PDF Summary:The Intelligence Trap, by David Robson

In The Intelligence Trap, science journalist David Robson explores why intelligent people are sometimes more prone to misguided, wrong, or irrational thinking than people of average intelligence—and why the very traits that make them intelligent can lead them to fall for conspiracy theories, fake news, and misguided logic.

In this guide, we’ll explore the reasons behind this phenomenon, as well as Robson’s advice on avoiding the intelligence trap by overcoming your biases, feeding your curiosity, working with your emotions, and identifying misleading news stories. We’ll also look at how Robson’s ideas stack up to other experts’ views on how you can think more clearly and make better decisions.

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The tendency of people to use motivated reasoning to support their chosen identities points to the evolutionary roots of in-group thinking. Survival without the support of a group has always been difficult, so humans evolved to prioritize group membership. This often means we feel the need to confirm the beliefs of group members we identify with regardless of those beliefs’ merits. In Rationality, Steven Pinker discusses the same study on guns and crime that Robson refers to, noting that in-group, tribal thinking underpins the shifting rationales of opposing political groups—people will craft logic to produce a certain conclusion even when it gives them no personal benefit, as long as it enhances the correctness of their chosen group.

How to Avoid the Intelligence Trap

Robson writes that to avoid the intelligence trap, you must aim not just to be smart, but to be wise. Wisdom is different from straightforward intelligence: While intelligence means you can reason analytically and remember things well, wisdom means you can accurately assess a situation and come up with effective solutions that lead to long-term benefits.

Additionally, Robson notes that wisdom is not strictly correlated with intelligence. A person can struggle with some of the abstract skills that traditionally define intelligence but still reason wisely, and vice versa: A person can be highly intelligent in the traditional sense but not make wise decisions that effectively solve problems.

(Shortform note: Other psychologists echo Robson’s view that wisdom is a different skill than straightforward intelligence, though most view intelligence as being an important piece of the puzzle. Some define it as a psychological characteristic that combines intellectual ability with prior knowledge, experience, and virtue. This aligns with Robson’s argument that wisdom is more about assessing a real-world situation than merely analyzing abstract facts. Notably, the focus on virtue in this definition indicates the goal of long-term benefits from Robson’s description.)

Robson also argues that although some people are naturally more inclined to wise thinking, it’s a skill anyone can learn, and he recommends a number of techniques that can help you do so. In the following sections, we’ll review a few of them:

• Be actively curious.
• Deliberately seek out and consider alternative perspectives.
• Know when to listen to your emotions.
• Learn to recognize fake news.

(Shortform note: Not everyone agrees that it’s possible to learn to think more rationally—at least not to a degree that it will become automatic. Daniel Kahneman (Thinking, Fast and Slow) writes that the only technique he’s found effective in quelling his biases is to deliberately slow down, recognize when he’s in a situation that’s triggering a bias, identify the bias and the trigger for it, and then purposefully engage his conscious mind to think it through. Consciously naming it is the only way, Kahneman writes, to prevent it from influencing him.)

Be Actively Curious

Robson argues that curiosity is one of the most important traits a person can have; curious people learn better, remember things better, and are more likely to achieve their goals than people who may be more technically intelligent but less curious.

Robson says this is because curiosity is linked to happiness: A person who’s curious enjoys pursuing knowledge. When a person enjoys an activity, their brain’s dopamine-producing system is activated, releasing happiness hormones. These particular hormones do more than just improve a person’s mood—they also improve learning and memory retention on a neurological level. This means a curious person will not only pursue knowledge enthusiastically and proactively, but also that they’ll more easily retain what they learn.

(Shortform note: Research confirms that dopamine improves learning and memory, finding that it works on both a neurological and behavioral level: On a neurological level, the hormone enhances the function of the hippocampus, the region of the brain that consolidates memories. On a behavioral level, it triggers our desire to seek a reward. Notably, the reward of curiosity is not a typical goal-oriented reward that drives future behavior in the way that, for example, the promise of money does. Instead, the reward of curiosity is a reduction in uncertainty. This reward brings satisfaction without any additional tangible benefits—it seems humans have evolved to seek information just for the joy of it.)

