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Need for cognition

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Re: Need for cognition

#51

Post by munificent »

abeppu wrote: post #7
jawns wrote: post #5

I haven't looked at the research yet, but this feels like it may have some correlation with a psychological trait called dogmatism, which is a defined as exhibiting great certainty about the correctness of one's views and an unwillingness to consider new evidence, or an unwillingness to adjust one's views in light of new evidence. Obviously, they're not the same. NFC pertains more to the desire to go through the proc…

I wonder if we need better role models for embracing uncertainty. If you're a low NFC person, there are a bunch of high status people that take public dogmatic stances, and demonstrate that you have high confidence in a worldview of sweeping generalizations without having to think too hard if only you adopt the Dogma. But I can't really think of role models where someone says "X, Y, Z are all complex and the thing th…

> I wonder if we need better role models for embracing uncertainty.

I've felt this way for a long time. American fiction and films are heavily skewed towards protagonists strong-willed protagonists that "trust their gut" and have a high bias to action. That leads people to believe that if you're right, you will immediately know that you're right and that spending time thinking about a problem means you're weak-willed.

It's a toxic aspect of our culture. Obviously, courage and action are important. But so is learning from others, cooperating, and understanding ambiguity.

Re: Need for cognition

#52

Post by munificent »

kilgnad wrote: post #27
jawns wrote: post #5

I haven't looked at the research yet, but this feels like it may have some correlation with a psychological trait called dogmatism, which is a defined as exhibiting great certainty about the correctness of one's views and an unwillingness to consider new evidence, or an unwillingness to adjust one's views in light of new evidence. Obviously, they're not the same. NFC pertains more to the desire to go through the proc…

>But in the cases of both low NFC and high dogmatism, it feels like there's a type of intellectual laziness or cognitive immaturity at play. Almost like "It's too overwhelming for me to actually think this through, so I'm choosing to just not." NO. You are completely wrong. Dogmatism Is not laziness. It's fear of social dominance. It's too overwhelming to be humiliated socially by some other person on hacker news so…

Are you dogmatically arguing about a definition of "dogmatic"?

Is this comment serious or some kind of meta-joke?

Re: Need for cognition

#53

Post by parentheses »

benrawk wrote: post #42
optimalsolver wrote: post #36

>Need for cognition has been variously defined as "a need to structure relevant situations in meaningful, integrated ways" and "a need to understand and make reasonable the experiential world" - So basically your average conspiracy theorist.

It is not a crazy idea to conceptualize some conspiracy theorists as people who (1) have a high need for cognition (brain wheels are always turning), and (2) direct that at developing wrong/misguided/motivated frameworks for the world.

High NFC with low education or access to information.

Re: Need for cognition

#54

Post by kzrdude »

topherPedersen wrote: post #3

Some people don't have this. A lot of people aren't very curious at all. Last night in Austin I saw a full self driving car from Cruise drive by with no driver while I was at a crosswalk. No one noticed or cared that a car just drove by with no one in it! It was one of the most incredible things I've ever seen, and the people around me did not notice or care.

I was curious about the driverless metro trains in Copenhagen, and kind of in wonder. And then I commuted on them for years, and stopped thinking about who was driving.

Re: Need for cognition

#55

Post by RC_ITR »

AussieWog93 wrote: post #50
reidjs wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not that impressed by self driving cars because while the tech is cool it’s not really solving anything in my personal life. A car is basically self driving when I pay someone else to drive me where I go - end result is the same, I get where I need to go without having to drive the car.

For real? An Uber trip across the city costing $5 rather than $50 would be a game changer, as would finally being able to kill carparks on main roads.

Be careful assuming that humans (especially the humans you see) are the lion's share of cost for any system.

Sure, Uber passes 60-75% of the fare to drivers, but that pays for the depreciation/opportunity cost of the vehicle, the energy to move the vehicle, the insurance, the cleaning, etc.

A lot of the problems that these 'no brainer' new technology start-ups face (e.g., the autonomous delivery robots) is actually that they aren't that much cheaper than humans (for now).

Re: Need for cognition

#56

Post by lostgame »

tiborsaas wrote: post #48
topherPedersen wrote: post #3

Some people don't have this. A lot of people aren't very curious at all. Last night in Austin I saw a full self driving car from Cruise drive by with no driver while I was at a crosswalk. No one noticed or cared that a car just drove by with no one in it! It was one of the most incredible things I've ever seen, and the people around me did not notice or care.

This happens with everything, people are only aware of things they are focusing on, the surroundings are just "assumed" to be there. It's kinda like the invisible gorilla experiment: http://www.theinvisiblegorilla.com/gorilla_experiment.html

Oh, wow - I had seen a version of this, years ago, as; I believe, a commercial.

It was a much, much better and far less obvious version, I can't tell because obviously I knew what I was expecting, but I strongly feel with this 1999 version I absolutely would've caught it. Very poorly done compared to the other one I've seen.

Ah, here it is, this one uses a 'moonwalking bear'. Upon seeing them both again, I 110% agree with my assessment that the bear version is far, far superior.

The space the original video uses is too small, and maybe it's that the camera angle is poor; it's so hard to tell but I'd honestly be surprised if too many people fell for the original today.

I actually had troubles following the ball because the gorilla was just too obvious and distracting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ahg6qcgoay4

Re: Need for cognition

#57

Post by jboynyc »

andersentobias wrote: post #13

Are there any good books on this topic?

Perhaps Rationality and the Reflective Mind by Keith Stanovich (OUP, 2010). https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195341140.001.0001

There are some other interesting references in this blog post: https://culturecog.blog/2021/06/15/a-sociology-of-thinking-d...

Re: Need for cognition

#58

Post by wholinator2 »

lostgame wrote: post #56
tiborsaas wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This happens with everything, people are only aware of things they are focusing on, the surroundings are just "assumed" to be there. It's kinda like the invisible gorilla experiment: http://www.theinvisiblegorilla.com/gorilla_experiment.html

Oh, wow - I had seen a version of this, years ago, as; I believe, a commercial. It was a much , much better and far less obvious version, I can't tell because obviously I knew what I was expecting, but I strongly feel with this 1999 version I absolutely would've caught it. Very poorly done compared to the other one I've seen. Ah, here it is, this one uses a 'moonwalking bear'. Upon seeing them both again, I 110% agre…

I actually saw one recently that had a panda walking through, but just to still get everyone who knew what to look for, they altered other properties of the scene and after the panda reveal, then reveal the multiple other, now obvious changes that were made. I won't specify in case someone hasn't seen but it was pretty amazing.

Re: Need for cognition

#59

Post by VLM »

mannykannot wrote: post #2

Maybe this is something that academics and conspiracy theorists share?

Unfortunately in contrast, academics are fans of yesterday's newspaper headlines, conspiracy theorists have repeatedly proven to be fans of tomorrow's newspaper headlines.

However, big brother has never lied to us and only the worst people do not love big brother, so I don't officially support or believe any conspiracy theories. Also its too much work to check legacy media to see what's been admitted recently.

Re: Need for cognition

#60

Post by VLM »

An interesting meta observation is that google searches and machine learning can find a lot of stuff, but I couldn't find a path between the drive to rationalize and the drive toward cognition although the two are obviously in some way closely linked.
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