Studying stupidity – the smart move?

Governments do not wage war on stupidity. International organisations such as the United Nations or IMF have no plans to eradicate stupidity. Yet arguably, it's the root cause of a wide range of societal problems. 

The social sciences and humanities are sources of fascinating and intriguing insights into the human condition. However, we seem to be side-stepping the unavoidable conclusion that much evidence points directly at our stupidity. Psychology has invested considerable energy in studying intelligence, but this has overshadowed an arguably more ubiquitous phenomenon. Are we just too embarrassed to put stupidity under the microscope?

Reluctant to look in the mirror?

There are many disagreements among the psychological sciences, but a common theme around our limited ability as creatures relates to our need to use mental shortcuts (heuristics and biases) to navigate the world (Fischhoff & Broomell, 2020). Daniel Kahneman's work on level 1 (automatic) and level 2 (effortful, deliberate) thinking highlights our tendency for lazy thinking. Kahneman's research showed how decision makers can easily fool themselves into thinking that are using System 2 thinking, when they are in fact using system 1 (Kahneman, 2011). Tragedies such as Hillsborough, Grenfell, Boeing 737 Max, and the Columbia Space Shuttle disaster reveal this phenomenon. Ironically, much effortful thinking was applied to the attempted cover-ups. 

Congruently, social psychology research on the influence of groups and context is more evidence of our malleability towards being influenced. Behavioural economics and the use of the relevant 'nudges' add further evidence that we can be easily shaped in particular directions. We have flirted with the irrational side of human behaviour with concepts such as bounded rationality (Simon, 1972) and skilled incompetence (Argyris, 1986). However, it's hard not to conclude that our thoughts, feelings, and behaviours are easily directed. Yes, we have been 'smart' in elucidating these processes, but we are reluctant to look clearly in the mirror. 

Neuroscientific evidence has demonstrated the complexity of our brains, but this knowledge has not liberated us from our limitations. Indeed, the physiology and anatomy of other creatures in the animal kingdom appear to be similarly complex. The reader might cite the many examples of human ingenuity (e.g., modern medicine, computers, engineering, putting a man on the moon, etc…) to challenge my main thesis that we are very limited creatures. However, all these developments have been accompanied by equally 'stupid' consequences such as iatrogenic harm (medicine), mass pollution, war and climate change. Our inability to foresee the unintended consequences of 'development' is impressive (in the worst sense of the word). The cost of such development is high indeed, with ailments such as obesity, cancer, loneliness, and increasing economic inequality a high price to pay for the latest iPhone or Tesla. 

The zenith of stupidity

Our potential for stupidity has reached its zenith through the malice of commercial organisations that encapsulate our worst tendencies toward greed and avarice. Turbo-charged capitalism has hijacked Darwinian notions about survival-of-the-fittest to exculpate behaviours that have resulted in fatal consequences for employees and the general public (e.g., Horizon Post Office Scandal, Grenfell). Let's remember organisations are populated by people, and by highly 'educated' people at the senior management level. During the 2008 financial crisis, many financial 'experts' placed irrational faith in their complex financial models, and the behaviour of governments and banks was stupidity squared (Lewis, 2011). 

Our experiential fear of artificial intelligence is illuminating in what it reveals about us. Fantasies about Terminator-like domination by the 'machines' mask a deeper fear about how this technology (made by us) exposes our limited ability. AI has been successfully adapted to substitute psychotherapists, surgeons, pilots, music composers, and even diagnosis (physical and mental). Science fiction is an interesting mirror of human frailty, such as when Dr Leonard 'Bones' McCoy (Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home) returns to Earth in the 1980's and is appalled by the barbaric nature of modern medicine. Equally, the series of Matrix movies painted a world in which the majority of humans existed in a virtual world, unaware that we were controlled by machines. Ironically, even when some characters become aware of this, they still prefer to live in the virtual world, reminding us of Kahneman's Level 1 thinking. Most of us are choosing the Matrix blue pill on a daily basis (me included). 

