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Reason and less

We consider ourselves to be rational beings. We feel that our choices, decisions, and actions are selected from a flexible array of possibilities, based upon reasons. When we vote for a political candidate, it is because they share our views on certain critical issues. When we hire an individual for...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor principal: Goel, Vinod
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4138487/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25191288
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00901
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author Goel, Vinod
author_facet Goel, Vinod
author_sort Goel, Vinod
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description We consider ourselves to be rational beings. We feel that our choices, decisions, and actions are selected from a flexible array of possibilities, based upon reasons. When we vote for a political candidate, it is because they share our views on certain critical issues. When we hire an individual for a job, it is because they are the best qualified. However, if this is true, why does an analysis of the direction of shift in the timbre of the voice of political candidates during an exchange or debate, predict the winner of American presidential elections? Why is it that while only 3% of the American population consists of white men over 6′4″ tall, 30% of the CEOs of Fortune 500 companies are white men over 6′4″ tall? These are examples of “instinctual biases” affecting or modulating rational thought processes. I argue that existing theories of reasoning cannot substantively accommodate these ubiquitous, real-world phenomena. Failure to recognize and incorporate these types of phenomena into the study of human reasoning results in a distorted understanding of rationality. The goal of this article is to draw attention to these types of phenomena and propose an “adulterated rationality” account of reasoning as a first step in trying to explain them.
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spelling pubmed-41384872014-09-04 Reason and less Goel, Vinod Front Psychol Psychology We consider ourselves to be rational beings. We feel that our choices, decisions, and actions are selected from a flexible array of possibilities, based upon reasons. When we vote for a political candidate, it is because they share our views on certain critical issues. When we hire an individual for a job, it is because they are the best qualified. However, if this is true, why does an analysis of the direction of shift in the timbre of the voice of political candidates during an exchange or debate, predict the winner of American presidential elections? Why is it that while only 3% of the American population consists of white men over 6′4″ tall, 30% of the CEOs of Fortune 500 companies are white men over 6′4″ tall? These are examples of “instinctual biases” affecting or modulating rational thought processes. I argue that existing theories of reasoning cannot substantively accommodate these ubiquitous, real-world phenomena. Failure to recognize and incorporate these types of phenomena into the study of human reasoning results in a distorted understanding of rationality. The goal of this article is to draw attention to these types of phenomena and propose an “adulterated rationality” account of reasoning as a first step in trying to explain them. Frontiers Media S.A. 2014-08-20 /pmc/articles/PMC4138487/ /pubmed/25191288 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00901 Text en Copyright © 2014 Goel. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Goel, Vinod
Reason and less
title Reason and less
title_full Reason and less
title_fullStr Reason and less
title_full_unstemmed Reason and less
title_short Reason and less
title_sort reason and less
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4138487/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25191288
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00901
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