Stupidity of the second kind

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The term stupidity of the second kind or stupidity of the second order denotes situations or events in which a person searches for a rule, regularity or generally for a structure, although no such structure is present in the matter under consideration. The term was coined by the German-Austrian social psychologist Peter R. Hofstätter based on the concept of the error of the second kind in statistics .

stupidity

The term stupidity is commonly understood as an antipole to intelligence, as a (too) low degree of expression of the ability to adequately grasp our real environment and to act and react in this environment in such a way that a desired goal or result is achieved. A careful distinction is to be made between ignorance in the sense of a lack of available (factual) knowledge, which, however, is often included under the term stupidity.

Scientific background

In the inductive or interference statistic it comes to issues typically in the form:

  • If a  situation described in a hypothesis A applies to a certain subject area or a certain population , such a structure or constellation is given there, or
  • one has to assume that in reality a completely different  structure or constellation is given - as described in the so-called alternative hypothesis B.

The decision between these two alternatives is then made on the basis of empirical data with the help of appropriate statistical methods . Two types of errors are possible:

  • One can - statistically - decide in favor of the alternative hypothesis B, although in reality hypothesis A is correct (this error is referred to as the first type error ); or
  • one sticks to hypothesis A, although in reality hypothesis B is correct (this error is called type 2 error ).

If the statistical method determined, i. H. statistically made, decision agree with the real situation in reality, the result is unproblematic.

Transfer to human knowledge

If this model is transferred to human knowledge and the human capacity for knowledge, a corresponding constellation can be described as follows:

If a person does not recognize a law, a rule, or a given structure existing in reality, this would - in the common sense - be called stupidity , this person would be too stupid to recognize this law, this stupidity would correspond to a mistake 1 . Kind in statistics.

Analogous to the statistical model, the opposite constellation can also be imagined here, in which a person in a certain situation - over and over again, almost doggedly - searches for a rule or a regularity, but does not find any (because in the given situation it is in reality there is no such law at all); According to Hofstädter's suggestion, one can speak of “stupidity of the second kind”.

A schematic representation of the possible constellations as well as practical, concrete examples can be found in Manfred Tücke.

In addition to the normal, everyday stupidity in which a person does not think enough, has thought too little (or is not able to think so much at all), and therefore does not recognize a law, there is also an opposite twin, in which someone thinks about something and looks for something where there is actually nothing to think about and find.

Epistemological extensions

Like stupidity , type 2 stupidity is a relative term. The non- existence of a rule, a regularity, or a structure can - if at all - only be proven in very rare cases and with great effort. This becomes clear in the philosophical discussion of the concept of chance . Stupidity of the 2nd kind may turn out not to be stupidity, but to be intelligence . One example of this is research that challenges generally accepted facts and ultimately successfully refutes them.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ M. Tücke: Workbook: Fundamentals of Psychology for (future) teachers ; LIT Verlag, Berlin: 2006; ISBN = 3825894207; P. 93

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