dysrationalia — the iq-rq gap and what to do about it
TRANSCRIPT
Lucius Caviola Stiftung für Effektiven Altruismus www.ea-stiftung.org Dysrationalia
Dysrationalia
The IQ-RQ gap and what to do about it
1
Outline– Introduction– The importance of rationality– The cognitive psychology of rationality– Teaching rationality
2 Stiftung für Effektiven Altruismus Dysrationalia
– “I’m also not very analytical. You know I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about myself, about why I do things.”– US President George W. Bush,
aboard Air Force One, June 4, 2003
– Lack of intellectual engagement, cognitive inflexibility, need for closure, belief perseverance, confirmation bias, overconfidence, insensitivity to inconsistency
– IQ of 120– Cognitive aspects that are not captured by IQ tests
3 Stiftung für Effektiven Altruismus Dysrationalia
What is good thinking?– It is assumed that good thinking = intelligence– Intelligence plays important role in society
– Determines academic and professional careers
– University admissions use proxies for IQ scores (e.g. SAT)
– What is intelligence - psychologically?– What IQ tests measure: cognitive capacity
– Processing speed
– Pattern recognition
– Memory capacity and efficiency
4 Stiftung für Effektiven Altruismus Dysrationalia
What is good thinking?– IQ tests don’t measure rationality as defined
by cognitive scientists– Epistemic rationality: accurate beliefs
– Instrumental rationality: achieving your goal
– Cognitive biases (thinking error)
– Generating alternative hypotheses, goal reflection, hypothetical reasoning, actively open-minded thinking, changing your opinion
5 Stiftung für Effektiven Altruismus Dysrationalia
What is good thinking?– Conceptually and empirically: IQ ≠ RQ– RQ test being developed by Stanovich (2016)– Only weak correlation between IQ and RQ– For some biases no correlation (or even
negative) (Stanovich et al., 2013)
– Dysrationalia: inability to think and behave rationally despite having adequate intelligence (Stanovich & West, 2008; Ross et al., 1977, Krueger, 2000)
6 Stiftung für Effektiven Altruismus Dysrationalia
Why is rationality important?– Personal
– It pays for everyone to be more rational
– Moral– Many people have broadly altruistic goals under reflection
– Irrationality kills– Donating to ineffective charities (e.g. scope insensitivity)
– Exploitation of non-human animals (e.g. speciesism)
– Diminished concern for future generations (e.g. distance bias)
7 Stiftung für Effektiven Altruismus Dysrationalia
Sources of irrationality– Cognitive Miserliness (System 1, System 2)
– e.g. identifiable victim effect
– Mindware Gap– e.g. probabilistic reasoning
– Unhelpful Mindware– e.g. superstitious thinking
8 Stiftung für Effektiven Altruismus Dysrationalia
Rationality can be learned– In comparison to intelligence, rationality can
be learned (Stanovich, 2009)
9 Stiftung für Effektiven Altruismus Dysrationalia
Teaching methods– Knowledge about biases– Debiasing techniques (Larrick et al., 1990)– Acquiring Mindware
10 Stiftung für Effektiven Altruismus Dysrationalia
Knowledge about biases– Framing effects (Cheng & Wu, 2010)
– Hindsight bias (Reimers & Butler, 1992)
– Outcome effect (Clarkson et al., 2002)
– Weak effects for anchoring (George et al., 2000)– No effects for overconfidence (Lipko, et al., 2009)
11 Stiftung für Effektiven Altruismus Dysrationalia
Debiasing techniques– Thinking the opposite (Koriat et al., 1980)
– e.g. considering other causes
– Take the outside view– e.g. planning fallacy (Lovallo & Kahneman, 2003)
– (Self-)nudging– e.g. donation norm (Everett, Caviola, et al., 2015)
12 Stiftung für Effektiven Altruismus Dysrationalia
Teaching Mindware– Knowledge of scientific reasoning– Probabilistic reasoning– Qualitative decision theory insights– Economic reasoning– Rules of logical consistency and validity– Avoiding unhelpful mindware
13 Stiftung für Effektiven Altruismus Dysrationalia
Does rationality make us more altruistic?
– In theory: rationality and goal orthogonal– Economics students are more selfish
(Frank, et al., 1998)
– Open-mindedness to moral arguments– Historic/social: people became more
rational and more altruistic over time(Pinker, 2011)
– Or just better incentives for cooperation?
14 Stiftung für Effektiven Altruismus Dysrationalia
Conclusion– We have important global problems to solve and cannot
afford to make mistakes– Measure, select for, and improve rationality– Rationality improvement as a leverage– Action points:
– More research is needed– Try to improve your own rationality skills– Center for Applied Rationality (rationality.org)
– EAS is working on a policy paper proposing a school subject “Rational Thinking and Ethics”
15 Stiftung für Effektiven Altruismus Dysrationalia
Questions
16 Stiftung für Effektiven Altruismus Dysrationalia
• [email protected]• facebook.com/lucius.caviola
Learn more
17 Stiftung für Effektiven Altruismus Dysrationalia