Think Before You Think
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"There's a lot more to being a good basketball player than being tall and there's a lot more to being a good thinker than having a high IQ."
David Perkins, Harvard School of Education,
When it comes to making good decisions, a high IQ alone doesn't guarantee success or protect us from bad judgment. Scientific studies confirm what the media showcases on a daily basis: There are plenty of foolish, smart people, and intelligence is a poor predictor of "good thinking."
Our brains process information in two ways: intuitively and deliberately. Intuition serves us well when choosing a mate or when faced with something in which we have a lot of experience. But 'shooting from the hip' can get us in trouble when we overvalue our intuitive tendencies, and fail to use deliberate reasoning to consciously solve problems.
As an illustration of how rational-thinking ability differs from intelligence, researchers at Yale, led by Shane Fredrick put 3 questions to 3,400 students. Only 17% answered all 3 correctly. Test your powers of reasoning and see how well you do.
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- If it takes five machines 5 minutes to make five widgets, how long would it take 100 machines to make 100 widgets?
- A bat and a ball cost $1.10 together. The bat cost $1.00 more than the ball. How much did the ball cost?
- In a lake there is a patch of lily pads. Every day the patch doubles in size. If it takes 48 days for the patch to cover the entire lake, how long would it take for the patch to cover half of it?
Shane Frederick;Yale School of Management
Answers will be in Friday's Hot Flash.
Think and WIN!
The first 5 people to post all 3 correct answers on our Facebook Fan Page by 8:30 a.m. EST January 15, 2010 will win a Flashionista SWAG bag.
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Don't even think about it... until you've read our
Hot Flash!
Friday January 15
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A Checklist to Avoid
Bad Decision Making
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MORE.com
features a Flashionista article!
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