The Difference Between Rationali

The Difference Between Rationality and Intelligence

By David Z. Hambrick and Alexander P. Burgoyne

Are you intelligent — or rational? The question may sound redundant, but in recent years researchers have demonstrated just how distinct those two cognitive attributes actually are.

It all started in the early 1970s, when the psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky conducted an influential series of experiments showing that all of us, even highly intelligent people, are prone to irrationality. Across a wide range of scenarios, the experiments revealed, people tend to make decisions based on intuition rather than reason.

In one study, Professors Kahneman and Tversky had people read the following personality sketch for a woman named Linda: “Linda is 31 years old, single, outspoken and very bright. She majored in philosophy. As a student, she was deeply concerned with issues of discrimination and social justice, and also participated in antinuclear demonstrations.” Then they asked the subjects which was more probable: (A) Linda is a bank teller or (B) Linda is a bank teller and is active in the feminist movement. Eighty-five percent of the subjects chose B, even though logically speaking, A is more probable. (All feminist bank tellers are bank tellers, though some bank tellers may not be feminists.)

In the Linda problem, we fall prey to the conjunction fallacy — the belief that the co-occurrence of two events is more likely than the occurrence of one of the events. In other cases, we ignore information about the prevalence of events when judging their likelihood. We fail to consider alternative explanations. We evaluate evidence in a manner consistent with our prior beliefs. And so on. Humans, it seems, are fundamentally irrational.

But starting in the late 1990s, researchers began to add a significant wrinkle to that view. As the psychologist Keith Stanovich and others observed, even the Kahneman and Tversky data show that some people are highly rational. In other words, there are individual differences in rationality, even if we all face cognitive challenges in being rational. So who are these more rational people? Presumably, the more intelligent people, right?

Wrong.

译文：

你聪明还是理性？这个问题可能听起来比较多余，但是近年来的研究表面了这两者之间的认知态度的区别究竟是怎样的。

这都是开始于1970s，当心理学家DK和AT实施了一系列的实验为我们展示了，即使是高智商的人，也倾向于不理性，通过一个大范围的情景来看，这个实验反应了人们在做决定的时候更倾向于用直觉而不是理性。

在一个研究报告中，教授K和T读了一个关于Linda的个人描述：“Linda是一个31岁单身并且美丽而外向的人，她主修哲学，作为一个学生，她深深的关心种族歧视和社会公平方面的话题，并且参加反核武器展示。”然后他们被叫去回答那个选项可能性更大：A、Linda是一个银行出纳员或者B、Linda是一个银行出纳员并且活跃于女权运动。百分之八十五的人选择B,即使逻辑上来讲，A更加可能。（所有的女权主义银行出纳员都是银行出纳员，但是一些银行出纳员可能不是女权主义者。）

在Linda这个问题上，我们称之为合取谬误--这个信念是两个事件同时发生的概率大于一个事件发生的概率。从其他角度来看当我们评判一件事的时候我们只是忽略了这件事的普遍性。我们失败于去考虑可供选择的另一个解释。我们评估一件事情的方式只是基于我们之前的想法。这样的还有很多。人类，看起来，本质上是不那么理性的。

但是从1990开始，研究者们开始对这个观点有一个很确切的不赞同。随着心理学家KS和其他人的观察，甚至是K和T用数据证明了有一些人是高度的理性。换句话说，不同的人的理性程度是不同的，即使我们在变得理性的情况下都面临着认知挑战。所以，谁才是更加理性的人呢？大概是更加聪明的人吧，对吗？

答案是错的。