Cue for noticing rationalization: In a live conversation, I notice that the time it takes to give the justification for a conclusion when prompted far exceeds the time it took to generate the conclusion to begin with.
That is nearly always true, not just when a person is rationalizing. If you are correctly performing incremental updates of your beliefs, going back and articulating what caused your beliefs you be what they currently are is time consuming, and sometimes not possible, except by careful reconstruction.
How do you notice when you're rationalizing? Like, what *actually* tips you off, in real life?
I've listed my cues below; please add your own (one idea per comment), and upvote the comments that you either: (a) use; or (b) will now try using.
I'll be using this list in a trial rationality seminar on Wednesday; it also sounds useful in general.