Is it Wrong to Take the Elevator to the Gym?

When I go to the gym, unconsciously (habitually) I take the elevator. My usual work-out is around 35 minutes (+/- 5) and the main purpose is to burn some calories (I’m not into body building).

Quite recently I realized that my habitual / mindless behaviour is, in a way, awkward. I live on the 10^th floor and the gym is in the opposite building (just across an alley) on the 12^th floor.

If I would be a perfectly (economically) rational  creature, I would go down the stairs from the 10^th floor to the ground floor, go out of the building and then go up the stairs 12 floors.

Since I am going to burn calories by means of making physical effort, subsequently sweating, several potential reasons for taking the elevator are automatically excluded. I’m taking the elevator not because I want to preserve energy – avoid effort. For sure I’m not trying to preserve my good looks (i.e. avoid sweating) since I am going to sweat at the gym.

Saving time could be a plausible explanation for my irrational behaviour, but I seriously doubt it. I could simply take the stairs (both down and up) and cut my gym work-out time by 10 minutes. I assume the overall calorie burn-out would be similar. Moreover, I don’t count (monitor) burned calories, so, for sure, this is not the reason.

The more realistic reason for me taking the elevator to the gym is that I formed a habit: go out of the apartment to the elevators. This is because of convenience – going with the elevator is easy and rather fast.

Moreover, the elevators in the building are very salient: there are four of them positioned in the very centre of the building, in a spacious hall. On the other hand, the stairwells are almost hidden and the doors are grey – taking the stairs is clearly not the natural thing to do.

Beyond the habit explanation, there is, I believe, a more profound explanation.

In psychology of money there is the phenomenon of mental accounting – discovered by Richard Thaler. In a nutshell, mental accounting means that we associate different amounts of money with various expenses and we label “this” money for “this expense”… we have “holiday money”, “retirement fund”, “beer money” etc.

Moreover, it is very hard for us humans to shift money from one account to another, or to integrate accounts. If you want to learn more on mental account check out this post: 

I believe that we think using mental accounting when it comes to any type of fungible resource. In my case of taking the elevator to the gym, I do not find it natural to use my energy (effort) to get to the gym, but I have no problem in spending lots of effort in pointless weight-lifting and pedalling on a fixed bike.

In other words, I find it difficult to spend the gym effort on climbing stairs.

This type of automatic thinking goes beyond awkward getting to the gym behaviour.

I remember that a few years ago, I asked someone for a favour that would have taken about 20-30 minutes of work. As a reply I received a long email telling me how he was too busy to make the effort. The answer (probably) took at least 15 minutes to write…

The Problems with the Sample of One

The first few days after moving to the USA, my wife and I stayed at a hotel near our new apartment. One morning, at breakfast, there were two gentlemen at the table next to us. One of them spoke really loud and with profound stamina. Apparently there was some kind of religious convention because Finding Jesus was the main and hottest topic of their conversation.

Just as a note: although I am not religious, I have nothing against religion and practicing it. It simply bothers me when religion is used to promote self-interested bull…….. to way too naïve and vulnerable people.

Coming back to the chat the gentlemen next to us had, the one who was talking (much too) loud was explaining to the other guy how he is prepared to speak / preach to his congregation about (wait for it…) Finding Jesus. He strongly emphasized that he has three or four stories about people who were pretty messed-up and came to his church and in the end Found Jesus and got their lives in order.

The loudly speaking man briefly shared one of his well-crafted stories. As far as I can recall, it is your prototypical alcohol + gambling + debt + lost job + brake up story. However, the character of the story (Jeff if I remember correctly) came to his church and after a while Found Jesus and got his life back on track after a while.

Finding Jesus is not singular. Some people believe that they will be cured of cancer or other terrible illnesses by kissing bones of people long gone – saints. Others believe that they could recover from illness after drinking (herbal) magic potions or other scams from wannabe (unconventional) healers. Others believe that it was because a beautiful lady blew over the dices that they won big in a casino.

