The Psychology of Stupidity: Explained by Some of the World's Smartest People

Product Information

In a way, words that free themselves from their referents and proper meanings escape the ordinary confines of language. But a word is always a problematic entity: its meaning is open, and can be the object of negotiation between two interlocutors" The danger of reading a book called The Psychology of Stupidity is finding out that you're one of the stupid ones. Ik moest in de eerste instantie wel wennen aan de manier waarop alles geschreven is. Er komen verschillende personen aan het woord, alles onder redactie van Jean-François Marmion, waardoor de bewoording voor mijn gevoel nogal resoluut kon veranderen. De mensen die aan het woord komen in het boek oefenen allemaal andere beroepen uit zoals bijvoorbeeld psychologen, professoren, maar ook journalisten, leraren enzovoort. Dit laat zien dat er met het onderzoek een breed perspectief aangenomen is en het veelzijdig benaderd wordt.

basic laws of human stupidity, according to Cipolla The 5 basic laws of human stupidity, according to Cipolla

I don't think this bunch of essays is essentially on stupidity. Biases (of which there are many) should not be treated as a term synonymous to stupidity. It's perfectly fine to be mistaken about something. We're all humans, after all. Unless Siri/AlphaGo join the chat.We leven in een tijd waarin het meer dan ooit mogelijk is om precies te begrijpen wat er gebeurt, als we tenminste bereid zijn de tijd te nemen om een goed geïnformeerd oordeel te vellen.” Despite being excited to start this one, I ended up being really disappointed with the book, for the reasons mentioned above. Indeed! It was a difficult post to write here, I had to base on the book. But also not try and sound like I think I’m more intelligent than everyone, as I think humility is so important.

The Psychology of Stupidity by Jean-François Marmion

You can actually see this in action across British society, as the gutter press here exploit (to the point of lunacy) any moral loophole to deny all accountability for society’s issues. Our mission is to foster a universal passion for reading by partnering with authors to help create stories and communicate ideas that inform, entertain, and inspire. Also included are: a taxonomy of morons, a lot of interviews with experts on stupidity (huh) and a lot whining about Trump. Generation Z is sure shaping the future! I don’t want to predict how things will go, but with the passing of the older generations it feels like it’ll be a mixture of higher empathy… merged alongside selfies and the need for Likes. Is an asshole who’s aware of his assholery still an asshole? (c) And it goes on and on, droning on that.Written by a few authors, when you put these short essays together and printed it as a book, it felt disjointed. The format thrown me off. So, I suggest you to read each chapter and take notes for it to make sense at the end. Problems arise immediately around this topic, as just to discuss “stupid people” makes you sound like a pompous git with a superiority complex. I absolutely hated it, partly because I can see why some people will love it. And, those people are exactly the ones who should not have their polarised “idiots vs. the rest of us” thinking reinforced in this way.

The Psychology of Stupidity | Penguin Random House Secondary The Psychology of Stupidity | Penguin Random House Secondary

Thanks to their research, we can understand why a stupid client will tell a professional how to do his job, and why when you lose something some moron is bound to say to you, “Wait, where was it the last time you saw it?” It also explains why a fool will feel compelled to say, “It’s easy to be a lawyer, law is top-of-the-head stuff”; “Quitting smoking? It’s just a question of willpower”; “Flying an airplane? It’s like driving a bus”; and so on. This is why when an idiot strolls out of a lecture on quantum physics of which he has not understood a single word, he will feel free to look the expert straight in the eyes and say: “Could be, could be . . .” Acze, B. et. Al. (2015) What is stupid?People’s conception of unintelligent behavior.Intelligence; 53: 51-58.Fiedler, K., & Krueger, J. I. (2012). More than an artifact: Regression as a theoretical construct. In J. I. Krueger (Ed.). Social judgment and decision-making (pp. 171-189). New York, NY: Psychology Press. For the most part, the book seems to be a vanity project for Jean-Francois Marmion, who is the author of around a third of the essays it contains. There’s enough of a veneer of intellectual sophistication in the book that those who want to be uncharitable towards other people’s views will be able to regard it as academic support for caricaturing opponents, rather than engaging with them. In the book, originally published in French and edited by psychologist Jean-François Marmion, we hear from a melange of psychologists, neuroscientists, social scientists and other egg-headed academics. I side with those who say that ignorance is not stupidity. Ignorance is a strong engine of knowledge, provided that you know you’re ignorant, and that you know what you don’t know. But we are unaware of most of the biases that affect our reception of information, and of the propensities that sway our reasoning. The problem, and it’s a serious one, is that even after these biases are exposed, they continue to work. All the more so in situations that are not conducive to doubt. Whereas stupidity, true stupidity, is the hallmark of a frightening intellectual complacency that leaves absolutely no room for doubt."