Being stupid: the science behind it.

Alternate post titles or warming-ups on the topic of being stupid or feel like it sometimes:

* Self-kidnapping and why we host ourselves, hostages, in absurd situations.

Also, read Being Hostage of Yourself: A Practical Guide

* What’s the science behind our absurd behaviors? If there’s any…

* Are you being stupid, for real?

Remaining in unloving, unkind, disadvantaged, and draining situations finally has an explanation, which I will cover in the following post.

Spoiler alert: The reason isn’t that you are being stupid. Even tho it seems like it sometimes.

Let’s start with a definition for the love of data:

Stupidity:

Behavior that shows a lack of good sense or judgment. The quality of being stupid or unintelligent.

According to Oxford languages.

And,

Stupidity is the opposite of intelligence. The act of being stupid. Being stupid involves not understanding things, not learning from past experiences, and generally not using the brain.

as stated by Vocabulary.com

Stupidity is always a controversial and risky topic, potentially offending some. Yet a few people have dared to study it. If we were to be honest, at the end of the day and at some point in life, you’ve felt like you’re being stupid, don’t you?

Born more as a joke, the Italian economist Carlos Cipolla wrote a now famous short essay around the 70s called “The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity“ about how to avoid or deal with stupid people.

His 5 basic laws are these:

1. People will always underestimate the amount of stupid people circulating. Even intelligent people will act stupidly sometimes.
2. Being Stupid is independent of education or any other characteristic of a person.
3. Stupids cause losses to anyone without obtaining anything in return or suffering losses themselves.
4. Stupid people have a damaging potential that non-stupid people always underestimate. Indeed, hanging out with stupid people will constantly be draining.
5. Stupid people are the most dangerous type of people.

Corollary:

“A stupid person is more dangerous than a bandit.”

Funny. I guess.

Also, I found an interesting scientific study on what people consider stupid when observing others’ behavior. The research on “What is being stupid?” was published by Science Direct by Balazs Aczel. They found out that people call stupid behavior based on one of the following situations:

1. A failure is when an excess of confidence overrides one’s abilities and capabilities.
2. Lack of focus or
3. Control deficiency.

Yet, what’s the root of these stupid behaviors?

Can you avoid being stupid?

What if I’m the one that ends up being the stupid one?

Nobody wants to, but it can happen to anybody.

I have seen the same situation with different actors more than I would like to.

You might feel stupid, as the scene goes approximately like this:

Something is going on that feels off to you. Whatever is happening is not of your liking at all. You have nothing to win by staying involved in this state of affairs.

What’s more, the situation is harming you.

It could be emotionally, physically, or financially, but holding this into place is nothing but draining and damaging you.

And yet, there you are.

Stationary.

Just there, standing still.

Waiting for nobody to save you or anything to occur, letting time pass by, and watching everything as it falls around you.

I have been the main character in stories like this more than I would ever confess. But I’ll tell you this one so you can picture what I am trying to capture here.

One of many times, being stupid or acting like it. Or so it seemed:

I’ll go with a work example. I won’t go with a relationship example ’cause: NO…nah.

Ok. Once upon a time, long ago, I was an engineer. I had an ongoing business with a relevant amount of money involved, which required a fair amount of time and attention.

Besides, I had several side hustles to earn extra cash. These side jobs nearly ran on autopilot. My people knew what to do and how to do it, so it was easy for me.

However, one day, I took the “wrong job”. If there’s such thing as wrong and right, no?

But you got the point.

It was wrong not because of its nature. It was much of the same old, same old thing.

But the client’s mental health was way more off than what I was able to handle at that time.

Elegant words, carefully chosen; did you notice that? Uff. What an effort.

Anyways, this client would cause sandstorms and imaginary crises daily:

From poking noses to interfering to disrespecting everyone and everything, this client was all over the place, causing a never-ending rollercoaster of troubles.

It was so surreal that it was funny at first, I admit. It made me laugh often.

Now seriously, guys, once my client called me saying something like:

I am purposely making your life miserable, and I won’t stop…wa-ha-ha-ha (horror movie laughing).

I wish I were exaggerating or making stuff up, but I’m not.

It was insane.

Anything and everything triggered a crisis for this client. It took a lot of time and effort to tackle the day’s challenge and calm the seas.