For each of these miracles there are stories to back them up. Usually these stories contain one character who was hopeless and resorted to such, let’s say, tricks and by a miracle he or she got what was desired.

All of these are problems of the sample of one.

Whereas the term Sample of one seems to be related mostly to statistics, the issues behind the problems of the sample of one are more related to psychology of judgment than anything else.

First, there is the Availability Heuristic. These so called success stories are overly exposed, most often taken entirely out of context. All the poster-child cases are paraded while the huge majority of not so successful cases are hidden somewhere in a back-closet. Everyone will show off the one person who kissed the knee-cap bone of Saint I don’t know who and who was cured of cancer. However, the other millions of people who also kissed the same piece of dead bone and ultimately died because they were not cured by the holly relic are entirely ignored or even labelled as not true believers.

Second, there is The Narrative Fallacy. We humans are very good at conjuring stories so that what we see (want to see) makes (im)perfect sense. Although all these so called success stories are most likely due to pure chance, we very easily make up a story around them so that they fit with what we (want to) believe.

Third, there is The Coherence Issue. Usually the stories of Finding Jesus or the magical effect of a beautiful lady blowing over dices are exceptionally well crafted. The loud gentleman at the hotel whom I mentioned earlier was very proud that his stories are very good. One thing that makes a story good is its level of coherence. A good story is very coherent. Unfortunately we too often mistake coherence with truth.

Fourth, there is Wishful Thinking. The (sad) truth is many of us want to believe these stories mainly because they fit with what some believe and because they self-serve us. In case we have a difficult illness, we would like to have the extra hope of kissing dead bones and being healed. We would love to be able to do something to improve our chances of success in a casino and overall in our lives.

I know that it is very hard to understand random chance.

I also believe it is even harder to accept that random chance plays such a big role in our lives.

Dieting by eating Chocolate and Attitudes Towards Gay Marriage: If it Seems Too Good to Be True and You’d Love to Believe it, it Probably isn’t True

On Academic Fraud and Scientific Stunts

I have to admit that I have a weight problem. I’m not obese, but I could surely benefit from losing 10-20 kg (22-44 pounds). Occasionally I try to diet, in the sense of eating more vegetables, less meat, as little as possible fat, avoid sugar (particularly added sugar) etc. And, YES, if you want to diet, you have to give up wonderful things such as bacon, chocolate, bagels and deep-fried food.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if a dieter could hold on to one of these incredibly tasty ingredients?

Of course!

But, what if one such ingredient would actually help to lose weight?

What if EATING FRIED BACON would help you lose weight?

Who wouldn’t want to eat fried bacon and still lose weight?

Without being a nutritionist (I just mentioned I’m overweight), but being able to pass biology in middle-school, I know that eating fat is not going to make anyone slimmer.

Things are similar when it comes to other (guilty) pleasures of food. Eating chocolate, bagels, donuts, ice-cream and sweets etc. is very pleasurable and there is a reason for it.

A few million years ago, when our evolutionary ancestors (pre-homo sapiens species) lived, it was very good for them to eat as much sugar and fat as they could. This is simply because sugar and fat were extremely scarce back then. (Remember, we are talking about a few million years ago).

Whether we like it or not, we have inherited this natural appeal for sugar and fat, but in today’s (western) world these ingredients are (way too) abundant. Therefore it is not in our own benefit to eat as much of them as we can, even if our instincts tell us to.

But what if the facts above are wrong? What if, eating donuts is good for our health? It would be great! We could indulge in sugar and fat (read donuts) without guilt and even with a sense of pride since we are doing something good for our health.

This would be something many of us would love to be true. We want it to be true… and because of this, often we skip the scepticism that is so often needed.

A journalist, John Bohannon, managed to fool lots of people into believing (considering as true) that eating chocolate is actually good for dieting. He devised a real experimental study in which this result was statistically significant.

Unlike many dieting gurus, John Bohannon didn’t do this study in order to sell his books, workshops etc. and make a fortune by selling desirable illusions. He did it to prove a very valuable point: we are not critical enough with the results that are presented, particularly with the methodology of the study.

