Here’s an argument as to why poor people make bad choices. They may be smart, but the stress of being poor leads to making bad choices:
It was someone here who once commented that being intelligent means you are better at rationalizing, and I think there’s something to that. People lie to themselves a lot, and a fine and flexible intelligence allows you to craft a lie that’s really very plausible. The people I know that show the pattern of highly intelligent/frequent bad choices are all rationalizers. They don’t give into temptation despite knowing better. Rather, they have elaborate explanations about why whatever they are doing is different than it looks. They will hunt you down to share these explanations, because in explaining them to other people, they hear the lie again themselves and are comforted.
I have noticed with a few very intelligent people I have worked with that they seemed to lack some kind of strategic ability when dealing with the limitations or skills of those employed under them. Very often the most intelligent employees are far from being the most valuable.
A poor choice is the choice we think we wouldn’t make.
I agree with you that few choices are apparent right off the bat. It’s only in retrospect that a person realizes it was a bad decision…and by then they’ve probably repeated that mistake multiple times over.
And while many of us are thinking about other people’s poor choices, right at this minute we are making our own. We’re putting off studying for that important test, the one that we are going to screw up and ruin our chances of getting a scholarship. We’re eating a greasy, gooey sandwich, one that’s going to give us a heartache later on tonight. We’re lighting up a cigarette or throwing back a beer, killing off precious brain cells that would have otherwise protected us from Alzheimers. We’re reading this on a iPad on the subway, to the delight of the mugger who’s staring at us from the other side of the car.
All of these are undeniably poor choices. But because we’ve rationalized them, as MandaJo pointed out, they seem perfectly reasonable.
I am very intelligent (and modest) - always have been. I have the common sense of a wet cardboard box, however.
My poor choices have been related to substance use, thrill seeking, and the cycle of addiction. The rush of feeling good can override my ability to make a good rational decisions. Impulsivity takes over. I’m using a different part of my brain, per se. Intelligence, or lack of, had nothing to do with it.
As someone stated upthread, wisdom and awareness are different from being intelligent (or what we called “book smart” as kids). Wise people call themselves on their own bullshit. Anyone, regardless of cognitive ability, can learn to make healthy decisions.
And there’s even a concept in law known as the Business Judgment Rule, which is designed to protect directors of corporations from being held liable for decisions that turned out not to be the best, because no manager can guarantee a profit because there are too many variables. As long as the manager makes a sincere and informed decision, they have done their duty. What were you thinking trying to market large American SUV’s to Pakistani immigrants to Australia? That was a stupid decision! Hardly anyone bought one!
I think you’re talking Rumsfeld and Rice.