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Post Hoc

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Clarissa

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Even very bright people often succumb to the “post hoc ergo propter hoc” fallacy. Here is an example:

I was talking to a friend a while ago about how life in academia leads one to think that one is constantly below average. It doesn’t matter what post docs one gets, or how many publications, or how one’s talks are received at conferences. Too many successful academics, like competitive runners, get where they are by keeping an eye on the person just ahead.

No situation – no matter how horrible or traumatic – can bring out in a person what wasn’t there to begin with. If you have a deep inner conviction that you are constantly below average, you will feel this way in academia, in sales, at home, or on your own island in the middle of an ocean.

If you think about it, this is really good news. You can’t single-handedly change academia or sales (although it’s a very good idea to get together with others and try) but you can do a lot to stop feeling incompetent, worthless, or below average. Such feelings are never situational. They exist at the core of your being. Others cannot access that core but you can.

7 responses to “Post Hoc”

  1. Jonathan Mayhew Avatar
    Jonathan Mayhew

    This is very true. I’ve always felt that there were a variety of degrees of intellect in academia as in every other walk of life. I can be one of the smartest people in the room in an academic setting, like anywhere else, but that is more my own inner arrogance.

    On the other hand, I feel intensely stupid in Home Depot trying to buy something I need to fix something else. I could write a post about how going to hardware stores makes one feel inferior, but that would really be a post about me and only me.

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  2. David Bellamy Avatar
    David Bellamy

    The post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy is just a special case of the fallacy of confusing a statement with its converse that pervades a lot of thinking and writing. This is well illustrated by the following: You know that every daffodil is a flower, so when you encounter a flower, you automatically conclude that it must be a daffodil. In this instance, the fallacy is obvious, but this same “reasoning” happens all the time, with harmful effect.

    However, I am skeptical that outside influences and experiences do not create new possibilities of “bringing out” new attitudes or beliefs that were not there to begin with.

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    1. musteryou Avatar
      musteryou

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirming_the_consequent

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  3. musteryou Avatar
    musteryou

    I think people do need to be aware that if they’re in a job where they’re using secondary functions rather than their primary ones, which they feel more natural using, they will get an inferiority complex eventually. Me, I am suited to abstractions and understanding complex systems. I can watch endless episodes of air crash investigations, because engineering fascinates me. But if you try to make me into a people person or force me to concentrate on details very much, I start to wonder what is wrong with me. My emotions get hurt when my hardware won’t do the job that others expect from it.

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    1. el Avatar
      el

      Sometimes it’s hard to understand what are your secondary and what are your primary functions.

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      1. musteryou Avatar
        musteryou

        If you feel like you’re doing everything left-handed when you are right-handed, or like you’re having to walk crouched over, because you’re not expected to have height, or anything like that, you are not free to use your primary functions.

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  4. musteryou Avatar
    musteryou

    In the case of an air crash — sure, structural faults in a plane can lead to the crash, but rarely is that the only contributing factor. Usually there are other factors like the amount of stress that particular part of the plane has been under and the particular duration of that stress.

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A conservative literary critic and college professor

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