Module 3 - 逻辑训练

‘It’s difficult to make judgements about your own intelligence, or similar traits that you have a lot invested in,’ explains Simine Vazire, an academic at Washington University in the US. Similarly, if we do know how irritating or attractive we are, it’s probably because someone has told us so. According to Vazire, if the attributes are positive, it is more probable that people will come straight out and inform us about them. But if they’re negative, they may not want to hurt our feelings. It should also be remembered that, although we think others are aware of our anxiety and darkest feelings, research shows that they might not actually be looking. Thomas Gilovich, a psychologist at Cornell University in the US, has found that we overestimate the extent to which our behaviour is noticed by others. According to Gilovich, they are just not that interested, a bias he calls the ‘spotlight effect’. One interesting case is that of Brian Little, a professor who taught a legendary class at Harvard University in the US. According to those who saw him lecture, he was eloquent, garrulous, brimming with ebullience and energy. Yet Little disagrees. He insists it was all an act, executed in the service of being a good teacher, and that the conduct of many professionals is distorted for the same reason, to help them do their jobs better. That’s why it's important to view people across a diverse range of contexts before jumping to conclusions about what they’re like. On the other hand, Randall Colvin of Northeastern University in the US has been studying the attributes of people who are easily judged, and found that they tended to be extroverted, talkative and friendly.