Thread by @JoshuaCypess

1/ This is going to be a perpetual thread for my investigations into #Literalism, literal-thinking, and the bad decision making aspects built into many humans

2/ While my main point about #Literalism is that it's neurological and seems to be a main cause for Dunning-Kruger, there's a second element I'm beginning to see as equally problematic: the psychological avoidance of changing one's mind in the face of new evidence

3/ This is stubbornness, of course, a personality trait that I've hated ever since I was in single digits. Stubbornness is basically aggressive selfishness plus willful ignorance.

I'm seeing much of that in how many people refuse to admit they're wrong or to amend their views

4/ I used to think people were just not curious. But now I realize that this assessment is too shallow b/c what I was noticing was actually their anxiety over curiosity. They were curious, they wanted answers, but they forced themselves to be satisfied w/easy answers.

5/ I'll add more to this later, but that's a good enough stopping point.

So far: there are those with neurological literal thinking. But the bigger issue is a psychological stubbornness, either from anxiety or from ideology.

I need to connect this to studies on cult-psychology