In addition, people who have curiosity also tend to:

• Be more creative, because they ask questions others haven’t thought of
• Have better social relationships, because they’re genuinely interested in listening to others
• Have more professional success, because they look for unspoken motivations in business interactions, which helps them negotiate better deals
• Resist the intelligence trap, because they’re more willing to challenge their own beliefs and engage with information that contradicts their preconceptions

In fact, people who approach the world from a position of curiosity enjoy being challenged with new perspectives, insights, and questions.

(Shortform note: Psychologists theorize that one reason curiosity brings about the benefits Robson outlines is that it improves brain health: It encourages mental stimulation, which creates more neural links and enhances your cognitive abilities. Having more neural connections allows for enhanced creativity, interpersonal interactions, professional success, and overall, the cognitive flexibility to avoid the intelligence trap. In addition, when your brain is functioning at a healthy, strong, active level, you feel more positive and have less risk of depression—a positive mental outlook contributes to increased creativity and so on.)

How to Ignite Your Curiosity

Robson offers two ideas on how to foster your curiosity so that you become more interested in the world:

Play: Kids are naturally curious. It’s when we age that our curiosity dries up. Robson encourages you to find the fun in your work—see problems as puzzles to be solved, and find ways to add game-like qualities to your pursuits.

(Shortform note: In Wired to Create, Scott Barry Kaufman and Carolyn Gregoire emphasize how important play is to both children and adults, noting that children who play become adults who are creative—creativity in adulthood, they write, is how we incorporate play into our lives beyond childhood.)

Purposefully look for gaps in your knowledge: When you’re studying a new topic, whether it’s for an exam or a professional project, write down everything you already know about it, then write down any details you’re missing or questions you want to answer. When you consciously identify things you don’t know, you create a mystery your brain wants to solve. This sparks the release of dopamine, making the experience more enjoyable and interesting while boosting your recall and learning abilities.

(Shortform note: In Think Like a Freak, Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner write that one way you can look for gaps in your knowledge is to ask about the obvious: We typically don’t question things we learned long ago, such as set-up steps in a process or background pieces of information. But someone learning something new will often question those long-accepted facts, and doing so can reveal insights we’ve overlooked. Levitt and Dubner advise that you purposefully question such basic building blocks of knowledge, looking for holes, alternative steps, or nuances no one’s asked about in a while.)

Seek Out Alternative Perspectives

Robson argues that one of the hallmarks of wise thinking is the ability to consider alternate perspectives, viewpoints, arguments, and possibilities. When a person understands how other people are thinking, they can imagine different ways a conflict might play out, which empowers them to come up with workable compromises to resolve disputes.

Robson recommends using “moral algebra” to help you weigh all possible angles of a problem.

Calculate Moral Algebra

Moral algebra is a technique championed by American statesman and polymath Benjamin Franklin, who advised that you approach decision-making with a mathematical, quantitative mindset. His technique allows you to carefully consider your problem from all perspectives.

To use moral algebra, make a list of the pros and cons of your potential decision, then assign a number to each based on its importance. Cross off pros and cons whose values cancel each other out, and then see which side is left with the higher score. Franklin added another step, which is to take a day or so to consider what your analysis revealed. Once you’ve had time to think it over, make your decision.

Robson notes that moral algebra is more than a simple pro/con list. There are two crucial differences:

1. It accounts for the significance of each factor: When you carefully measure the importance of each element of a decision, you’re more likely to see its nuances.
2. It encourages slow consideration of the issue: When you ponder a problem for several days before making a decision, you’re less likely to react quickly to the facts that were the first to flit across your mind.

