This article at Scientific American is interesting:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/a...onal-thought-the-thinking-that-iq-tests-miss/
No doubt you know several folks with perfectly respectable IQs who repeatedly make poor decisions. The behavior of such people tells us that we are missing something important by treating intelligence as if it encompassed all cognitive abilities. I coined the term “dysrationalia” (analogous to “dyslexia”), meaning the inability to think and behave rationally despite having adequate intelligence, to draw attention to a large domain of cognitive life that intelligence tests fail to assess. Although most people recognize that IQ tests do not measure every important mental faculty, we behave as if they do. We have an implicit assumption that intelligence and rationality go together—or else why would we be so surprised when smart people do foolish things?
This explains why many Mensa-level IQs wander the streets of Skid Row, and why some seemingly accomplished professionals exhibit a lack of complete Rational Thought (aka Common Sense). This is to say that despite a high tested IQ score, actual ability to perform Rational Thought is not tested. This is also true of things like creativity, the ability to "read" people by observing their behaviors, many other things.
The Mindware Gap
The second source of dysrationalia is a content problem. We need to acquire specific knowledge to think and act rationally. Harvard cognitive scientist David Perkins coined the term “mindware” to refer to the rules, data, procedures, strategies and other cognitive tools (knowledge of probability, logic and scientific inference) that must be retrieved from memory to think rationally. The absence of this knowledge creates a mindware gap—again, something that is not tested on typical intelligence tests.
Mindware gaps form when people are raised in isolated areas, without accompanying social knowledge gathering. If one has never been exposed to something, they cannot make rational decisions regarding that thing.
It is not irrational to touch a hot stove as a child, just ONCE. The knowledge of "OUCH!" and the sensation of heat has now equipped the child's mind with rational thinking ability regarding stoves. Irrational thinking is having to repeat the OUCH! routine more than once. This indicates a break in the thinking process. If a child believes in Santa Claus and then is told at the right age that he does not exist, the child's life experiences from the first tales of Santa as compared to the older child's perceptions makes the rational thought of there actually being a Santa not likely. An irrational thinker may continue to insist there is a Santa even after being shown proof that he does not exist
I find this fascinating....
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