In light of reports that the applicants use different names while speaking and having difficulty recalling details of past individual events, some Americans are asking whether old people like Joe Biden and Donald Trump are mentally capable to serve as president.
I believe these reports are evidently concerning. But, it’s difficult to assess a candidate’s intelligence solely based on the criticisms that have received positive media coverage.
I’m a mental neurologist who studies direct argument and decision-making. I contend that the mental aptitudes needed to carry out a demanding leadership position like administration are just as crucial.
According to research, these positions primarily involve decision-making abilities grounded in in in-depth knowledge of their respective professions, and that the number of errors made by Biden and Trump does rise as they age, but that does n’t mean either candidate is unfit for office.
Intuitive vs. democratic selection- making
There are two types of decision- doing: logical and democratic.
People can recall an effective solution from memory and quickly and easily identify a difficult situation in instinctive decision-making. For instance, doctors can quickly identify a complicated set of individual symptoms as matching a well-known illness stored in memory and recall effective treatments because of their knowledge of how conditions and symptoms are intrinsically related.
According to a lot of research in fields as diverse as medicine and military leadership, it takes years, sometimes decades, of diligent, intentional practice in one’s field to develop the knowledge necessary to make wise, logical decisions.
The most difficult decisions, frequently the ones that confront a leader, require informed deliberation and emotional effort at each stage of the decision-making process, in contrast to the ease and speed of user-friendly decisions. These qualities define legislative decision-making.
For instance, a democratic approach to developing an immigration bill might begin with direct reasoning to comprehend the numerous factors influencing the present border surge as well as the advantages and disadvantages of immigration.
Next, negotiating among various groups of decision-makers and partners who have different values and goals, such as reducing the number of illegal immigrants but likewise treating them compassionately, may be necessary.
Lastly, making a choice requires forecasting how presented solutions may affect each objective, dealing with value trade- offs and usually more negotiation.
Internal researchers who study these subjects concur that people need three fundamental mental traits for effective deliberative decision-making, which are referred to as “actively open-minded thinking” or “wise reasoning.”
- Available- mindedness: Being open- thinking means considering all of the choices and objectives related to a decision, perhaps if they conflict with one’s own beliefs.
- Calibrated confidence: This is the ability to express confidence in a given choice or forecast in terms of probabilities rather than as certainties. Only if the evidence has been weighed favorably on its credibility and the supporting evidence far outweigh the opposing evidence when one has high confidence.
- Working as a team requires seeking alternative viewpoints from members of one’s own advisory team as well as from stakeholders with competing interests.
Presidents must make decisions using both intuitive and deliberate reasoning. The ability to make more subtle decisions without using intuitive decision-making frees up time to concentrate on more important ones. However, the decisions that make or break a president are exceedingly complex and highly consequential, such as how to handle climate change or international conflicts. Deliberative decision-making is essential in this situation.
Both intelligent and intelligent decisions rely on thorough job-related knowledge. People use conceptual knowledge of the world that is consciously accessible, more commonly known as semantic memory, especially when making deliberative decisions.
Presidents are able to quickly comprehend new developments and comprehend their nuances thanks to knowledge of concepts like tariffs, Middle East history, and diplomatic strategies. They also benefit from it by completing an important job requirement, which is to explain their decisions to political rivals and the general public.
What to make of word muddles and forgetfulness?
Biden has received criticism for not recalling details of his personal past. This is a mistake in episodic memory, which is what gives rise to our capacity to consciously recall our own experiences.
Neurologists agree, however, that Biden’s episodic memory errors are within the range of normal healthy aging and that the details of one’s personal life are not especially relevant to a president’s job. Because episodic memory is different from the semantic memories and intuitive knowledge that are essential to good decision-making.
Mixing up names, as Biden and Trump occasionally do, is also unlikely to affect job performance. Instead, it simply results in a momentary error when retrieving information from semantic memory. People who make this frequent error typically still comprehend the ideas underlying the mixed-up names, keeping the semantic information that helps them deal with life and work intact.
Making difficult choices as you get older.
Our semantic knowledge typically does not decrease with age, lasting at least until age 90, because we all use a myriad of concepts to navigate the world every day. This information is kept in posterior brain areas, which deteriorate with age more slowly.
Research indicates that older experts can maintain high performance in their field as long as they continue to use and practice their skills because intuitive decision-making is learned through extensive practice. Similar to semantic memory, posterior brain regions that are less prone to aging are used by experts to guide their intuitive decision-making.
To maintain previous skill levels, older experts must put in more practice than younger ones.
Early social learning, including education, influences the thinking dispositions that are essential to deliberative decision-making. Thus, they become habits, stable characteristics that capture how people typically make decisions.
Evidence is emerging that traits like open-mindedness do not significantly decrease and occasionally even grow with age. To investigate this, I looked at how well open- mindedness correlated with age, while controlling for education level, using data from 5, 700 people in the 2016 British Election Study.
According to a statistical analysis, people between the ages of 26 and 88 displayed very similar levels of open-mindedness, while those with higher education were more open-minded.
Applying this to the candidates
Biden, who has served for more than 44 years in political office, thoroughly investigates and discusses various viewpoints with his advisers before making a decision regarding the 2024 presidential candidates.
In contrast, Trump has considerably less experience in politics. He claims that he can use” common sense” to make intuitive decisions in a field where he lacks knowledge and still be more accurate than knowledgeable experts. This claim contradicts research that shows that having a wealth of job-specific knowledge and experience is essential for making intelligent decisions consistently.
Both candidates exhibit both good and bad decision-making, according to what I’ve read about this overall. However, I think that while Trump does this less frequently, Biden consistently exhibits the deliberative dispositions that characterize good decision-making.
So, if you’re trying to figure out how or whether the candidates ‘ ages should affect your vote, I think you should largely ignore the concerns about mixing up names and not recalling your own memories.
Instead, consider which candidate possesses the essential cognitive traits needed to make complex decisions. That is, political affairs knowledge as well as decision-making skills like open-mindedness, calibrating confidence to evidence, and a willingness to have your thinking challenged by advisers and critics.
Science cannot make firm predictions about individuals. However, the research suggests that once a leader has these abilities, they typically do n’t decrease much even with getting older as they are actively used.
Leo Gugerty is Professor Emeritus in Psychology, Clemson University
This article was republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.