The Intelligence Trap: Revolutionise your Thinking and Make Wiser Decisions

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It’s difficult to define who’s the most intelligent because we can’t put numbers on intelligence. We can’t say that Elon Musk is more intelligent than Magnus Carlson by a certain number of points, but we can say that Magnus Carlson will win against Elon Musk at chess by a certain margin. To become better decision-makers we must be willing to challenge our assumptions and beliefs, seek out diverse perspectives and information and engage in critical thinking / reflection. He then presents a number of ways that you might go about tripping yourself up so as not to fall into the intelligence trap. Mostly, these are things from the books I’ve mentioned earlier – well, and also mostly Thinking: Fast and Slow. Smart people are not only just as prone to making mistakes as everyone else, they may be even more susceptible to them. This is the "intelligence trap," the subject of David Robson’s fascinating and provocative book.

I bought it because of the intriguing title (and it was on promotion!). As someone who was a part of the Malaysian National Gifted Center (and apparently, one of the brightest students there), this book hit me close to home, particularly Part 1 of the book - The downsides of intelligence: How a high IQ, education and expertise can fuel stupidity. The solution is to use the PMI technique to improve your thinking. The PMI technique is a thinking technique to find the Plus Points, Minus Points, and Interesting Points about the issue before you form an opinion. This may be true for many people with vaguer, less well-defined beliefs, but there are some particular elements of Conan Doyle’s biography that suggest his behavior can’t be explained quite so simply. Often, it seemed as if he was using analytical reasoning from system 2 to rationalize his opinions and dismiss the evidence. Rather than thinking too little, he was thinking too much. This is a good book describing the most common mistakes and biases in our decision making progress. Author focuses on highly intelligent people, but I think similar mistakes are committed by average Joe. Most presented studie results can be probably extrapolated to the general population.

Step 3. Consider the Interesting Points of the Situation.

We can improve our rational thinking skills by practicing techniques such as mindfulness and meditation. Attentional control is important to focus our attention on the task at hand and avoid distractions. The Intelligence Trap by David Robson is a great read that sheds light on many cognitive biases we all have; David shares some great strategies for identifying them and some insights on working on them. It is not what we know that gets us into trouble; it is what we think we know for sure that ain’t so. The author gives various examples of how brilliant people make seemingly stupid mistakes.

Of course, intuitive or instinctive decision-making can be good in some situations, such as figuring out whether to marry someone or to date them. There is an evolutionary reason so many of us rely on “gut feeling” decisions — they probably served our ancestors well enough for thousands of years. Motivated Reasoning Rather than positive or negative, they are simply points of interest that you should direct your attention to. Step 4. Make Your Decision With further development, the rationality quotient could be used in recruitment to assess the quality of a potential employee’s decision making; Stanovich told me that he has already had significant interest from law firms, financial institutions, and executive head­hunters.Self Distance yourself: Self-distancing (or “self-perspective-taking”) is a powerful tool for overcoming motivated reasoning. It simply involves putting yourself in someone else’s shoes and imagining how you would feel and think if your situation, beliefs, and values were different than they are now. The Curse of Expertise David Robson agrees that IQ tests do reflect something very important about the ability to learn and process complex information, an ability particularly useful in academia and several professions. He moves on to discuss other qualities important for success in life. Such qualities include Sternberg's descriptions of analytical, creative and practical abilities. And maybe the most important thing the PMI does, is it actively helps me avoid the Intelligence Trap.

This same polarization can be seen on many other charged issues, such as stem cell research or evolution and creationism, with more educated individuals applying their brainpower to protect their existing opinions, even when they disagree with the scientific consensus. It could also be observed in beliefs about certain political conspiracy theories. When it comes to certain tightly held beliefs, higher intelligence and knowledge is a tool for propaganda rather than truth seeking, amplifying our errors. The structure of the book has some interesting shots at the IQ test, which was used in WWI & WWII to separate the soldiers and thinkers. This has always been a severely flawed device and to judge someone's intellect on this series of questions is crazy to say the least. I feel the book raises more questions than it has answers for and that is why I have lowered my rating. It is interesting, but on the other hand it loses purpose as it closes. I will be reading and rereading this again. As a professional who holds a leadership position, this read was a must for me. Life changing to say the least!!! It takes just a handful of seconds, or a matter of moments, and it completely reopens my perspective again. Category: Effectiveness, Intellectual-Horsepower, Mind, Personal Development, Personal Effectiveness, Thinking Skills Tag: Effectiveness, Personal-Developmentcarefully selected evidence and rationalisation. Such is the stimulation of psychodynamic disagreement.