(Shortform note: In The 4-Hour Workweek, Tim Ferriss proposes a variant of a pro/con list that has echoes of Franklin’s moral algebra: When you’re facing a decision, write down a list of what you fear might happen (cons) if you choose each option, and assign each fear a number based on how much you fear it. Then, examine each fear: Is it justified? If it comes to pass, how might you respond? Which fears are more likely? Then, think of the things you’d like to do if not for your fears (pros), and examine them: What are the opportunity costs of being held back by your fears? Weigh these scenarios as well on a scale of how much you fear and desire them. Take time to consider all of this carefully, then use it to help make your decision.)

Listen to Your Emotions—Sometimes

Robson then addresses a contradiction regarding emotions. He notes that most experts on rational thinking advise that you quell your emotions. This is usually valid advice, as our emotions often lead us to ignore rational reasoning and make us susceptible to influences like those discussed earlier: overconfidence, cognitive biases, and motivated reasoning. In addition, our emotions are sometimes influenced by factors unrelated to the choices we make, but which nevertheless affect our decisions—such as bad weather, loud background noises, stress, fatigue, or the like.

However, Robson argues that you shouldn’t discount your emotions entirely. When they’re properly understood and analyzed, emotions can be valuable sources of information. Emotions, he explains, are designed to help us recognize important signals quickly so that we can respond to dangers and opportunities without needing to consciously think about them. When you perceive an experience, your body reacts immediately with a physical response, which may include heart rate changes, increased sweating, or the like. These signals tell our conscious brains to watch out for something, resulting in “gut feelings” or intuition.

(Shortform note: Robson’s definition of emotions as automatic, bodily reactions is supported not only by science but also by language: The fact that the English language conflates the words emotions and feelings indicates that we see an instinctive correlation between them. Some psychologists argue it might be more accurate to consider emotions as a subset of feelings, since “feelings” can include other physical sensations like itchiness and pain. Of course, such strictly physical sensations also have links to emotions—and the line of causation can run both ways (for example, pain can cause emotional discomfort and vice versa). This further supports the case that emotions are inexorably tied to physical sensations.)

Although sometimes gut feelings can lead us astray, they can also indicate that your subconscious mind is picking up something about a situation that your conscious mind hasn’t clued into yet. The key is to know when to pay attention to your emotions and when to ignore them. Robson writes that this is the primary difference between people who think wisely and people who don’t. The good news is that it’s a skill that can be learned.

How Experience Can Help You Judge Your Emotions

In Superforecasting, Dan Gardner and Philip Tetlock define intuition, or a “gut feeling,” as a feeling that we know something without being able to explain why we know it. Like Robson, Gardner and Tetlock write that intuition can be a valuable source of information. While it can lead us to faulty thinking if it’s influenced by cognitive biases or background emotional “clutter,” it can also sometimes succeed where logic fails.

They note that the important factor is the level of experience a person has when dealing with any given problem—experience can mean the difference between intuition produced by unhelpful emotional noise and intuition that provides important information. People who have extensive experience with a skill or a problem develop extremely fine-tuned pattern-recognition skills that allow them to quickly respond to cues. Though these can, as Robson notes, lead experts astray, Gardner and Tetlock point out that they often lead experts correctly.

They cite an example of firefighters who narrowly missed getting caught in a collapsing house—the fire they were battling appeared to be only a small, routine house fire, but the crew couldn’t help feeling that something was off about the situation. They retreated just as the floor collapsed, revealing a far larger, hidden fire in the basement. The authors argue that the firefighters were able to recognize the unseen danger because their years of experience primed them to notice deviations from a typical house-fire pattern—even though their conscious minds didn’t identify those deviations, their bodies picked up on important cues, like the presence of an inappropriate level of heat for the amount of fire they saw.

This correlation with experience suggests that one way to solve the question Robson raises, of how to know when to ignore or follow your emotions, is to be mindful of your experience in the matter. If you’re dealing with a situation you haven’t encountered before, your intuition may be more susceptible to cognitive biases and emotions. But, if you’re dealing with a problem you’ve gained some mastery in, your gut feelings are more likely to direct you soundly.

