# Why do people see the world in black and white? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 2, 2010, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-see-the-world-in-black-and-white/555799 "2010-10-02T01:00:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![psikeyhackr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/97f17d/32.png) [@psikeyhackr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psikeyhackr)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2010, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-see-the-world-in-black-and-white/555799/21 "2010-10-03T17:59:41Z")
> [@dzero](#): > > My working hypothesis is that it takes too much mental effort to consider multiple viewpoints which will, almost by definition, be inconsistent in one way or another. It’s much more efficient to “pick a side” and stick with it rather than wallow in uncertainty and indecision. It takes more mental processing power than a lot of people have but they are not about to admit that they don’t have it least of all to themselves. There is the Bell Curve. 75% of the population score below 111 on the Irrelevant Questions tests. 90% of the population score below 121 on the Irrelevant Questions tests. Probably 90% of the people in the top 5% have decided that talking in some circles is a waste of time. [http://www.eskimo.com/~miyaguch/combnorm.html](http://www.eskimo.com/~miyaguch/combnorm.html) But sometimes I think there are a significant number of people just talking to keep others confused. It is like sometimes they slip and say dumb things in a smart way that makes you wonder if they are more intelligent than they are letting on. But then maybe that is just my paranoia talking. LOL And there is the group think factor. Disagreeing with THE GROUP means telling THE GROUP that it is stupid and of course means being kicked out of THE GROUP. Gotta be as dumb as the group to be in the group. psik [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-see-the-world-in-black-and-white/555799.md?page=1)