The Intelligence Trap: Why Smart People Make Dumb Mistakes by David Robson<\/p>\n
Published in August of 2019.<\/p>\n
Reading The Intelligence Trap shook my world. Or, as my college-going kids might say, \"I'm shook.\"<\/p>\n
Here is the problem. There is a non-trivial probability that the things that I believe most strongly about higher education are, in reality, wrong.<\/p>\n
The Intelligence Trap is all about how smart people make dumb mistakes. There is at least some evidence that academics are smart people.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, smart academics may be highly vulnerable to succumbing to biases and blind spots. Our entire IHE community might be made up of highly intelligent, but irredeemably wrongheaded, higher ed insiders.<\/p>\n
Why might academics be susceptible to the intelligence trap? Robson explores how the relationship between wisdom and intelligence is, at best, tenuous.<\/p>\n
Someone with a high IQ might be more likely to develop a worldview that is as skewed by misinformation, or self-interest, than individuals who test at the IQ mean.<\/p>\n
Those with high measured intelligence, however, may disproportionately excel at coming up with arguments and evidence to support their blinkered views.<\/p>\n
One of the biases that Robson discusses, and which academics may be especially susceptible, includes that of earned dogmatism. Anyone with a PhD is at particular risk for this bias, in which we believe that our credentials give us the right to claim expertise across a range of subjects.<\/p>\n
The challenge of escaping the intelligence trap is that academia rewards many of the biases that Robson identities.<\/p>\n
In the marketplace of ideas, impact is correlated with certitude. And yet, certainty is the enemy of wisdom.<\/p>\n
As someone who has built his career in online education, I am highly incentivized to argue for the benefits of low-residency and online learning. (Motivated reasoning).<\/p>\n
I am certainthat online programs can be a catalyst to build institutional capacity in learning science and instructional design.<\/p>\n
I'm also fully convincedthat all but a very few face-to-face master's programs will disappear, and that the future of professional education is mostly low-residency and online.<\/p>\n
Further, I have no doubtthat we are on the cusp of a bifurcation of graduate professional education. Soon, the vast majority of all master's degrees will be conferred through scaled online platforms that enable lower price points (~$25K). Only highly selective schools with global brands will be able to charge premium tuition (>$100K). And that the undifferentiated middle of the master's degree market ($26K-$99K) will implode.<\/p>\n
Added to myhighly confidentassertions about online learning, I also think that the funnel into graduate education at an inflection point. I'm surethat we will be moving university recruiting dollars away from Google, LinkedIn, and Facebook Ads - and towards investing in non-degree scaled online programs that channel participants into applicants for graduate degree programs.<\/p>\n
Reading The Intelligence Trap has persuaded me that it would be wiser to be less sure of my beliefs.<\/p>\n
Robson quotes Ben Franklin's famous words from the Constitutional Convention of 1787:<\/p>\n
I confess that there are several parts of this constitution which I do not at present approve, but I am not sure I shall never approve them. For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged by better information, or fuller consideration, to change opinions even on important subjects, which I once thought right, but found to be otherwise. It is therefore that the older I grow, the more apt I am to doubt my own judgment, and to pay more respect to the judgment of others.<\/p>\n
What Robson advocates for is that we embrace the new discipline of evidence-based wisdom and that we approach the work of formulating our beliefs with openness and humility.<\/p>\n
Do you think our IHE community can be less certain of the rightness of our beliefs?<\/p>\n
Might we model, in our opinion pieces and comments on IHE, the benefits of doubt and hesitation?<\/p>\n
What other books about the cognitive traps that academics are susceptible to do you recommend?<\/p>\n
What are you reading?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
More:<\/p>\n
Academics and 'The Intelligence Trap' | Technology and Learning - Inside Higher Ed<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Intelligence Trap: Why Smart People Make Dumb Mistakes by David Robson Published in August of 2019. Reading The Intelligence Trap shook my world Continue reading