The Scout Mindset: Why Some People See Things Clearly and Others Don't

“If I had to bet on the best long-term predictor of good judgment among the observers in this book, it would be their commitment—their soul-searching Socratic commitment—to thinking about how they think.”13

To be willing to consider other interpretations—to even believe that there could be other reasonable interpretations besides your own—requires scout mindset.

When you think of someone with excellent judgment, what traits come to mind? Maybe you think of things like intelligence, cleverness, courage, or patience. Those are all admirable virtues, but there’s one trait that belongs at the top of the list that is so overlooked, it doesn’t even have an official name. So I’ve given it one. I call it scout min

While the Scientist’s clear mind sees a foggy world, full of complexity and nuance and messiness, the Zealot’s foggy mind shows them a clear, simple world, full of crisp lines and black-and-white distinctions. When you’re thinking like a Zealot, you end up in a totally alternative reality, feeling like you’re an omniscient being in total possession

the fact that soldier mindset is often our default strategy for getting what we want doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a good strategy. For one thing, it can backfire. In “Persuasion,” we saw that law students who are randomly assigned to one side of a moot court case become confident, after reading the case materials, that their side is morally and le

Julia Galef, cofounder of the Center for Applied Rationality, offers up a clarifying metaphor in the form of a beautiful question. Galef suggests we ask ourselves this question: Am I a soldier or a scout?17 She explains that there is a very different mindset for a soldier as opposed to a scout. A soldier’s job is to protect and defend against the e