We all make mistakes—some more avoidable and harmful than others. But why do we continue to make them, even when hindsight shows they were easily avoidable? To explore this, the article delves into two key sources of common misjudgments: "entitled stupid" and "really stupid" decisions. By examining how our consciousness, decision-making, genetics, and evolutionary biology contribute to these blunders, the article uses relatable examples—like golfers making life harder for trail bikers and insights from *Forrest Gump*—to link these forms of "stupid" to our daily experiences. The article relates avoiding and recovering from our natural stupid to grow and leverage our smarts.
About the author: Jeff Hulett leads Personal Finance Reimagined, a decision-making and financial education platform. He teaches personal finance at James Madison University and provides personal finance seminars. Check out his book -- Making Choices, Making Money: Your Guide to Making Confident Financial Decisions.
Jeff is a career banker, data scientist, behavioral economist, and choice architect. Jeff has held banking and consulting leadership roles at Wells Fargo, Citibank, KPMG, and IBM.
I was confronted with another’s “stupid” recently as I biked on the W&OD trail in Northern Virginia. This trail is very busy at certain times of the day. The trail is shared with all kinds of travelers, such as bikers, runners, walkers, strollers, and everything in between. We all do our best to get along and follow some no-nonsense norms to keep us from getting hurt. The variety of travel speeds creates a unique challenge.
But this source of stupid question has little to do with the interaction between trail travelers -- It has to do with the golfers playing on a golf course that happens to straddle the W&OD trail. The golfers will finish putting at the prior green and then need to cross over the trail to tee off at the next hole.
They have a very clearly marked and large stop sign when approaching the trail. However, experienced trail travelers know, golfers are dangerous. They are more likely to cross without looking, which creates danger for trail users - especially the bikers.
This just happened to me. I was biking when a golf cart suddenly blocked the trail. I slammed on the brakes to avoid hitting the golf cart. Then, I swerved onto the trail margin as the two golfers happily chatted about their last putt. I felt the desire to yell out. “Are you really stupid or entitled stupid?!” Of course I didn’t, I just composed myself after avoiding a near collision and continued on my way.
So, what is meant by “Are we really stupid or entitled stupid?” Unpacking this question relates to comparing “nature vs. nurture” and “genome vs. environment” based on evolutionary biology and natural selection. That is - how we become who we are is one part internal, related to our DNA, and another part past experience, related to our environment. Which of the two parts causes us to do stupid things is not always apparent.
First, for full disclosure, I am really stupid and a recovering entitled stupid. As it turns out, I am far from being alone. It has taken much of my adult life to appreciate the stupid nuances. As is usually the case with broad categories, those two stupid groups are subtle and need interpretation.
The environment sculpts our entitled stupid...
Entitled stupid is easier to define because its definition is narrower. Entitled stupid refers to beliefs in which the person holding the belief feels entitled to that viewpoint. The resulting belief inaccuracy may reduce welfare for those impacted by the entitled stupid belief holder.
For example, a golfer may believe they should have the right of way to the next hole. Even though, there is a large stop sign suggesting otherwise. The entitlement attitude is best understood via the golfer’s cost lens. There are significant costs to their golf experience - such as payments made for the round of golf, their clubs, their clothes, and a golf membership. Plus there are other personal costs - like the golf practice time, related costs and their time to organize the golf outing; and other potential trappings of entitlement. Their personal investment made to identify as a golfer creates a kind of belief inertia that will increase their willingness to engage in golf. These payment and non-payment golf costs build and reinforce belief inertia from the golfer’s "acquired privilege.” Science teaches us that people naturally overvalue losses associated with costs as compared to benefits. Also, we are generally agnostic to income level when assigning those higher loss values. Meaning, the degree to which we can afford a loss does not have a big impact to our loss assignment. No matter who we are: losses hurt.
This entitled belief is rarely expressed as a conscious decision. Such as - a golfer would likely NOT consciously decide they are better than those not playing golf. More often, entitled stupid presents as a subconscious decision relating to attention. It is more like an error of omission, where the entitled stupid deprioritizes, or ignores altogether, information unrelated to the acquired privilege. This means entitled stupid occurs because their acquired privilege naturally deprioritizes those other inputs NOT valued as highly - much the way a golfer may deprioritize information outside their golfing focus - like a biker’s safety.
