Reconceptualizing Intelligence: Dysrationalia as an Intuition Pump

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Abstract
The concept of intelligence is usually conceived of and operationalized in terms of cognitive capacities—relatively fixed information processing operations that determine the efficiency with which preestablished goals are achieved. Intelligence, as operationalized in standardized assessment instruments, has not included the measurement of dispositions toward rational thought and behavior (i.e., the thought processes that fix beliefs proportionately to evidence and that maintain consistency among beliefs). This contrasts with the vernacular use of the term intelligence, which does subsume dispositions toward rationality. It is argued that educational researchers and social scientists should begin to consider the consequences of the discrepancy between scientific/professional and vernacular concepts of intelligence. In order to provoke thought about the discrepancy and the effects that it has on educational practice and social policy, it is proposed that the field consider the implications of a new psychological concept, dysrationalia: the inability to think and behave rationally despite adequate intelligence.
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