Find Emotional Distance

Robson writes that to determine which emotions you should pay attention to and which you should override, you can use a technique called “self-distancing.” To do this, when you find yourself in a situation that upsets you, pause and imagine you’re watching the scene unfold from a distance, as if you’re watching it in a movie. Then describe the situation to yourself.

This simple process can have a profound influence on how you perceive and react to the world. It can help you see clearly what other people are doing so that you better understand where they’re coming from. People who regularly practice self-distancing have less anxiety and can confront scary situations—such as public speaking—with more ease and confidence. Research has even shown that married couples going through difficult periods are able to revitalize their relationships to a far greater degree when asked to describe their disputes through the eyes of an observer.

Emotional Distancing and the Marshmallow Test

The technique of self-distancing was pioneered by Walter Mischel, designer of the famous “marshmallow test” that measures children’s self-control when faced with a tasty snack. Mischel showed that when kids were trained to change their perception of the treat, so that they psychologically distanced themselves from it, they were able to resist its pull.

Mischel gave the kids a number of methods to change their perceptions. One was to picture the marshmallow as something neutral, like a cotton ball. This method had a lot of success, but the most effective method, Mischel found, was to have the kids imagine the desired object with a picture frame around it. This seems to have allowed the children to perceive it as something separate from themselves—something without immediate temptation. This version of the technique aligns with Robson’s advice to view a situation as if you were an impartial, outside observer.

Mischel tracked the preschoolers in his study and found that the children who showed more self-control ended up more successful in life, with better jobs, relationships, and health. This outcome supports Robson’s argument that self-distancing can help a person better deal with the challenges of life.

Further, Mischel’s personal experience with self-distancing supports Robson’s contention that it can be learned and mastered: In his autobiography, The Marshmallow Test, Mischel recounts how he struggled to overcome his addiction to cigarettes until he taught himself to self-distance through visualization. By picturing a cancer-stricken man every time he craved a cigarette, he was able to distance his mind from the pull of his desire.

Learn to Describe Your Emotions Accurately

Robson observes that people who are able to describe their emotions with clear, precise words are better able to distinguish emotions that convey important information from emotions that reflect background influences like cognitive biases or stress—factors we’re not consciously aware of but that have significant impacts on our thinking. He argues that this is because background feelings are influential only if they stay in the background—once we become consciously aware of our emotions, they lose their power to influence our decisions. Thus, when we consciously name them, we deprive them of power.

(Shortform note: In The Happiness Hypothesis, Jonathan Haidt likens the dynamic between our subconscious and conscious minds to a human rider sitting atop an elephant: If left to its own devices, the elephant (our subconscious mind) will go where it wants—it’s only with purposeful, conscious awareness that the rider (our conscious mind) can control it. Haidt also notes that the elephant is far more powerful than the rider and has its own will, arguing that if the elephant disagrees with the instructions of the rider, it won’t comply, and emotion will defeat reason. Haidt thus tempers Robson’s argument that becoming aware of our subconscious biases deprives them of power—in his view, awareness can soften, but not defeat, our subconscious urges.)

The specificity with which we name our feelings seems to matter: Stock market investors who describe their emotions simply as “happy” don’t pick stocks as well as those who describe their emotions with more specific language, like “optimistic” or “excited.” Investors with more precise emotional language are also better able to bounce back after setbacks—they’re less likely to be overcome by negative emotions and then gamble on increasingly risky investments.

(Shortform note: The ability to distinguish between nuances of emotional states is called emotional granularity, and its role in both personal and business success is becoming more widely acknowledged. Some corporations, recognizing that workers who are more emotionally sound make better contributions to their companies, have implemented training and education programs aimed at increasing their employees’ emotional intelligence. The goal of these programs is to empower workers to assess risk better, negotiate better, manage stress better, make decisions more quickly and flexibly, and recover from financial downturns more resiliently.)