You can read his full explanation here (open in new tab and read later).

In very, very brief the methodology was flawed and the over-emphasis on statistically significant results is a two-edge blade.

In a different part of the (scientific) world, a new scandal on academic fraud (faking data) erupted. This time it concerned political science and the main reason why this scandal made such a big bang is that the study published (using fake data) became very popular.

One of the reasons for which it became so popular was that the study was published in Science. For the people who don’t know what Science is: for scientists it is similar to the Hollywood walk of fame for actors and the Rock and Roll hall of fame for musicians.

Another reason for which the paper became popular was the fact that Donald Green (a super-star in political science research) was one of the co-authors. Mr. Green claims that he was not involved in the actual running of the study and that the other co-author (a grad student) brought the data.

However, the main reason (in my view) for which the study became so popular is that it told us what we wanted to hear about a rather sensitive topic: gay marriage.

The study claimed that attitudes towards gay marriage can change (from negative to positive) after a 30 minutes visit from a canvasser who disclosed that he or she is homosexual.

You can read a detailed description of the fraud and how it was discovered here

The fact that occasionally some people fake data should not surprise anyone. Academia is not immune to cheating and fraud.

What I find very interesting is that this case has some similarities with the chocolate helps in dieting paper. Obviously both are methodologically utterly flawed. But there is more than just poor methodology.

Telling people that attitudes towards a sensitive topic such as gay marriage can be changed by a 30 minutes interaction with a gay person is very similar to saying that eating chocolate (or bacon) is actually helpful in dieting.

Both are things many of us want to hear and both are a bit too good to be true (once you become critical).

The beauty of behavioural science and other branches of science is that they prove our intuitions wrong, that they show asymmetries (i.e. small input, large output) and that they promise actionable means for practical applications.

There is, however, a difference between counterintuitive and too good to be true.

Whereas counterintuitive things go against our initial beliefs, things that are too good to be true confirm what we want to believe.

Both chocolate helping dieting and changing attitudes towards a sensitive topic after a 30 minutes interaction are in accordance with our desired utopias. Many of us would love to eat chocolate and lose weight; nonetheless this seems utopic. Similarly, many pro-equality supporters would love to have found a way to change conservative views on gay marriage in just 30 minutes; again this seems utopic.   

If it Seems Too Good to Be True and You’d Love to Believe it, it Probably isn’t True 

Randomness and the Value of Someone’s Word

I “benefited” from a relatively conservative bringing up and learned that someone’s worth can be determined by how they keep their word. Even now, I believe that my word is the most valuable asset I have and keep it.

I usually keep my word and this implies that I am quite prudent in what I say I can and cannot do…

However, I find that what I have learned and grew up to believe is wrong.

In a world with high levels of unpredictability (randomness) someone’s word is worthless. Even if the person says something in good faith, chances are that what (s)he said will not happen.

As far as I can see, the “way to go” is to say a lot, preferably make some very vague claims and make sure that the costs are passed on to someone else. Just by chance there will be some positive outcomes... 

Is Modesty a Costly Signal?

