In Pittsburg, a man was easily caught after robbing two banks in broad daylight without wearing a disguise. He believed that rubbing his face with lemon juice had made him invisible to security cameras. Occasionally, the acts of others warrant the covering of one’s eyes and a slight shake of the head. The internet is profuse with “funny grammar mistakes”, “funny construction mistakes”, “dumb criminals”, and the like. “How could anyone be so stupid?” you may ask, (and then chuckle). The purpose of psychology is exactly that, to understand the behavior of others, to explain the inexplicable, and to answer when we ask ourselves “Why did I wait until the last minute to start on this paper?” A few theories have surfaced to explain what happens before
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Stanovich (2009) focuses on three levels of the mind: the autonomous mind, the algorithmic mind, and the reflective mind. He believes that irrational behavior comes from the autonomous mind because the response is processed independently from higher level control systems. In keeping with this model, most of our mistakes are the result of poorly controlled activations in the autonomous mind.
Perkins (2002) suggests that foolish behaviors are the result of self-organizing criticality failures; that human behavior works in much the same way as physics describing dynamic systems that have a critical point as an attractor. He gets his example from the way physics explains how an earthquake occurs. Increasing stress leads to a sudden outburst of energy. Impulsiveness can result from a strong buildup of drivers, or things that motivate us causing the activity to take place without sufficient control (Aczel et al. …show more content…
Uncritically accepting information this way limits us to only one understanding. This may prevents us from acting the way we would have if we had been more mindful (Aczel et al.). Most of the knowledge we gain about the world has been obtained this way. Whether instantly or over time, becoming mindless causes us to unintentionally lock on to a single understanding of the information. Most never think to question information learned in an absolute, context-free way; causing many to be rarely in doubt but frequently in error (Moldoveanu & Langer 2003). Hecke (2007) labels these actions as mental blind spots. These blind spots limit our abilities to see what obvious. Stepping back to see the “big picture” can be a solution. Even intelligent people can also suffer from mindlessness (Aczel et al. 2015). Mindfulness, however, has many benefits such as an increase in creativity, health and longevity, and a decrease in burnout to name a few. Behavior can be guided rather than governed when mindful (Moldoveanu & Langer
Stanovich (2009) focuses on three levels of the mind: the autonomous mind, the algorithmic mind, and the reflective mind. He believes that irrational behavior comes from the autonomous mind because the response is processed independently from higher level control systems. In keeping with this model, most of our mistakes are the result of poorly controlled activations in the autonomous mind.
Perkins (2002) suggests that foolish behaviors are the result of self-organizing criticality failures; that human behavior works in much the same way as physics describing dynamic systems that have a critical point as an attractor. He gets his example from the way physics explains how an earthquake occurs. Increasing stress leads to a sudden outburst of energy. Impulsiveness can result from a strong buildup of drivers, or things that motivate us causing the activity to take place without sufficient control (Aczel et al. …show more content…
Uncritically accepting information this way limits us to only one understanding. This may prevents us from acting the way we would have if we had been more mindful (Aczel et al.). Most of the knowledge we gain about the world has been obtained this way. Whether instantly or over time, becoming mindless causes us to unintentionally lock on to a single understanding of the information. Most never think to question information learned in an absolute, context-free way; causing many to be rarely in doubt but frequently in error (Moldoveanu & Langer 2003). Hecke (2007) labels these actions as mental blind spots. These blind spots limit our abilities to see what obvious. Stepping back to see the “big picture” can be a solution. Even intelligent people can also suffer from mindlessness (Aczel et al. 2015). Mindfulness, however, has many benefits such as an increase in creativity, health and longevity, and a decrease in burnout to name a few. Behavior can be guided rather than governed when mindful (Moldoveanu & Langer