If the distracted golfer caused a bike accident - they would likely say “I’m sorry! I did NOT mean to!” But their motivation was a feature of their lack of attention. Subconsciously, they overweighed the acquired privilege generated by the golf costs. By logical identity, the remaining decision inputs are underweight and obscured, including the safety of bikers. The golfer did make a decision to be entitled stupid and block the trail - their decision was just not available to their consciousness.
Motivation and intent are tricky. Someone not having conscious access to a decision does not mean their subconsciousness did not guide the decision. In the absence of a conscious decision, any other motor system action like crossing a busy trail must relate to a subconsciously guided decision. This is why judgments such as:
criminal determinations like which degree a murderer should be assigned, or,
insurance claims like determining fault in auto accident claims
are less obvious than we once believed.
Many states have moved to "no-fault" regulations for evaluating auto insurance claims. In a no-fault insurance state, if you're injured in an auto accident, you would file a claim with your own insurance company to pay for related medical costs. This is regardless of fault. These states recognize the complexity, cost, and potential errors of attempting to assign car accident faults. Since much of our decision influence comes from our subconscious, this begs the question: Does conscious intent really matter?
The Forrest Gump character sums up entitled stupid in a poignant movie scene when Forrest says: “Stupid is as stupid does.”
Earlier, I admitted that I am a recovering entitled stupid. As is the case with many people - my entitled stupid is an artifact of my environment from earlier in my life. I am a college-educated, European American man. I am proud of my life’s accomplishments and how those accomplishments help people. However, I appreciate that the opportunity to help others and the wealth I generated is, at least to some extent, a result of privilege. I want to think I would not use privilege to further my accomplishments, but I am sure I did. When someone is playing a game to win and their rivals are playing the same game to win, the only choice is to play that game by the rules to optimize the winning chances. If someone does not play by the rules, those who play the game by the rules are likelier to win.
Privilege is the outcome of cultural entitlement. And the American cultural game rules include privilege for some and the expectation to win. When incentives are involved, water finds its own level and winning is the level the water naturally seeks. Thus, entitled stupid is a byproduct of the structure and incentives of our environment. I only became aware of my entitled stupid later in life.
So I am a recovering entitled stupid - plus I now have the wealth and time to enable my recovery. While I still want to win the game, the game I’m playing has changed. Those earlier incentives are no longer as important.
Our nature enables really stupid...
Next, we transition from entitled stupid to really stupid. To start - let’s define really stupid as compared to entitled stupid. Back to our nature vs. nurture comparison - being entitled stupid relates more to how we were nurtured. Entitlement is often a product of our nurture-based environment and will relate to our family upbringing. But being really stupid is different - it is an outcome of our genetics. We have less control over being really stupid and the vast majority of us have at least one really stupid characteristic. Being really stupid relates to our lower-ordered smarts.
To help explain, let us start with the definition of smart. This is defined in my article called The case for range: Why 'polymathic' people are so valuable. ‘Smarts’ is defined along two dimensions.
The first dimension encompasses various characteristics defining “smart,” like:
Our memory capacity or speed of recall,
Our speed of processing or reasoning finite topics,
Our ability to find commonality between disparate topics, including spatial understanding,
Our ability to understand and integrate emotion, or
Our ability to build deep and enduring relationships.
It could be something else….
Most of us have a comparative advantage in at least one of these characteristics. Plus, we have a comparative disadvantage in other, lower-ordered characteristics. Every person walks around with an ordered list of these “smart” characteristics, from high to low. This metaphorical list guides our behavior, plus how we prioritize and approach our day-to-day lives. Each person’s list is different.
The second dimension is what others value in how we express those smart defining characteristics. So it is one thing if someone has a smart characteristic and has applied it to some product or service, but the degree to which that thing creates value in other people’s lives is entirely another thing.
To illustrate - if someone applied their amazing ‘top of list’ finite reasoning to smartphone engineering 25 years ago, few people would have thought them smart because the market was not yet deriving value from smartphones.
In summary, smarts are defined as those characteristics that we are relatively good at and of which others find value. This is the interaction between the smart-defining internal and external-based dimensions enabling our smarts. Those characteristics we are relatively good at are at the top of our smart list. Inversely, those we are NOT good at are found at the bottom of the list and define that which we are really stupid.