As you may already know, costly signals are those costly behaviors that people engage in, in order to obtain status. They must be visible for others and, of course costly for the signaler. At the same time they either have to be desired by others or to signal a trait that is desired by others (others = potential friends and allies or potential mates). There are many costly signals ranging from conspicuous consumption to creativity and generosity.
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Recently I have been thinking if modesty is a particular case of costly signal? I mean modesty as a personal trait, not as an attribute of an object. For example a modest income is certainly not attractive while a modest IQ is for sure not desirable. I refer to modesty as the behavior of people who don’t brag, who don’t take too much credit for what they represent to others (i.e. personalities that don’t abuse their VIP status) or even modesty in the sense of allowing other (lower status) individuals to feel good about themselves – i.e. not patronizing them.
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If your neighbor is a high status person, but still goes to the supermarket by bike and drives a “normal” car, you will feel relatively better about yourself because he doesn't show how high status he is.
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Let’s see if modesty meets the criteria for being a costly signal
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First it is costly for the person exhibiting it. Now the costs of modesty are two-fold: on one hand modesty requires a certain amount of self-control which costs energy; on the other hand, there are opportunity costs for the signaler – he or she forgoes benefits that would have been obtained if modesty would have not been used.
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Second, is modesty desirable in itself or does it signal a desirable trait? For sure, modesty in itself is not desirable by others… I can’t imagine someone wishing to be more modest or having a modest partner… however the absence of modesty is undesirable… some people don’t want a partner who brags all day long how great he or she is. On the other hand, modesty implies, as previously stated, a lot of self-control, self-confidence and a sense of achievement or self-fulfillment… usually frustrated people are not modest at all, even the opposite is true. Now, self-control, confidence and self-fulfillment are desirable traits for long term mating partners. Thus, modesty meets the criterion of signaling a desirable trait, but only for long term mating.
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Third, is modesty visible? This is a tricky one. Being modest implies not showing what one has. At the same time, in order to be appreciated, modesty needs to be visible. This leads to the conclusion that there are two types of modesty: A. unobserved modesty which can be defined as not showing high status or deferring high status benefits due to the fact that high status is not exhibited in any way – it is not visible. B. observed modesty which can be defined as not abusing high status and deferring high status benefits done by persons who are known for having high status (i.e. football stars).
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If a well-known high status person exhibits modesty, it is for sure the second type of modesty – observed, thus visible. Moreover, exhibiting the first type of modesty is virtually impossible because, at least to a certain audience, the high status is known (e.g. Family, friends etc.). This makes even unobserved modesty visible, at least for some people.
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The conclusion is that at least in theory modesty meets the criteria of being a costly signal for attracting long term partners.

Mating Reality Check

At ERIM there are countless occasions when I am asked what my research interests are. When I say that it is “mating related behavior” or “the psychology of mating” I get the feeling that the audience has a hesitant reaction… something like “yeah, but is that important… is that actually an area of research, especially in business administration?”.
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Of course, mating, at least apparently, is not at the core of business activities and thus it might not be worthy of the attention of business researchers. During one class discussion I was even told that my research project does not have too many practical implications… Now here are some arguments why research in mating psychology and its implications in day to day life are important.
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First, every living human is the result of (successful) mating, even the ones that laugh at my interests. Is this important enough?
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Second, many research areas are important because of the fact that they investigate something that is related to a big market. One such example is research in finance and incentive schemes etc. Taking into account that the mating market is about 6 billion people (assuming that 1 billion are below mating age), I’d say it is a very large market. Moreover, mating exists (and has existed) even where financial markets and other forms of “modern” business don’t exist.
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Third, a huge number of behaviors are mating driven. Of course some prefer to say that there is no (direct) link between, let’s say, dancing or getting a Master degree and mating. I don’t think so… one would be amazed what the mating INSTINCT can make people do… Regarding the size of the market influenced by mating, just think about all the products and services that are bought to show the love for the significant other. Then add all the cosmetics markets, part of the car market, most of the fashion market and many more… is that big enough?
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Fourth, no other topic has received this much coverage in culture and no other topic accounts for a bigger chunk of well-being as mating does. Of course poems and songs don’t talk explicitly about mating, rather the pseudonyms of “love” and “romance” are used. Yes, in case anyone missed the point, romantic love is the more polite, more conventional way of saying “mating related behavior”.
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Fifth, mating is extremely practical. If anyone sees first the theoretical part of mating, then that person has lived in total isolation.

How to get smarter … and costly signaling theory.

