Treating “rationality” as a qualitative trait, so that people are simply either rational or irrational,
That is not what “qualitative” means. The word you want is “binary.”
To be more specific, what I am highly skeptical of is people with IQ within a standard deviation or two of the mean being capable of updating their beliefs in a way noticeably saner than baseline or acting noticeably more strategic than baseline. “Noticeable” means, for example, that if you hired a group of such people for similar jobs and looked at their performance reviews after a year you’d be able to guess, with a reasonable level of accuracy, which ones did or did not have rationality training.
That is not what “qualitative” means. The word you want is “binary.”
I’m fairly sure I used “qualitative” with a standard meaning. Namely, as an adjective indicating “descriptions or distinctions based on some quality rather than on some quantity”, a quality being a discrete feature that distinguishes one thing from another by its presence or absence (as opposed to its degree or extent). Granted, it would’ve been better to use the word “binary”; substitute that word and I think my point stands.
To be more specific, what I am highly skeptical of is people with IQ within a standard deviation or two of the mean being capable of [...]
Thanks for elaborating. That (and this subthread) clarify where you’re coming from. I think we agree that someone one or two SDs below the mean would be hard to mould into a noticeably saner or more strategic person. The lingering bit of disagreement is for people that far above the mean, with IQs of 120-125, say.
“Noticeable” means, for example, that if you hired a group of such people for similar jobs and looked at their performance reviews after a year you’d be able to guess, with a reasonable level of accuracy, which ones did or did not have rationality training.
While I wouldn’t expect to see such a stark effect of rationality training for people with IQs of 120-125, I doubt I’d see it for people with even higher IQs, either. If one randomly assigns half of a sample of workers to undergo intervention X, and X raises job performance by (e.g.) a standard deviation, job performance is still a pretty imperfect predictor of which workers experienced X. (And that’s assuming job performance can be observed without noise!) So I predict rationality training wouldn’t have an effect that’s “noticeable” in the sense you operationalize it here, even if it successfully boosted job performance among people with IQs of 120-125.
That is not what “qualitative” means. The word you want is “binary.”
To be more specific, what I am highly skeptical of is people with IQ within a standard deviation or two of the mean being capable of updating their beliefs in a way noticeably saner than baseline or acting noticeably more strategic than baseline. “Noticeable” means, for example, that if you hired a group of such people for similar jobs and looked at their performance reviews after a year you’d be able to guess, with a reasonable level of accuracy, which ones did or did not have rationality training.
I’m fairly sure I used “qualitative” with a standard meaning. Namely, as an adjective indicating “descriptions or distinctions based on some quality rather than on some quantity”, a quality being a discrete feature that distinguishes one thing from another by its presence or absence (as opposed to its degree or extent). Granted, it would’ve been better to use the word “binary”; substitute that word and I think my point stands.
Thanks for elaborating. That (and this subthread) clarify where you’re coming from. I think we agree that someone one or two SDs below the mean would be hard to mould into a noticeably saner or more strategic person. The lingering bit of disagreement is for people that far above the mean, with IQs of 120-125, say.
While I wouldn’t expect to see such a stark effect of rationality training for people with IQs of 120-125, I doubt I’d see it for people with even higher IQs, either. If one randomly assigns half of a sample of workers to undergo intervention X, and X raises job performance by (e.g.) a standard deviation, job performance is still a pretty imperfect predictor of which workers experienced X. (And that’s assuming job performance can be observed without noise!) So I predict rationality training wouldn’t have an effect that’s “noticeable” in the sense you operationalize it here, even if it successfully boosted job performance among people with IQs of 120-125.