Meanwhile, all my pending chores and responsibilities from my “real job” remain undone.

Then I realize:

Houston, We have a problem.

Suddenly, my side hustle was consuming all my work-day time and energy.

As things escalated, I suggested the client look for medical help for their mental health and everybody else’s around.

Besides recognizing being out of control, nothing ever improved.

It just got worse over time.

Then came what became sort of a routine:

I would try quitting the project. The client might then answer with a proposal of solutions, promises, and a vision of a successful goal we were about to attain together.

I may possibly reluctantly agree, only to postpone the misery and abuse until the next crisis cycle.

Ad nauseam ad infinitum.

And here comes what became fascinating for me:

After I was no longer able to find the slightest grace in the increasing craziness of the crises and demands, I used to do this:

Seating on a short wall, staring at the circus around me, I used to think:

• Here I am, being abused in many forms.
• Mistreated.
• Losing money and time.
• Leaving my business unattended.
• Hanging out in nonsense while chasing nothing at all.

I used to ask myself the following questions over and over:

• Am I earning something while staying here?
• Is this loving to me?
• Is this smart?
• Do I owe anything to these people?
• Am I being stupid?
• Am I obligated in any form to stay?

The answer to all of them was the same: NO.

Fortunately, I kept calm amid the chaos. Or was that part of the problem?

Or am I just stunned? Numbed?

I can understand my client has a mental health condition. But what about mine?

Am I being stupid? Even stupidity has limits, and I appear to have none.

What causes me to stay here, frozen in time? ‘Cause I used to be smart…  Why on earth can’t I quit this pitty job? This is one of the most absurd surrealist situations I’ve ever seen. And yet, nothing is holding me here but myself. Seriously.

I mean, yes. I was perfectly aware of my behaviors, yet I was only dumbfounded.

But I couldn’t do anything about it at that time. Why?

Even one day, my then preschooler daughter asked me:

Mom, how did this happen? Why did we become poor?

I was like: What are you saying, honey? Where did you get this idea?

She replied, Well, there’s no other possible explanation for you having to tolerate all these mean phone calls and staying in that crappy job. Isn’t it? 

I realized things had gone too far.

She was right. What was all that about anyway? 

Looking for answers… Was I being stupid?

I did a fair amount of research and therapy, from which I’ll skip the details. Otherwise, we’ll be here forever. 

I’ll say that, above all, my understanding and subsequent resolution of the affair came when I realized I was having a

TRAUMA RESPONSE

Indeed, It started with a story of an accident I read in Dr. Bessel Van Der Kolk’s book about trauma: “The Body Keeps The Score.”

This happens:

A married couple was in a vast multiple-collision car accident and got trapped in an automobile. Amid the chaos, the husband managed to climb out of their car with the help of another driver, who shattered the windshield to help him out.

When they go to rescue his wife, they encounter her frozen, staring in her car seat. The husband and truck driver lifted her, and both were taken to the hospital. Neither one had more than a few cuts as physical damages. But, after a few months of barely sleeping and emotional discomfort, they went to look for psychiatric help. 

The image of this woman staring blankly in her seat while surrounded by her “end of the world” got stuck in my head. It seemed like an allegory to my ongoing reaction to what was going on in my life.

I totally identified with her.

Although, thankfully, I wasn’t in a life-threatening situation, I was having the same kind of reaction.

May I have your attention, please?

Before going any further, let’s get pretty clear: No. I’m not saying traumatized people are stupid. Nope. No. No.

I’m saying that I was feeling and thinking that I was stupid for acting in ways that were widely hurting me, my health, my business, and my economy without realizing that I was having a traumatic response.

Are we clear enough now? If we are, we can continue.

The couple reached Doctor Ruth Lanius, a psychiatrist at the University of Western Ontario who has studied years before at the Trauma Center. She performed the same type of study learned at Harvard University with trauma expert Dr. Bessel Van Der Kolk mentioned before.

Dr. Lanius measured their brain neural activity while exposing them to the same environment and sensations they were exposed to during the traumatic event. That means re-creating the scene with images, sounds, smells, and sensations.

What did she discover in her studies?

During the study, the husband went into a flashback. He was sweating profusely, and his pulse rate and blood pressure were extremely high., like when he was attempting to get out of the automobile.

