Yeah, like I’m going to follow that link.
I don’t believe it, and I never will.
Since smart people are gullible, does that make us less so, since we didn’t follow the link?
Did you know the word gullible didn’t make it into the online Merriam-Websters dictionary? True fact, see for yourself. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gullible
Oldie, but goodie.
Either that means I´m not as smart as I thought I was or I should stop basing my self-assessment on psychological studies. Wait, what?
Trusting <> gullible.
I just think of Bugs Bunny, when Rocky (the Robinsonesque gangster) begged Bugs to hide him. Bugs turned to the camera with a somewhat disgusted look and said, “My, isn’t he a trusting soul?”
“generalized trust is highly correlated with intelligence” – They may be holding the wrong end of the stick; I suspect that it would be more correct to say that generalized distrust is inversely correlated with intelligence.
The attraction of conspiracy theories is that they promise “simple, obvious, and wrong” answers to complex questions, which is going to tend to appeal to those who can’t handle complexity. I think the same mechanism will cause folks on that end of the scale to distrust folks who tell them that they’re wrong but present an argument they can’t follow.
I agree. Another way of looking at it is a person with enough intelligence has the confidence to ask “Why?” knowing they will probably be able to understand the answer.
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
