Most People

I recently made the statement that I was discouraged by someone allowing their moods to dictate their behavior. The reply was, "Most people do." Yet given why "most people" do what they do - because everyone else is doing it - that is not a sustainable reason to do anything. For myself at least, that is one of the poorest responses ever.

@nilofer recently shared an article from the Journal of Applied Psychology entitled Same Behavior, Different Consequences: Reactions to Men’s and Women’s Altruistic Citizenship Behavior by Madeline E. Heilman and Julie J. Chen which detailed the (perhaps not so surprising) prejudice which occurs when people who are unaware that expectation and should-statements (as well as role identity) are all indicative of cognitive distortion. While we all presumably use highly personalized measuring sticks, it would appear many simply pulled theirs from the freebie bin at the societal norm discount store at checkout. And because everyone is using the same one, it is assumed accurate despite it's manufacturing defect. The entire nation is negatively impacted.

While the below comic by The Oatmeal is timely and sadly humorous, the implication is no matter what the current event issue, society will not have learned how to think in the next 50-years. Once again we will confuse some random event with the process of critical thinking, believing it to be somehow different, or not applicable.