For example - my reasoning and spatial understanding are relatively high. This is at the top of my smart list. I focus on this, exercise my curiosity, get enjoyment from it, and regularly get positive feedback from others. The feedback from others validates the external market dimension that people are getting value from my smarts.
This also makes sense because I am an introvert. Introverts tend to focus on the ability to transform communication into thought. However, my ability to interpret and integrate emotion is at the bottom of my smart list and where my really stupid resides. Just ask my wife! She has been very tolerant of my really stupid. My ability to recognize emotional cues from others is relatively low. This makes sense because I am not an extrovert - or someone who gets energized by transforming thought into communication. Also, my natural tribal instincts are relatively low. I do not get energized by bringing social groups together or creating group culture. The genetic basis for lower tribalism is relatively low synaptic receptors for the oxytocin neurotransmitter.
A positive byproduct of my lower-than-average oxytocin situation is that I am not a racist - or any other "-ist"-based discriminator. This is not because I made a conscious decision not to be racist, but because my genome decided for me - by making racism a blind spot. Paradoxically, my genetic predisposition not to be racist is part of my really stupid.
Naturally - we are all different - my really stupid is different than others. The point is - the more we focus on our smarts the more likely we are to have a really stupid residual. Plus - we usually cannot help but focus on our smarts. In a market economy, we are rewarded for specializing. This is called comparative advantage. We can thank David Ricardo for demonstrating why specialized smarts are the foundation of the market economy - and the inevitable really stupid that remains!
Perhaps, in the case of really stupid, Forrest Gump would have said: “Stupid is as stupid does not.”
So our really stupid relates to our nature and genetics. In general, we can change our genetic-primed personality like introvert or extrovert, but it takes great effort to attempt updating our genetic predisposition. The longevity or permanence of those attempted personality updates is uncertain. My experience is that people can adapt to situations requiring personality updates - especially in structured environments. Under stress or in less structured environments, we often revert to our inherent personality traits, which are influenced by our genetics.
My life habit is to grow my smarts and my really stupid tends to be a more neglected blind spot. I have found ways to compensate - like adding self-imposed structure - for my really stupid. I’m fortunate to have people around me to help identify when I’m doing something really stupid.
Being on the lookout for stupid...
So, back to the golfer cutting me off on the W&OD trail. Was he entitled stupid or really stupid? It is possible the golfer was focused on his comparative advantages smarts, being a good communicator and he has poor spatial reasoning that impacts his ability to drive a golf cart. On the other hand, maybe he is an entitled prick who just does not care. Then again, maybe he is somewhere in between, with a combination of entitled and really stupid.
I guess I’ll never know. But I will continue to be on the lookout for stupid, regardless of whether they are entitled or really stupid. Either way, avoiding stupid will help me lead a longer, happier life. When it comes to being on the lookout for stupid in my life, my mantra is:
“I’d rather be wronged and alive than right and dead.”
Resources:
Please see Personal Finance Reimagined - a decision-making and financial education platform. Our platform helps people manage their own and others' wisdom and avoid the stupid to make the best long-term wealth decisions.
Acknowledgements:
Thank you to George A. Mashour, Pieter Roelfsema, Jean-Pierre Changeux, and Stanislas Dehaene for their work on the Global Neuronal Workspace Theory. GNW is central to the consciousness concepts found in this article.
Thank you to Stanislas Dehaene and his book: Consciousness and the Brain: Deciphering How the Brain Codes Our Thoughts. Dr. Dehaene does a wonderful job explaining GNW to those outside the neuroscience academic world.
Thank you to Thomas Bayes and for his work on belief updating called Bayesian Inference. Proper belief updating and our human nature for belief inertia are central to this article.
Thanks to David Ricardo for developing comparative advantage in the 1817 book: The Principles Of Political Economy and Taxation
Thanks to the Forrest Gump movie. The movie provides a wonderful explanatory metaphor.
Thanks to the many contributors to my article Changing Our Mind. This is where the “Belief Inertia” concept is specified.
Thanks to Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky for their seminal behavioral economics journal article - Prospect Theory. Their work describes the science behind loss perception.
Comments