A few related hypotheses: Rationality is highly correlated intelligence. Intelligence is highly correlated to proneness to boredom (in the range IQ >= 90). Boredom is likely to make you fail at the task at hand. The most reliable ways to get rich are perceived as boring to intelligent people.
It seems to me that boredom occurs when the task at hand is perceived as not leading towards any highly valued goal. Rationality will gladly give you reasons why some of your goals should not be highly valued. For example, I would like to have millions of euros. I have recently seen evidence that people lead happy lives no matter what their circumstances are. I have discovered that nearly anything I think would be great fun costs less than a thousand euros. I am convinced money does not make one more attractive to women. If I was less analytical about these issues, I think I might perceive my goal as having higher value, and working towards it would be less boring.
According to research K.E. Stanovich, this is not the case:
Intelligence tests measure important things, but they do not assess the extent of rational thought. This might not be such a grave omission if intelligence were a strong predictor of rational thinking. But my research group found just the opposite: it is a mild predictor at best, and some rational thinking skills are totally dissociated from intelligence.
A few related hypotheses: Rationality is highly correlated intelligence. Intelligence is highly correlated to proneness to boredom (in the range IQ >= 90). Boredom is likely to make you fail at the task at hand. The most reliable ways to get rich are perceived as boring to intelligent people.
It seems to me that boredom occurs when the task at hand is perceived as not leading towards any highly valued goal. Rationality will gladly give you reasons why some of your goals should not be highly valued. For example, I would like to have millions of euros. I have recently seen evidence that people lead happy lives no matter what their circumstances are. I have discovered that nearly anything I think would be great fun costs less than a thousand euros. I am convinced money does not make one more attractive to women. If I was less analytical about these issues, I think I might perceive my goal as having higher value, and working towards it would be less boring.
According to research K.E. Stanovich, this is not the case:
See http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/stanovich1