However, during the same study, the wife went numb and blank-minded. Heart rate and blood pressure remained steady. And she said she felt nothing, just as during the accident. The brain images also showed decreased activity in almost every area. 

Side note: If we stick to the previous definition of stupidity at the beginning of this post as “not using the brain,” we were right; I was being stupid, after all. But, to my relief, there was an explanation and a way out.

The scientific name for that type of reaction is:

Depersonalization. Separation from oneself.

That’s the clinical name for this wife’s response. And luckily, to mine too…Phew.

Depersonalization is a symptom of a significant dissociation created by trauma.

When we are threatened, our brain’s oldest parts are triggered to respond with programmed escape plans. Our nerves and chemicals are prearranged to communicate directly to the body one of the following commands:

• To run
• hide
• fight
• or freeze.

Meanwhile, our conscious mind is practically shut down.

This is what we call:

Fight – flight – freeze

Response 

“Trauma is a fact of life. It does not have to be a life sentence. ”

Peter A Levine, PhD

Survival mode:

In survival mode, our body mobilizes an enormous amount of energy for us to face threatening situations.

If we get to perform an effective action for which our brain activates the fight-flight-freeze response, the threat is over. We will likely go back to our everyday lives.

Conversely, if we are deprived of mobilization for any reason, we will most likely develop a state of inescapable shock and learned helplessness. 

Being able to move or do something to resolve what is happening to us, to safeguard ourselves, is a critical factor. It defines whether a menacing or frightening situation will leave a permanent or long-lasting impact on our lives or end when the threat is over.

This particular response, depersonalization, is a type of response that can regularly be tracked down to people’s childhood.

It can be a survival strategy developed during the early stages of life when it is difficult to do anything about what is happening to the child. Perhaps they had complicated and chaotic household situations or abusive parents.

That’s a very likely scenario where a person learns to respond to traumatic events, making themselves disappear.

When activated, collapsing and disengaging are responses that make nothing appear to matter anymore—not even ourselves or anybody else. We might even no longer feel physical pain.

How can my job-related experience relate to this car crash story?

Comparing both situations, they seem very different, technically.

But the response or physiological process is the same.

• First comes a threat.
• The fight-or-flight system is activated, and the person tries to escape, fight, or run. [This is a mammalian brain response]
• There’s no possible escape (for whatever reason), or at least that’s what the person thinks.
• The third response is activated: the freeze response. [This is a response from the reptilian brain]

What to do?

Regain one's life control back. 

To do so, the path is to engage in the present moment.

Being present and alert, engaged with what is happening now. That’s opposed to being dumbfounded or what I thought was me being stupid).

How?

The challenge is de-activating the shut-down mode we used to survive the threat we faced. We can do this by re-establishing or creating a brand-new relationship with our bodies.

Inhabiting the body. Strategies you can use to gain ground in your bodily connections.

• Becoming aware of your bodily sensations.
• Breathing:
  • There are many forms of breath work, and any of them can be exponentially beneficial for re-habiting your body. You can begin by noting the air that enters and exits your nose.
• Engaging in rhythmic activities:
  • like dancing,
  • drumming,
  • or even playing with a beach ball back and forth.
  • Even something as basic as arranging seats in a meeting room can create rhythmically attuned movements that cause the brain to regulate and organize.

“Trauma is not what happens to us. But what we hold inside in the absence of an empathetic witness.”

Peter A Levine, PhD

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From Dr. Peter Levine’s work, we gathered priceless knowledge about how to release stored trauma. Dr Peter Levine is the author of countless books like the best seller “Waking the Tiger” and the developer of the Somatic Experience Method.

He says that:

It’s not the actual traumatic event that traumatizes us.

But the uncompleted action that was initiated by the response of fight or flight,

as we mentioned before.

When this strategy of fight or flight fails, the third survival response is activated:

Freeze or play dead (which I misinterpreted earlier as I was being stupid ).

This collapse response is supposed to make you less of a target.

Anyways, this response is time-limited.

At the end of the day, this massive amount of energy needs to be discharged or run its course.

The proper release of this energy will turn off the alarm alert and subsequently end the dysregulation and dissociation.

To find out how to do that, please continue to read the following posts:

This content doesn't replace professional medical or psychological advice.
See our complete Disclaimer & Terms and conditions.