NancyLebovitz comments on Wanting to Want - Less Wrong

16 Post author: Alicorn 16 May 2009 03:08AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (185)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 28 November 2012 10:45:14PM 2 points [-]

From what I've heard, the typical response to believing that blond people are dumb and observing that blond Sandy is intelligent is to believe that Sandy is an exception, but blond people are dumb.

Most people are very attached to their generalizations.

Comment author: JaySwartz 29 November 2012 03:52:23PM -1 points [-]

Quite right about attachment. It may take quite a few exceptions before it is no longer an exception. Particularly if the original concept is regularly reinforced by peers or other sources. I would expect exceptions to get a bit more weight because they are novel, but no so much as to offset higher levels of reinforcement.