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Need for cognition

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Re: Need for cognition

#61

Post by renlo »

> Psychological research on the need for cognition has been conducted using self-report tests, where research participants answered a series of statements such as "I prefer my life to be filled with puzzles that I must solve" and were scored on how much they felt the statements represented them.

This seems counter intuitive to me; I would consider myself someone that has a "need for cognition", but I am good at puzzles precisely because _I do not like being puzzled_. When I encounter something that doesn't make sense to me (a puzzle), it disturbs me so that I need to solve the puzzle and figure out why my assumptions were incorrect. I therefore dislike puzzles and I do not want them in my life. Puzzles are a contradiction of my assumptions. Maybe this is all "intolerance of ambiguity"

Re: Need for cognition

#62

Post by muyuu »

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 don't think the underlying instinct here is curiosity, but rather the need for some coherence and the bias towards both having things match our preconceived models of reality, and fit our models to reality. Even though very often there just isn't solid information to make that coherence happen without just making up stuff to fit the gaps.

Re: Need for cognition

#63

Post by kilgnad »

munificent wrote: post #52
kilgnad wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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?

The meta meta thing about this is that not only am I dogmatically arguing for dogmatism, but what I say is logically true in such a way that people who disagree with me can't formulate an argument against it. They can only dogmatically downvote me rather then keep an open mind about dogmatism.

It's a bit of joke. But it's more commentary about how everyone on HackerNews gets off on these "intelligence" articles when really they're just normal human beings with normal NFC and normal dogmatic tendencies.

Re: Need for cognition

#64

Post by hinkley »

RC_ITR wrote: post #55
AussieWog93 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

$5 would be a game changer but as you say, it’s more likely to be $20 which is not that big of a game changer.

Re: Need for cognition

#65

Post by BazookaMusic »

parentheses wrote: post #53
benrawk wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I would say it's more about low empathy and ability to scrutinize their beliefs. This is very often paired with a nice dose of narcissism which makes them think that everyone else is an idiot and has flawed thinking, while they're immune to it.

Re: Need for cognition

#66

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

Re: Need for cognition

#67

Post by hammock »

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 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

I mean, maybe. It also feels like how you describe a particular dog as needing a lot of mental stimulation (food puzzles, fulfilling work, etc)

Re: Need for cognition

#68

Post by Dylan16807 »

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.

Noticing isn't curiosity.

And the opportunity for curiosity for purely seeing a thing is only the first few times you see it. You were in that window, but how do you know they were in that window?

Re: Need for cognition

#69

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

Re: Need for cognition

#70

Post by jdthedisciple »

renlo wrote: post #61

> Psychological research on the need for cognition has been conducted using self-report tests, where research participants answered a series of statements such as "I prefer my life to be filled with puzzles that I must solve" and were scored on how much they felt the statements represented them. This seems counter intuitive to me; I would consider myself someone that has a "need for cognition", but I am good at puzzl…

But then again isn't there a desirable thrill in solving those puzzles?

I'm sure it gives you the same dopamine boost it gives me everytime that apparent conflict between my assumptions and reality gets resolved.

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