Hello. =)
I'm giving a speech this Saturday, and I was wondering if there have been any studies/reports (posted in scientific journals, books, etc.) that research why people do dumb things.
The report can deal with: environmental factors that result in dumb actions, an explanation of "dumb people"s mental processes (maybe scientists found something in the brain that makes people do dumb things?), etc.
I really need for this information to be in some sort of book or journal (because I can't use any web-related info for my speech). And I have a feeling *someone* did research on this….I mean, they do research on other dumb, common sense things (ex: proving that men and women really DO think differently, which most people should already know), so why not do research on why people do dumb things?
So if you know any related books or journals, please list them here. I'd appreciate the help (and thanks in advance)!!
You bring up a good point, moverelaxbrawlkiss2008.
Allow me to expand on what I mean by "dumb": I mean "doing things that have a high chance of injury and/or death, and without any feasible reason or seemingly rational thinking."
For example…if your job involves transporting grenades, I wouldn't call that dumb. But if you work in another industry altogether (ex: secretarial), and you decided to juggle grenades "because it seems cool".
THAT'S what I classify as "dumb". And I'm wondering if there have been any reports as to why people act like this. Has it been "proven" through research that there's a part of the brain that "malfunctions" on occassion, and causes regular (ie: no history of mental illness), sane people to act crazy?
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