"The evolutionary psychologist William von Hippel discovered that humans use a large part of their intellectual capacity to find their way in their complicated social world. Why is my boss looking so weird today? What does my neighbor's innuendo mean about my new car? Is the waitress flirting with me or is she just being friendly? Our 'social' brain also checks facts from time to time. However, the question that is much more important to it is: what are the social consequences if I do or say this or that? So we have a mechanism in our heads that, when in doubt, even tells us prevents us from thinking what is right when in return it endangers our social status. This phenomenon becomes more prevalent the higher a person's social and economic status. Educated and/or wealthy people are more concerned about what others might think of their opinions. Because they have an academic reputation or a good professional position to lose. What's more, the more educated and smarter a person is, the more adept his brain is at selling him the biggest piece of nonsense as a reasonable idea, as long as it raises his social status. As a result, the upper educated middle class tends more to hang behind any intellectual crazy ideas than ordinary people. The American data scientist David Shor found in extensive studies that educated people hold more ideologically coherent and more extreme views than working-class people. Taxi drivers, cleaning ladies, craftsmen or warehouse workers often have much more connection to reality and common sense than professors, teachers and higher officials. The ideological follower sits less at the regulars' table and more in the lecture hall."
#IRLPsychologistWilliamVonHippel
#TheorySocialWorlds https://folksonomy.simonperkins.co.uk/?permalink=4006
#IRLScientistDavidShor
#IdentityClassBlueCollar
Supplementary "populating one's field of vision with imaginary threats might offer a sense of purpose, which life in suburban America does not always provide."
https://www.nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/two-days-talking-to-people-looking-for-jobs-at-ice/
#OrgUSFedGovImmigrationAndCustomsEnforcementICE
#PhenomnBanality
#1963_EichmannInJerusalem
#BehaviourWanderlust [Wikipedia]
#MetaphorThreatGeneralisedNonSpecific
#NarrativeSenseOfPurpose
Addendum Ebert's explanation above is presumably comforting for those who aren't (according to his characterisation) 'educated and/or wealthy' or who have 'high social and economic status' - people, who as he characterises, are: 'taxi drivers, cleaning ladies, craftsmen or warehouse workers' i.e. that such explanations are used by those who have no hope of achieving success (financial and/or social) to bolster their confidence. And in doing so, presumably such a reaction is part of a broader strategy to dismiss criticism in an effort to reconcile a sense of personal failure becoming become manifest through retorts such as
#ReasoningFallacyConfirmationBiasIToldYouSo. In this sense, the phenomenon seems to function as a type of
#PhenomnCautionaryTale or perhaps, a version of
#TheoryPsychologyPsychologicalPurgationCatharsisHamartia [Wikipedia] where the threat of succumbing to "intellectual crazy ideas" provides a desired relief.
#TheoryPsychologyInferiorityComplex
#TheoryPsychologyDefenceMechanism [Wikipedia]
#BehaviourInjuryFeelingRessentiment_ [Wikipedia]
#TheoryAffectiveResponseIndignation [Wikipedia]
#ReasoningFallacyPostHocErgoPropterHocPostHocRationalisation [Wikipedia]
#ReasoningFallacyOversimplificationCausalReductionism [Wikipedia]
#_Focal