Robson therefore advises that you practice describing your emotions accurately. Ask yourself what emotions you’re feeling at different times of the day as you encounter different stimuli. For example, if you pass a car accident, ask yourself to describe your emotional reaction. Also keep a journal about the decisions you make throughout the day. Write down the thoughts and feelings you experience that impacted your choices.

How to Explore Your Emotions

Like Robson, many psychologists recommend that you actively probe your emotions to deprive them of power over your mind. By doing so, you’ll be better able to distinguish muddy emotions—intense, long-lasting, background emotions that aren’t closely tied to a specific trigger and don’t provide useful information—from clear emotions—immediate reactions to events that can give you important guidance.

Labeling your emotions throughout the day and keeping a journal of them are two often-suggested techniques to help you clarify your feelings. Some experts add details, noting that to effectively use these methods, you can ask yourself these questions:

• Are my feelings a response to the current situation, or are they reflecting experiences from my past?

• Do my emotions stem from worries I have about future events?

• How do I feel about these emotions? Am I criticizing myself, and am I ashamed of feeling this way? Am I trying to suppress these feelings?

• Have I been taking care of my physical health lately? (Remember that fatigue, hunger, and a poor diet can affect your emotional state.)

Exploring questions like these can shed light on whether your feelings are conveying important information or if they’re background, context feelings that can safely be ignored.

Robson also recommends that you learn a second language. Studies suggest that people who can speak more than one language can better regulate their emotions—the theory is that when people think about words more purposefully, it lessens their automatic emotional responses to them.

(Shortform note: The correlation between emotional regulation and second languages is demonstrated by the fact that bilingual speakers often spontaneously switch the language they speak depending on their emotional states—even during a single conversation. They tend to use their native language when expressing more intense emotions, while favoring a second language to convey less intense emotions. However, bilingual speakers have been known to strategically change their language in order to adjust their emotional arc—when frightened, for example, they sometimes switch into their second language, as if to regulate their emotional reactions.)

Learn to Recognize Fake News

Another danger of the intelligence trap that Robson discusses is the tendency of smart people to fall for fake news—misinformation and disinformation. Apparently, intelligence doesn’t protect against fake news, and Robson writes that it also seems to make some people more susceptible to it. For example, studies show that university graduates tend to be more accepting of false medical information.

Who Falls for Medical Misinformation?

Much study has been devoted to the proliferation of medical misinformation, especially of the online variety, which has flourished through social media and other digital platforms. Some data suggests that those who fall for online falsehoods fall largely into three (often overlapping) categories: those who lack digital literacy, those who don’t put effort into reflecting on what’s true or false, and those who have strong preexisting political or religious beliefs.

This last category aligns with Robson’s theories on the influence of cognitive biases, as it suggests that people who fall for medical misinformation are engaging in motivated reasoning. However, there’s been little data supporting his contention that this indicates higher intelligence. Some studies instead find that people who engage in greater reflective thought are better able to identify, for example, false Covid-19 data. Other research finds similar correlations between those with higher education and their ability to spot misinformation.

However, some research does support Robson’s contention that education may lead to higher rates of gullibility. Though degree-holders seem to be slightly better at identifying falsehoods, they are still susceptible to misinformation—and they’re also more likely to misjudge their ability to spot misinformation. Thus, data does support Robson’s notion that once a person has earned a degree, their confidence increases to the point where they’re less able to gauge their own competence.

Robson emphasizes that everyone, regardless of intelligence, is susceptible to fake news, and he reviews some characteristics that will make information (fake or not) seem more believable:

Familiarity: When you’ve heard facts or beliefs repeatedly, you’re more likely to accept them as true. When messages are repeated frequently, it indicates others have decided these facts are true, and we tend to trust the group. Marketers leverage this tendency, repeating their message frequently and using familiar people to spread it.

(Shortform note: Research confirms that a person typically needs to be exposed to a message multiple times before they pay genuine attention, with traditional marketing theory often citing the “Rule of Seven”—meaning consumers must encounter a message seven times for it to be truly noticed and considered.)

