Joe discovered something counterintuitive: highly logical, intellectual people are often more logically inconsistent than others — and less capable of seeing their own inconsistency. His theory is that they have a harder time emotionally feeling the inconsistency, so their conviction remains strong even when their logic is flawed.
This creates a dangerous dynamic for empathetic people. When someone is deeply convicted in their position, an empathetic person absorbs that conviction and mistakes it for truth. The empathetic person thinks: “They feel so certain, so they must be right.” This is especially potent in the common relationship dynamic where one partner is more logical and the other more empathetic — the logical partner’s certainty becomes the empathetic partner’s reality.
You can see this everywhere, from news commentators making irrational arguments that audiences buy into (because the commentator’s conviction is empathetically absorbed) to personal relationships where one partner always seems to “win” arguments through sheer force of certainty.
“People who are highly logical, very very thoughtful people often are more logically inconsistent than people who aren’t highly intellectual and they have less of a capacity to see it.”
Related Concepts
- Logical vs emotional partner dynamic
- All decisions are emotional
- Confirmation bias from emotional avoidance
- There is no right or wrong in a fight, only perspectives