About two years ago I wrote a post on this blog on “How to get smarter” (in Romanian) and every few days I get visits from people who searched “How to get smarter” in Romanian. I even got visits from Iceland, Japan, Switzerland, Australia and many other countries apart from Romania. In the last two months the number of visits that the blog got through googling these words increased (the blog is in the top 3 google results depending on exact combination of words).
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Initially I thought that more and more people are looking for ways in which to increase their intelligence or cognitive capacity or whatever you want to call “being smart”. This is not a bad thing, wright? It’s good if more and more people want to be smarter and look for ways of achieving this… or at least it’s a good thing if more and more people realize that they are not smart (enough).
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A few days ago I discovered what could be a much more plausible reason for the increased number of visits to this blog in search of ways to enhance one’s IQ. On the Romanian Radio station that I listen there is a commercial for Vodafone with a famous singer that says that if you buy a smartphone you’ll get smarter “automatically”. I guess that many of the people who ended up on this blog were searching for ways to get smarter without buying a smartphone which is expensive or maybe to get confirmation that owning one would lead to an increase in intelligence.
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Intelligence is a very important personal trait in social life and everyone (sane) wants to have it at a high level and display it even more. The reason for displaying intelligence is quite simple: everyone wants to have smart friends, smart spouses and IQ is a very good predictor in many things that we generally want to have such as job performance – good salary and successful mating (healthy kids that actually survive and don’t become junkies or end up in jail).
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Now there are various ways in which to display intelligence. Some people chose to buy complicated to use products like smartphones, or by getting MBA’s, PhD’s, Master degrees etc. Of course that smartphones and MBAs don’t display just IQ and these aren’t the only ways to show one’s intelligence, but this is not what I want to talk about. Some signals are more or less fake – they signal a trait that it not actually that high. For example one can buy a smartphone and not be very intelligent at all (he or she just stole some money and went directly to the store). Flashing out a brand new High-tech gadget will signal to his or her acquaintances that that person is smart enough to get the money needed and to know how to use the 10.000 features of the gizmo.
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Unfortunately for those who use false signals, there are much more natural and simpler ways to signal a trait such as intelligence. One of these is conversation. Let’s suppose that our dude that just bought a flashy last generation smartphone with 11.001 features and applications goes on a date with a young lady that was unconsciously attracted to him by the gadget. They go for some drinks, a nice walk etc. He can’t just stand next to her playing with his alleged IQ extension and not say a word. He has to talk to her or at least mimic a decent conversation. Now, talking and communication have been around far longer than electronics and we know how to unconsciously decode these more natural signals.
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So our guy that has spent at least 500 Euros on an intelligence showing piece of electronics has to prove in a very ancient way (conversation) that he’s actually smart. If the conversation is at a very low level of intellectual engagement, then he’ll not get a second date. Of course there might be some exceptions such as: the girl is less intelligent than him and she’ll perceive him as better fitted for mating; or the girl just wants a short (rather embarrassing) adventure.

The Professor Bias

Psychology and its derivatives in various sciences which usually include the term “Behavioral” give a lot of attention to decision making biases… in normal language: why we don’t make the optimal decisions.
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In the very many years of going to school I realized that there is what I call the “Professor Bias”. This means that a professor has the WRONG impression that his or her course is the most important one that students have at a particular time or even in all of their education. Most severe cases of “professor bias” imply that the teacher strongly believes that the students take only his or her course and no other.
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This bias leads to an overload for students and that it’s not necessary a problem in itself, but in most cases it leads to an overload with less important, less interesting and even less useful study work. From both my learning experience and teaching experience I know that studying something one doesn’t enjoy or finds it useful leads to only one result: failure. Failure can come in many forms. Some fail by dropping out of school, other by becoming “brain dead” and losing all innate human qualities like creativity and empathy.
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The “professor bias”, as most of the other decision making biases, is in most cases unconscious. The people who have it don’t know they do and they see nothing wrong in emphasizing on their course. When students don’t respond in acknowledging that the course is the holy grail of their life, the teachers often get upset and try to force the students to do what he or she thinks it’s right for them. It makes perfect sense, but it’s still wrong. What can be done is not to convince teachers that their course is totally useless or that it might be interesting for only 5% of the students. Educational programs come in packages (more courses together) and there is the key – in managing these packages.
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Now there may appear the “manager bias” which in my view means that the program manager only looks at the name of the courses and maybe at some of the broad topics covered by a course. This is the beginning of the problem. If one looks at the curriculum presented for an education program everything makes perfect sense. For example if you want to become a researcher (scientist) in business administration of course it makes perfect sense to learn about philosophy of science and research methodology, statistics, management foundations and many others. The problem is when during those courses you find at least half of the content to be uninteresting and un-useful.
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Another side of the professor bias is that a lot of teachers assume that the students are 101% rational and they are there to learn what he or she has to say. Again, it’s nice, but totally wrong. If you give a lecture at 4PM students might have something else on their mind especially if it’s on a Friday. Another example is when one has a heterogeneous audience and teaches something rather specific. When the teacher goes into the “technical” details, for example matrix algebra, the people who don’t understand will just switch off.
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This is one aspect of the big conflict between “should” and “do”. What a teacher should J do is to know that every time he or she goes into a classroom he or she has to gain the attention of that audience, even if it’s the 10^th lecture of the same course. But, as we all know: should is not equal to “actually do”.

