Intelligence, Self-Control, and Rationality

INTELLIGENCE, CONTROL, RATIONALITY

Researchers have applied diverse methods to examine the connection between thinking and self-control. Some have addressed it by asking the correlation question: If people were ranked by their self-control and by their cognitive aptitude, would individuals have similar positions in the two rankings?

In one of the most famous experiments in the history of psychology, Walter Mischel and his students exposed four-year-old children to a cruel dilemma. They were given a choice between a small reward (one Oreo), which they could have at any time, or a larger reward (two cookies) for which they had to wait 15 minutes under difficult conditions. They were to remain alone in a room, facing a desk with two objects: a single cookie and a bell that the child could ring at any time to call in the experimenter and receive the one cookie. As the experiment was described: “There were no toys, books, pictures, or other potentially distracting items in the room. The experimenter left the room and did not return until 15 min had passed or the child had rung the bell, eaten the rewards, stood up, or shown any signs of distress.”

The children were watched through a one-way mirror, and the film that shows their behavior during the waiting time always has the audience roaring in laughter. About half the children managed the feat of waiting for 15 minutes, mainly by keeping their attention away from the tempting reward. Ten or fifteen years later, a large gap had opened between those who had resisted temptation and those who had not. The resisters had higher measures of executive control in cognitive tasks, and especially the ability to reallocate their attention effectively. As young adults, they were less likely to take drugs. A significant difference in intellectual aptitude emerged: the children who had shown more self-control as four-year-olds had substantially higher scores on tests of intelligence.

A team of researchers at the University of Oregon explored the link between cognitive control and intelligence in several ways, including an attempt to raise intelligence by improving the control of attention. During five 40-minute sessions, they exposed children aged four to six to various computer games especially designed to demand attention and control. In one of the exercises, the children used a joystick to track a cartoon cat and move it to a grassy area while avoiding a muddy area. The grassy areas gradually shrank and the muddy area expanded, requiring progressively more precise control. The testers found that training attention not only improved executive control; scores on nonverbal tests of intelligence also improved and the improvement was maintained for several months. Other research by the same group identified specific genes that are involved in the control of attention, showed that parenting techniques also affected this ability, and demonstrated a close connection between the children’s ability to control their attention and their ability to control their emotions.

Shane Frederick constructed a Cognitive Reflection Test, which consists of the bat-and-ball problem and two other questions, chosen because they also invite an intuitive answer that is both compelling and wrong (the questions are shown in chapter 5 of Thinking, Fast and Slow). He went on to study the characteristics of students who score very low on this test—the supervisory function of System 2 is weak in these people—and found that they are prone to answer questions with the first idea that comes to mind and unwilling to invest the effort needed to check their intuitions. Individuals who uncritically follow their intuitions about puzzles are also prone to accept other suggestions from System 1. In particular, they are impulsive, impatient, and keen to receive immediate gratification. For example, 63% of the intuitive respondents say they would prefer to get $3,400 this month rather than $3,800 next month. Only 37% of those who solve all three puzzles correctly have the same shortsighted preference for receiving a smaller amount immediately. When asked how much they will pay to get overnight delivery of a book they have ordered, the low scorers on the Cognitive Reflection Test are willing to pay twice as much as the high scorers. Frederick’s findings suggest that the characters of our psychodrama have different “personalities.” System 1 is impulsive and intuitive; System 2 is capable of reasoning, and it is cautious, but at least for some people it is also lazy. We recognize related differences among individuals: some people are more like their System 2; others are closer to their System 1. This simple test has emerged as one of the better predictors of lazy thinking.

Keith Stanovich and his longtime collaborator Richard West originally introduced the terms System 1 and System 2 (they now prefer to speak of Type 1 and Type 2 processes). Stanovich and his colleagues have spent decades studying differences among individuals in the kinds of problems with which this book is concerned. They have asked one basic question in many different ways: What makes some people more susceptible than others to biases of judgment? Stanovich published his conclusions in a book titled Rationality and the Reflective Mind, which offers a bold and distinctive approach to the topic of this chapter. He draws a sharp distinction between two parts of System 2—indeed, the distinction is so sharp that he calls them separate “minds.” One of these minds (he calls it algorithmic) deals with slow thinking and demanding computation. Some people are better than others in these tasks of brain power—they are the individuals who excel in intelligence tests and are able to switch from one task to another quickly and efficiently. However, Stanovich argues that high intelligence does not make people immune to biases. Another ability is involved, which he labels rationality. Stanovich’s concept of a rational person is similar to what I label “engaged.” The core of his argument is that rationality should be distinguished from intelligence. In his view, superficial or “lazy” thinking is a flaw in the reflective mind, a failure of rationality. This is an attractive and thought-provoking idea. In support of it, Stanovich and his colleagues have found that the bat-and-ball question and others like it are somewhat better indicators of our susceptibility to cognitive errors than are conventional measures of intelligence, such as IQ tests. Time will tell whether the distinction between intelligence and rationality can lead to new discoveries.