Stupid is as Stupid Does? - 3 Types of Stupid You'll Recognise
Ignoring the fact he’s a rohypnol-administering sex predator, Bill Cosby once said, “A word to the wise ain’t necessary – it’s the stupid ones that need advice”.
Lazy, useless, dumb, thick, loser, idiot, moron, incompetent, fool – call it what you like - we get caught labelling ourselves because we think there must be a conscious reason why we’ve behaved at the high end of the dumb-scale.
We all do stupid stuff from time to time, but Forrest got it wrong when he declared, “Stupid is as stupid does”.
It’s important to know that you are not your actions and behaviours. You might do stupid stuff from time to time, but it doesn’t mean you are stupid. You might fail at something, but it doesn’t warrant the “I’m a failure” tag we lump on ourselves. That guy isn’t a ‘twat’ because he hasn’t replied to your email. He’s actually a lovely guy who is usually very prompt with his email replies, but he’s been out of the office with a major hip surgery. That lady isn’t a ‘cow’ for taking your parking spot – she’s actually a nun on her way to help out at the soup kitchen. OK, slight exaggeration, but you get the drift.
Our language branding our identity is a harmful exercise that convinces us we are less than we’re capable of. It also presupposes that we can’t change in the future. Mistakes can be rectified, and even for those that can’t this time around, you’ll have other opportunities. Listen within your language (whether spoken or not), to how many times a day you have a go at yourself and make identity statements based on what you do (or don’t do).
The more we tie who we are into our actions and behaviours, it erodes our self-confidence and esteem. If we can learn to separate who we are from what we do, it’s more likely that we can succeed in the future.
Balazs Aczel, a professor at the Institute of Psychology at Eotvos Lorand University in Budapest, conducted research in the surprisingly understudied area of ‘Un-intelligent Behaviour’. He and his team were interested in what people viewed as being stupid behavior, and how we became associated with those behaviours as people. He had a group of students rank perceived stupid behavior found in the media from TMZ, New York Post and other outlets, on a scale of 1-10. Students also had to write a sentence or two on why they thought the actions and behaviours were stupid.
Professor Aczel found that there are typically three types of stupidity that rate from highest to lowest:
- confident ignorance – the highest level of stupidity defined as engaging in risky actions without the skills or knowledge required to carry them out successfully. When someone says they can do something and they clearly can’t, their overconfidence is labeled stupid. It isn’t, it’s just misguided relative to skill levels. The classic example is the thief who thought he stole a mobile phone, when in fact he stole a GPS, which the police used to track him down.
- lack of control – this rated second from highest in the stupid stakes as demonstrated by a lack of ability to moderate your own impulsive behaviour. An example might be to miss an important meeting because you wanted some extra time at the beach.
- absentmindedness/lack of practicality – the students were most lenient to these actions and behaviours, referring to instances when people fail a practical task (say, failing to make sense of the IKEA flat-pack), either out of distraction or because of a lack of practical skills.
All three categories aren’t indicative of the person being stupid, or a failure, but of being misguided as to their current skill level, using misjudgement of a situation, or being temporarily absent-minded. It suggests that the person can step out of these behaviours at any point by recalibrating their expectations, by being realistic regarding their skill levels, by prioritising and by concentrating on the task at hand.
You’re not stupid. You’re one step away from being a genius.
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