Class discussion

Benito Arruñada

Outline: Our mind & our institutions

Cognitive specialists

Rationality (decisional

mechanism)

Cooperation (main ambit of interest)

Institutions

Modular mind

InstinctiveCo-opt instincts

Maladapted mind

EcologicalFill adap-tation gap

Applications to projects?

1. Ideas & beliefs

2. Career

3. Expectations

4. Women & men

5. Contracting financial services

6. Reforming public services

7. Reputation of business

8. Online universities

9. Institutional reform

Which sport is tougher?

▪ Psychologically?

▪ In which is more painful to lose?

▪ Chess, why?

▪ Because there are not referees

▪ What’s the moral?

Are smarter, better-educated individuals better at avoiding the traps of unreasonable beliefs?

▪ The power of rationalization♦ Individual examples: perhaps the most prominent, on our

own performance: examples? E.g., next slide?

▪ The power of socialization♦ Social examples: collective killings (Nazi Germany) and

suicides (from Numantia to Jonestwon) ♦ How do we react when friends who stop believing / start

thinking differently?

▪ Big risk: we all suffer it… in different areas▪ How to cure or prevent? I.e., how to grow up from

beliefs into ideas?♦ Diverse socialization: How homogenous are our groups?♦ Dilute stereotypes by knowing different persons, groups

Example

▪ How to calibrate accusations that a teacher ♦ “constantly despites students”? (E.g., “crosses

the line of critique into scorn, jibe, sarcasm”)

▪ Hypotheses—how to test, verify?♦ Teacher does despise students♦ Students in denial rationalize their own failures

▪ What are the effects of soft versus clear criticism? Do we prefer to be told we do well even we do not? Have we?

▪ ***** Application to course projects *****

Deflecting hard questions

▪ Proposal: ♦ “Identify the particular challenges of men and women in

pursuing their professional careers ”

▪ Project: ♦ Emphasis on how the environment must or can be changed

▪ Triple deflection: ♦ Only women♦ Changed to make our lives easier♦ Avoid hard personal questions

▪ Risk: work hard self-justifyng

Deflecting hard questions

▪ Proposal: ♦ “think strategically about professional career

development”, “identify challenges from the environment, assets and possible deficits in emotional intelligence or technical competencies”

▪ Project: ♦ “How firms must adapt to young grads’ emotions”♦ Example: “Puppies’ rebellion” (ES)

http://ow.ly/kXRdH —any changes since 2007?

Trained to deflect criticism?

▪ The “best educated generation” ever: ♦ myth or reality?♦ Averages and statistical distributions♦ Quantity and quality: intangibles

▪ Education = aptitude + “attitude”♦ Aptitude: knowledge, general abilities, etc.♦ “Attitude”—crucially: ability to productively accept

criticism

How do we react to criticism?

▪ Defensively: taking it as personal attack

▪ Rationalization: producing excuses♦ Why do brilliant people often under-perform? Use their

higher mental power to produce better excuses

▪ Advice: ♦ No excuses: your default should be “the critique is right, in

some way”, and you must discover that way♦ Take critiques as signals of failure, not as solutions:

• e.g., in correcting texts, teachers shouldn’t provide alternatives but just mark mistakes. When seen that the alternative is worse, students tempted to think there was no problem

♦ Distance yourself from your work you do not like it

Do some beliefs provide an excuse for failure?

▪ Discrimination?♦ By sex, race, etc.

▪ The best educated generation ever?

▪ Socialism?

▪ Any other?♦ ♦ ♦