If we were asked to summarize in an adjective something that defines the human being and differentiates it from the rest of the animals, we would probably refer to ours is a rational species
Unlike the vast majority of forms of life, we can think in abstract terms related to language, and thanks to them we are able to create long-term plans, be aware of realities that we have never experienced firsthand, and speculate about them. how nature works, among many other things.
However, it is also true that emotions have a very important weight in the way we experience things; Mood influences the decisions we make, how we prioritize, and even our way of remembering. Which of these two areas of our mental life defines us best?
What differentiates rationality from emotion? This simple question can be a topic on which entire books are written, but something that quickly draws attention is that rationality is usually defined in more concrete terms: rational is the action or thought that is based on reason, which is the area in which the compatibilities and incompatibilities that exist between ideas and concepts are examined based on principles of logic.
That is, what characterizes rationality is the consistency and solidity of the actions and thoughts that emanate from it. Therefore, the theory says that something rational can be understood by many people, because the coherence of this set of ideas fitted together is information that can be communicated, as it does not depend on the subjective.
Instead, The emotional is something that cannot be expressed in logical terms, and that is why it remains “locked” in subjectivity each. Art forms can be a way to publicly express the nature of the emotions that are felt, but neither the interpretation that each person makes of these artistic works nor the emotions that this experience will evoke are the same as the subjective experiences that the author or author has wanted to capture.
In short, the fact that the rational is easier to define than the emotional tells us about one of the differences between these two kingdoms: the first works very well on paper and allows us to give expression to certain mental processes by making others they understand them almost exactly, while emotions are private, they cannot be reproduced through writing.
However, the fact that the realm of the rational can be described more accurately than that of the emotional does not mean that it better defines our way of behaving. In fact, in some ways the opposite is true.
Bounded rationality: Kahneman, Gigerenzer…
Since the emotional is so difficult to define, many psychologists prefer to speak, in any case, of “limited rationality” What we would usually call “emotions” would thus be buried in a pile of tendencies and patterns of behavior that, this time, have limits that are relatively easy to describe: they are everything that is not rational.
So, Researchers such as Daniel Kahneman or Gerd Gigerenzer have become famous for conducting numerous investigations in which it is proven to what extent rationality is an entelechy and does not represent the way in which we usually act. Kahneman, in fact, has written one of the most influential books on the topic of limited rationality: Thinking Fast, Thinking Slowly, in which he conceptualizes our way of thinking by distinguishing a rational and logical system and another that is automatic, emotional and fast.
Heuristics and cognitive biases
Heuristics, cognitive biases, all the mental shortcuts we take to make decisions in the shortest possible time and with the limited amount of resources and information we have… All of this, mixed with emotions, is part of non-rationality because they are not procedures that can be explained through logic.
However, when push comes to shove, it is non-rationality that is most present in our lives, as individuals and as a species. And also, many of the clues about the extent to which this is so are very easy to see
The rational is the exception: the case of advertising
The existence of advertising gives us a clue about that. 30-second television spots in which the explanations about the technical characteristics of a car are non-existent and we cannot even see clearly what that vehicle is like can make us want to buy it, investing several salaries in it.
The same goes for all advertising in general; Advertising pieces are ways to make something sell without having to communicate in detail the technical (and therefore objective) characteristics of the product. Companies spend too many millions annually on advertising for this communication mechanism not to tell us something about how buyers make decisions, and behavioral economics has been generating a lot of research that shows how making decisions based on intuitions and stereotypes are very common practically the default purchasing strategy.
Challenging Jean Piaget
Another way to see the extent of bounded rationality is to realize that logic and most of the notions of mathematics must be learned deliberately, investing time and effort in it. Although it is true that newborns are already capable of thinking in basic mathematical terms, a person can perfectly live their entire life without knowing what logical fallacies are and constantly falling into them.
It is also known that in certain cultures adults remain in the third stage of cognitive development defined by Jean Piaget, instead of moving to the fourth and definitive stage, characterized by the correct use of logic. That is to say, logical and rational thinking, rather than being an essential characteristic of the human being, is rather a historical product present in some cultures and not in others.
Personally, I believe that this last one is the definitive argument about why that part of mental life that we can associate with rationality cannot be compared to the domains of emotions, hunches and cognitive botches that we usually make daily to get by. in complex contexts that in theory should be addressed through logic. If we have to offer an essentialist definition of what defines the human mind, then rationality as a way of thinking and acting has to be left out, because It is the result of a cultural milestone reached through the development of language and writing
Emotion predominates
The trap by which we can come to believe that we are rational beings “by nature” is probably that, Compared to the rest of life, we are much more logical and prone to systematic reasoning ; However, that does not mean that we think fundamentally from the principles of logic; Historically, the cases in which we have done so are exceptions.
The use of reason may have very spectacular results and it may be very useful and advisable to use it, but that does not mean that reason itself is not, in itself, something to aspire to, rather than something that defines our mental life. If logic is so easy to delimit and define, it is precisely because it exists more on paper than in ourselves
