Cause of misjudgment № 24
Reason-Respecting Tendency
People comply far more readily when given a reason — which aids real learning but can be exploited by stating a meaningless 'because.'
Humans cooperate better and learn better when things are explained with reasons. We are built to respond to “because,” and a request accompanied by a rationale gets far more compliance than the same request with no explanation. This is mostly a good thing: it is why teaching ideas as part of a web of reasons makes them stick, and why Munger insisted on always learning the why behind a fact rather than memorizing it in isolation.
The exploit, demonstrated by the psychologist Ellen Langer, is that the reason does not have to be a good one — the mere form of a reason often suffices. In her experiment, someone trying to cut a copier line got much higher compliance by adding “because I have to make copies,” which is a non-reason (everyone in line is there to make copies), than by asking with no justification at all. The word “because” tripped the tendency even though the content was empty.
So the tendency cuts both ways. Use it honestly: when you want cooperation, give people the real reasons, and when you want to learn or teach, anchor every fact to the causation behind it, because that is how knowledge becomes usable. Guard against it as well: when someone hands you a “because,” check whether the reason actually holds, since a hollow rationale can win your agreement on the strength of its form alone. Munger considered learning the genuine reasons behind things one of the central habits of an educated mind.