Fluency: When something is easier to understand, it seems more likely to be true. Robson explains that when something seems simple and straightforward, it feels like the other person isn’t hiding anything. Marketers leverage this phenomenon when creating ads by using easy-to-read fonts and focusing on one message at a time.

Fluency can also be enhanced by making a message easier to visualize—if you can “picture” the subject of a message, you’ll feel it’s easier to understand, and you’ll accept it more readily. Peddlers of fake news stories take advantage of this in a number of ways:

• They add photos—adding an image makes a message easier to visualize, and thus makes it more believable. Notably, the visuals don’t have to be relevant—as long as they’re somewhat related to the topic, the message will seem true. For example, if an article about a housing-market scam includes a picture of a house, it will seem more believable, even though a photo of a random house proves nothing.
• They include small details, even if those details are irrelevant—for example, a fake news story about the death of a celebrity seems more believable if the story mentions where she was born and what movies she was famous for. Again, this makes a message easier for people to visualize, which makes it more believable.

Familiarity and Fluency as Two Sides of the Same Coin

Psychologists credit both familiarity and fluency as key factors in how a person views truthfulness, and they argue that these two elements are closely intertwined—so closely, in fact, that they enhance each other. The more familiar a message, the more fluent it feels, and vice versa.

That repeated information is often seen as more truthful than new information is known in psychology as the “illusory truth effect.” Many studies confirm the power of this effect: In some, for example, participants are asked to guess the truthfulness of a variety of statements, such as trivia claims, news headlines, and product claims. If they’re then asked to judge a second list of statements, which repeats some claims from the first batch, they’ll increasingly label the repeated statements as true.

Rather than just being a product of familiarity, psychologists theorize that this phenomenon is also caused by the fluency bias. Research has shown that in addition to the fluency techniques Robson mentions, there’s an additional factor that contributes to fluency: When statements are repeated, they lead to processing fluency, whereby it becomes easier for a person to decode and understand the message because their minds have already processed it.

The line of causation between familiarity and fluency runs in the other direction, as well. Messages that are fluent are easy to understand because they connect to images, details, and ideas that a person has already encoded into their long-term memories. In other words, such messages are fluent because they feel familiar.

How to Combat Fake News

Robson notes that it’s hard to curtail the spread of disinformation, and if you’re trying to correct a falsehood, it’s important that you don’t repeat it as you do so. Attempts to debunk misinformation can backfire because the mere act of repeating a false claim can reinforce it. False claims are memorable, but true statements can fade from memory quickly if they’re boring. This can result in people paying attention to and remembering the false claims even when those claims are being actively debunked. Thus, if you’re trying to correct a falsehood, highlight only the correct information, and mention the incorrect information as little as possible.

(Shortform note: Research supports Robson’s caution that repeating a false statement when correcting it can have the unintended consequence of reinforcing it. Psychologists advise that to effectively debunk a falsehood, feature the correction prominently and minimize attention on the misinformation so that the accurate information gets stored in your audience's memory. For increased effectiveness, have the correction come from trusted, familiar sources, give details about why the claim is false, and explain what’s true instead. In addition, remember that repetition and familiarity are just as important for debunking false information as they are for spreading it: A correction should be repeated over time to reduce the risk of it being forgotten.)

Inoculate people against fake news: Research has shown that you can prime people to be better at detecting fake news by showing them fake stories and revealing why they’re fake. This helps to inoculate them against misinformation by teaching them to recognize warning signs.

(Shortform note: Some psychologists use the term “prebunking” to describe psychological inoculation. Many argue that prebunking may ultimately be the key to fighting disinformation, as it’s hard to correct false information that’s already taken root throughout a population. Experts recommend three types of prebunks: Fact-based (correcting a specific piece of information), source-based (revealing bad sources of information), and logic-based (explaining the tactics used to manipulate). Of these, logic-based prebunks have the most long-term success; when you teach people to spot misinformation tactics, they become more immune to them later.)