Sculpture and Education

The novice, rather unskilled and not very talented sculptor takes a block of stone and tries to transform it in what he or she wants to sculpt. Michelangelo said that he reveals what the piece of stone really is by removing the unnecessary parts.
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Why is it in education that most teachers and overall educational programs try to transform the student in something that they want? Nobody really knows if the student wants to be transformed because education doesn’t come with a comprehensive product description so that it would be possible to say that the student made an informed conscious choice.
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On the other hand in almost 20 years of school I haven’t seen a program which focuses on what a student really is and teachers and educators to focus on revealing the true potential of the student.
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Dear educators please go and see Michelangelo’s works and hopefully you’ll get the point.

What would you do with a million dollars (euros) ?

In Romania from time to time the National Lottery prize exceeds 1 million euros (or 2 or 3 million, I just take the psychological value into account) and when it does, in most of the times, there is a lot of media coverage especially in the news programs. It’s like all of a sudden everybody in the country is aware that there is a National Lottery (not that the lottery is every week or even twice a week).
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In this media coverage, in certain times, there are street polls where a reporter goes on a street (usually in Bucharest – the capital city) and asks random people (as if people who are on the street at noon are totally random selected) what would they do if they won the lottery? What would they do if they had a million euros (or two or three etc.). What’s really interesting is that all the people that are interviewed (or at least the ones that are shown on TV) somehow manage to give a pretty reasonable answer. Most of them say that they would buy a nice house (and trust me housing is not cheap in Romania’s big cities), they would buy a nice car (oh we have a thing for expensive “show off” cars) or, the older respondents, that they would help their children.
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Taking into account most of the social and economic factors of the Romanian reality all of these are reasonable answers. After all, who would not help their children if they had a lot of money on their hands? Or who would not like to have a nice house and an “image” car to drive on a crappy road?
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What’s really puzzling is that I’ve never seen a street interview session on the topic “What would you do to earn one million euros?”. I guess that’s not a very appealing topic for most of the TV audience, but also I think that the huge majority of respondents would have a big problem in answering the question.
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Let’s take into account that (hypothetically) having one million euros is more valuable than gaining one million euros (that you don’t have) due to lose aversion. Let’s suppose that we have to take into account a discount factor of 50%. But even so, I haven’t seen a street interview on the topic “What would you do to earn 500.000 euros?”.
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The answer is quite simple and is related to cognitive effort. Rank on a scale from 1 to 5 how easy is for you to think (1 really easy and 5 very difficult) about how to spend one million euros. Now rank how easy is to think of how to earn the same sum (or half of it). If you are a normal person you would need a lot less (or significantly less at a p-value < .001 – researchers know why) cognitive effort (aka. Thinking) to conceive how to spend one million euros than how to earn it. .
Thinking (imagining) how to earn half a million euros simply requires too much (intellectual) effort. Many people can’t even come up with one reasonable idea that doesn’t imply robbing a bank or something similar and soon give up with the legendary “I can’t”. On the other hand thinking how to spend one (half a) million euros is much easier. I have a saying that “when you have money to spend, for sure someone will volunteer to help you”. It’s infinitely easier to dream on spending a million euros than it is to conceive a plan to earn that sum of money.
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Now… what can be done? The lottery in any country wants the media attention because if the prize is large so is the number of players which can only mean larger profits for the lottery. What we can do is to try and imagine (think about) how to earn 100.000 euros (1/10 million euros) in the next 3 years. Of course it’s not as glamorous as dreaming of spending 1 million in 1 month and hallucinate that money will last forever. On the other hand it’s much more realistic. What we can do even further is to imagine how to spend 11.000 euros next year in staid of 12.000 and in the same time put 3000 in our savings account. If you do so, for sure you’ll not be on TV the next time the lottery hits the 1 million value, but it’s much more likely that you’ll get more peace.