Active change

The ultimate rebuke to my thesis might be that our ability to understand our stupidity and our limitations is evidence that we are not as bad as we think. Unfortunately, I'm not convinced that such awareness is helpful. Reflecting on my time as an undergraduate, PhD student and university lecturer I can't see any appetite to be brutally honest about our limitations. The fact that we (academics) blindly provide free labour for the highly profitable scientific publishing industry should restrain any notions that we are intellectual lighthouses illuminating the fog all around us. 

My purpose here is not to denigrate the efforts of those devoting their time and effort to honestly improve the situation of people in difficult situations. I applaud them. However, I am reflecting on the observation of Oscar Wilde, "They try to solve the problem of poverty, for instance, by keeping the poor alive; or, in the case of a very advanced school, by amusing the poor. But this is not a solution: it is an aggravation of the difficulty." We rightfully applaud people who ease the strife of others, but it never seems to energise us to actively change the conditions that drive these phenomena. 

The typical reasons offered for this inaction include; the difficulty of changing the system and/or lack of resources to tackle endemic problems. Unfortunately, our satisfaction in our ability to understand problems obscures our ability to forensically locate our fundamental stupidity in creating and sustaining these problems. George Moinbot, a columnist in The Guardian, illuminates this beautifully with his observation that action over climate change is doomed due to the suspicion in many people's minds that if the environmental crisis were really so serious, someone (the UK Government) would stop us flying, driving or eating meat. 

Agents of manipulation?

In my field (occupational and organisational psychology), there is an unhealthy obsession with concepts like learning organisations, emotional intelligence, innovation and knowledge management, talent management etc. In this scenario, organisations are waiting to have their smartness unlocked. Knowledge workers and human capital are hailed as the panacea for economic growth. 

In contrast with this, Alvesson and Spicer (2012) have introduced the concepts of functional stupidity and stupidity management. Functional stupidity refers to an absence of reflexivity, a refusal to use intellectual capacities in other than myopic ways, and avoidance of justifications. Stupidity management refers to processes that repress or marginalise doubt and block communicative action. In a nutshell, symbolic manipulation (i.e., corporate identity, corporate branding) avoids the need for reflective thinking in organisations. Organisational psychologists can all too easily become agents of symbolic manipulation.

It's unlikely that the funding bodies will ever support research to look at whether funding bodies support projects that reinforce functional stupidity. So, what can we do? We continually undervalue the power of the arts and humanities to contribute to psychological knowledge. Philosophy, history, and literature have been doing a better job in calling 'a spade a spade' for centuries. We have been hiding behind biology and hard science idolatry to avoid asking important questions about values and ethics. We prefer sitting on the sidelines explaining the mechanisms of trauma and catastrophe, rather than calling out the culprits and conditions. 

Joining forces with the arts and humanities is a good start. Just to pick two examples, the dramatisation of the Horizon Post Office Scandal by ITV did more to educate us about business than the best MBA program, and Mark Mazower's 2008 book  Hitler's Empire: Nazi Rule in Occupied Europe should be required reading for any PhD student trying to understand organisational culture and strategy. 

I leave the last word in stupidity to Flaubert – 'Stupidity is something unshakeable. Nothing attacks it without breaking itself. It is of the nature of granite, hard and resistant.'

Anthony Montgomery is Professor of Occupational & Organizational Psychology at Northumbria University Newcastle. [email protected]

References

Argyris, C. (1986). 'Skilled incompetence'. Harvard Business Review, 64, 74–9.

Alvesson, M., & Spicer, A. (2012). A stupidity‐based theory of organizations. Journal of management studies, 49(7), 1194-1220.

Fischhoff, B., & Broomell, S. B. (2020). Judgment and decision making. Annual review of psychology, 71(1), 331-355.

Flaubert. The Family Idiot: Gustave Flaubert, 1821-1857, Volume 4 (Volume 4) Cited by Jean-Paul Sartre, Published by University of Chicago Press, 1991. 

Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, fast and slow. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Lewis, M. (2011). Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World. New York: W. W. Norton.

Simon, H. (1972). 'Theories of bounded rationality'. In McGuire, C. B. and Radner, R. (Eds), Decision and Organization. Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Company, 161–76.