Why do you think that the fundamental attribution error is a good point where to start someone’s introduction in rational thinking? There seems to be a clear case of the Valley of bad rationality here. Fundamental attribution is a powerful psychological tool. It allows us to take personal responsibility for our successes while blaming the environment for our failures. Now assume that this tool is taken away from a person, leaving all his/her other beliefs intact. How exactly would this improve his/her life?
I also don’t get why thinking that “the rude driver probably has his reasons too, so I should excuse him” is a psychologically good strategy, even assuming it is morally right.
About map vs. reality. Not sure why it has to be put together with FAE, as it’s a much more general topic. And your explanation is not the the first one I’ve seen about this topic that leaves a big “so what?” question hanging in the air. At the face value, it seems to say that “people often confuse the idea of an apple with an apple in their hand”. Now clerarly that is not the case for anyone, perhaps except the most die-hard Platonists. Even if it would be so, why should the aspiring rationalist care?
I think negative examples would be really strong here. Teaching about the perils of magical thinking and wishful thinking would be a good start. Only after giving a few compelling concrete examples it makes sense to generalize and speak at a more abstract level. It also seems that many aspiring rationalists / high IQ persons are especially vulnerable to the trap of building elaborate mental models of something, and then failing to empirically test them by experiencing the raw reality.
Apologize for being unclear: this post is one in a series of posts, not the first, so it’s not an introduction to rational thinking. Here is the blog post that we already published that introduces people to the idea of agency as a key overarching framework, and here is another blog post that does the same with System 1 and 2. These are the introductory blog posts, and now we are doing some further elaboration on rational thinking.
Regarding the specific case of the FAE, I presented on this bias to my students (I’m a college professor at Ohio State), for example in this video and had nice feedback. One wrote in an anonymous form that “With relation to the fundamental attribution error, it can give me a chance to keep a more open mind. Which will help me to relate to others more, and view a different view of the “map” in my head.” My experiences presenting to students informs this blog post. However, I will keep in mind what you said about the valley of bad rationality, that’s a good point—I’ll run the article by some beginner rationalists and see what they think about the issue.
Can you clarify your point about negative examples, I’m not quite clear on what you mean.
Thanks a lot for the constructive criticism, really helpful!
Why do you think that the fundamental attribution error is a good point where to start someone’s introduction in rational thinking? There seems to be a clear case of the Valley of bad rationality here. Fundamental attribution is a powerful psychological tool. It allows us to take personal responsibility for our successes while blaming the environment for our failures. Now assume that this tool is taken away from a person, leaving all his/her other beliefs intact. How exactly would this improve his/her life?
I also don’t get why thinking that “the rude driver probably has his reasons too, so I should excuse him” is a psychologically good strategy, even assuming it is morally right.
About map vs. reality. Not sure why it has to be put together with FAE, as it’s a much more general topic. And your explanation is not the the first one I’ve seen about this topic that leaves a big “so what?” question hanging in the air. At the face value, it seems to say that “people often confuse the idea of an apple with an apple in their hand”. Now clerarly that is not the case for anyone, perhaps except the most die-hard Platonists. Even if it would be so, why should the aspiring rationalist care?
I think negative examples would be really strong here. Teaching about the perils of magical thinking and wishful thinking would be a good start. Only after giving a few compelling concrete examples it makes sense to generalize and speak at a more abstract level. It also seems that many aspiring rationalists / high IQ persons are especially vulnerable to the trap of building elaborate mental models of something, and then failing to empirically test them by experiencing the raw reality.
Apologize for being unclear: this post is one in a series of posts, not the first, so it’s not an introduction to rational thinking. Here is the blog post that we already published that introduces people to the idea of agency as a key overarching framework, and here is another blog post that does the same with System 1 and 2. These are the introductory blog posts, and now we are doing some further elaboration on rational thinking.
Regarding the specific case of the FAE, I presented on this bias to my students (I’m a college professor at Ohio State), for example in this video and had nice feedback. One wrote in an anonymous form that “With relation to the fundamental attribution error, it can give me a chance to keep a more open mind. Which will help me to relate to others more, and view a different view of the “map” in my head.” My experiences presenting to students informs this blog post. However, I will keep in mind what you said about the valley of bad rationality, that’s a good point—I’ll run the article by some beginner rationalists and see what they think about the issue.
Can you clarify your point about negative examples, I’m not quite clear on what you mean.
Thanks a lot for the constructive criticism, really helpful!