Expert on Stupidity

When Cornelia and I moved to Rotterdam we rented an apartment that was unfurnished. We brought from Romania an inflatable mattress which we used as a bed for a couple of weeks. We bought some furniture in the first days of our staying here, but we didn’t find a bed. Finally we found one at a second hand furniture store and we bought it, but it had no mattress, so we had to find one that was comfortable enough (I have some problems with my back so I need a good mattress) and at a price that we could afford.
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In the spring of 2010 I bought a mattress in Bucharest and I knew what to look for. Also, by having this experience I knew that it was not easy to find something good at a reasonable price. Some mattresses cost around 1000 euros. Anyhow, I had some experience in buying furniture and especially mattresses and I comforted Cornelia who was a little scared of the process of finding something that is ok and we have to use for the next 2 years (at least) and is very important for one’s overall well-being. She could rely on me. Now I confess that I was pretty much in her situation, but I just didn’t show it, not to scare her more.
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We found a mattress store really close to where we live in Rotterdam. We went there and looked around. The salesman asked us if we were interested in something particular and we said that we are looking for a mattress with the dimensions of … and a maximum price. The gentleman showed us one and invited Cornelia to try it. She said that I should try it because “I’m the expert” (I told you that I had some experience, but for sure I’m not an expert).
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The salesman replied: “Miss, we are all experts in sleep. We all do it every day for eight hours all our lives.”
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The truth is that he’s right. We all have a tremendous amount of experience and practice with sleeping.
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Then I wandered if there aren’t other things in which we are all experts in. A quick and easy answer is related to other things that we do on a daily basis and are linked to our primary biological needs. But this is not interesting. Of course we take for granted that we do some things every day and we get better at doing them, but using the toilet or showering (I hope that most of my readers shower on a daily basis) aren’t interesting fields.
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A less easy, but nonetheless true, answer is stupidity. We all do stupid things. Even the smartest people do things that are less rational, sub-optimal or plainly stupid. Doing stupid things doesn’t necessarily imply that the person who does them is stupid. The other way around we can say that not everything that a stupid person does is necessarily stupid.
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There is a lot of literature on irrational or less-rational behavior that is extremely interesting (at least for me), but to understand the fact that people generally do stupid things one only has to look around and start using the frontal-left part of his or her brain (the area responsible for reasoning). Of course, other people do stupid things on a regular basis. You and I are not doing such dumb things. Most people say: “I’m too smart to do that. It’s the others who do them.”
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Even this very line of reasoning is not that rational. Everyone thinks of his or her self being above average, being a smart person, a good driver, a good lover etc. And in most of the times it’s really good that we think like that. Who would want to think bad about him(her) self and be depressed all the time?
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But in the same time, we have to realize that it is not always so. We are not “above average” lovers, drivers, cooks etc. We have to realize that each of us does, more or less often, stupid things.
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We have to admit that we are all experts on stupidity, even if we aren’t always aware of that.
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Shout it out loud! “I’m an expert on stupidity!!!”