describe something you talk about in simple terms that anyone can understand, you did not learn the concept. You just memorized terms and proved you have no clue how it operates.
Experts who delve into learning methodologies widely accept that failing to simplify challenging notions indicates a lack of genuine grasp.
Struggling with hypotheticals
Some people respond to hypothetical questions by adamantly replying with statements like “but that didn’t happen” or “that’s not real life.” And they’re missing the crucial element: to even consider a “what if,” you have to create a fabricated situation in your mind to put the idea to the test.
Research has demonstrated that if someone has a hard time dealing with hypothetical situations they are directly limited in the areas of abstract thought and fluid intelligence.
If a mind is confined to its present physical reality, future planning and problem-solving become impossible.
Source bias
Your coworker has an idea for how to do something differently. You don’t like that coworker, so you instantly think that their idea is stupid. Your boss suggests the same idea a few days later, and you think it’s a great idea.
The idea stayed the same. Your opinion of the messenger changed.
Weak minds base their attraction to or repulsion from an argument on nothing more than superficial chemistry or authority. Neurologically speaking, it takes significant effort for our brains to exercise logic.
Repeating mistakes
Say you have someone who continually sends an email to the wrong person. Despite multiple reminders to verify the email address, they send it. They apologize after they realize their mistake and do it again tomorrow.
The issue isn’t that they messed up. We all do that.
One mistake is understandable. But doing the same action over and over without pausing to rethink your strategy? Now that can be an indication you’re lost in thought, on autopilot, or just not paying attention.
Sources: Please see here for a complete listing of all sources that were consulted in the preparation of this article.
Like our content? Be sure to follow us.
