[rauljara]

My intro to psychology classes was one of the most valuable classes I ever took, just with the way it systematically shattered my own notion of how much I could trust my own notions of perception and thought to be a rational and accurate reflection of reality. I definitely had a notion of how irrational “people” could be before that, but of course I somehow thought I was above all that.

[paytonjjones]

This is a common takeaway from Intro to Psychology but unfortunately it's just...not very true to life (or to psychological science).

It's a fault of us psychologists. The most interesting studies are those that are surprising, so that's what psychology classes are packed with. But we should know better, because that's just selection bias in action. Historically, this has led to intro courses consisting of 50%+ irreproducible studies.

But even after the reproducibility crisis cleanup, the selection bias still remains in place. There aren't a ton of fun studies about the typical accuracy of perception or how humans are often quite thinking and rational.

[jona-f]

Thank you, we need more of you. Though, I don't think we will ever be "after the reproducibility crisis cleanup".

[lo_zamoyski]

Human beings are rational animals as such, but our exercise of that rationality can be quite weak and subject to character flaws and bad habits, and requires cultivation to refine, purify, and actualize.

Of course, we also must be careful here because you're using your own faculties to judge the content of the psychology class (as were the psychologists who produces the content you were learning). Skepticism falls into special pleading, because in order to take a skeptical stance toward the human intellect as such, one must somehow transcend the human intellect to be able to make those sorts of judgements [0].

I would also not say that we are inherently and constitutionally irrational. I would say rather - to use the old cliche - that the intellect's facility is like a muscle that needs to develop, to grow, and to be conditioned to become strong. I would also say that some have greater capacity and potential on constitutional grounds.

Furthermore, the cultivation of virtue is essential, as errors of reasoning are shaped by our vices and not just cognitive limitations or whatever. Indeed, the more intellectual power someone has, the more essential virtue becomes, lest the intellect destroy itself with rationalizations and abuse [1].

[0] Of course, what constitutes correct reasoning is a teleological matter. Otherwise, there is no reason to favor one conclusion over another or any conclusion at all.

[1] A coward of high intelligence will the rationalize powerful. In Chomsky's view, for instance, the overwhelming majority of intellectuals have historically acted as servants of power, rationalizing the status quo, and manufacturing consent. Or as Adam Zamoyski said pithily when discussion Napoleon's relationship with French intelligentsia, intellectuals are mostly tarts for power.

[mghackerlady]

I personally think of humans as some kind of rational machine. We get input from our thoughts, knowledge, and the world around us and generally get whatever the most rational outcome is. The problem with this is that our input is limited to what we know, our general thoughts, and the world around us

[jamilton]

Hm, I think there’s more to it than that. It is often the case that someone will do something and regret it without having necessarily gained any new information, which is in a sense irrational, right? If you didn’t gain information, you could have known to just not done it to begin with. Something about experiences, perhaps?

[mghackerlady]

I feel like regret would be an input to any decision as well. If you regretted doing something similar in the past, would that not be a reason someone would choose not to do something?

[lstodd]

Good question would be: is it rational to act on known-to-be-incomplete data? Is it rational to rely on assumptions?

What readily follows is the question: is it even possible to be rational, or is it a delusion?

[weregiraffe]

>In Chomsky's view, for instance, the overwhelming majority of intellectuals have historically acted as servants of power, rationalizing the status quo, and manufacturing consent.

Why Would You Say Something So Controversial Yet So Brave? dot gif

[renox]

> Human beings are rational animals as such

Really? Explain the success of advertising, superstitions (including religion) then.

[steezeburger]

This is why my favorite book is Thinking, Fast & Slow. It blew my mind and totally made me think about almost everything differently.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinking,_Fast_and_Slow

[_jayhack_]

The content on "priming" (significant pillar of the book) has collapsed as part of the reproducibility crisis in psychology. More here: https://replicationindex.com/2017/02/02/reconstruction-of-a-...

[tsunamifury]

As someone who used priming heavily at Google, and its wide use in social networks to billions in revenue. I’m gonna go with the academics trying to take this down are BS.

Adam Curtis even suggests lightly that the takedown of priming in academia was paid for to bury its actual effectiveness (and liability by implication)

[ithkuil]

The reproducibility crisis reproducibility crisis?

[tsunamifury]

It’s a paid research outcomes crisis as the root

[metalspot]

priming obviously works. it is inherent in the physical structure of the brain. nerve endings from various all over the body terminate in different physical locations in the brain, and then these are interlinked in an adaptive biological mesh network. nerve responses are triggered by cascades of correlated impulses across different nerve endings, so at a physical level a strongly correlated signal from any two major nerve groups will trigger a sympathetic response when one of them fires independently. the experiments that social scientists come up with may be flawed, but this is definitely how my brain works, so i don't need a study to prove it.

[tsunamifury]

Right it’s like saying hammers don’t work because at the quantum level we haven’t proven matters core structure.

Who cares the hammer still works.

[chairmansteve]

Yes, there is a sort of blindness in science. The idea that if something hasn't been proven it's not true.

[weregiraffe]

>trust my own notions of perception and thought to be a rational and accurate reflection of reality.

But why are you trusting the psychology class? Do you believe it was made by special people with rational and accurate perception of reality?

[FergusArgyll]

Yet prediction markets are incredibly accurate. It seems that with money on the line, humanity (at least as a whole) are ultra-rational