Well, OK, but still: over whichever period you have in mind, does it seem to you that people are becoming less and less critical, or that they haven’t become steadily less critical?
Regardless, I would agree that some common thinking errors are cultural.
Over the last 1000 years: varying criticalness
Over the last 20-30 years or so: less and less critical
Has there been some research on culturalness of thinking errors? I thought the claim was that these thinking errors are hardwired in the brain, hence timeless and uncultural.
Has there been some research on culturalness of thinking errors?
That would be a part of the whole Nature vs. Nurture debate, wouldn’t it? I think it would be very hard to prove that any given thinking error is biologically hardwired (as opposed to culturally); and even if a bias is biologically hard-wired, an opposing cultural bias might be able to counter that.
Many people are largely exposed to only a single culture; widespread, pervasive errors in that culture would, I expect, be indistinguishable from hardwired biases.
Well, OK, but still: over whichever period you have in mind, does it seem to you that people are becoming less and less critical, or that they haven’t become steadily less critical?
Regardless, I would agree that some common thinking errors are cultural.
Over the last 1000 years: varying criticalness Over the last 20-30 years or so: less and less critical
Has there been some research on culturalness of thinking errors? I thought the claim was that these thinking errors are hardwired in the brain, hence timeless and uncultural.
That would be a part of the whole Nature vs. Nurture debate, wouldn’t it? I think it would be very hard to prove that any given thinking error is biologically hardwired (as opposed to culturally); and even if a bias is biologically hard-wired, an opposing cultural bias might be able to counter that.
Many people are largely exposed to only a single culture; widespread, pervasive errors in that culture would, I expect, be indistinguishable from hardwired biases.