What Filters
Contribute to Being
a Warrior or Scout?

Julia Graf

Julia Galef co-founded the Center for Applied Rationality, a nonprofit organization devoted to helping people improve their reasoning and decision-making, particularly with the aim of addressing global problems. Julia’s background is originally in statistics, and she did social science research at Columbia and Harvard Business Schools for several years before becoming a writer for venues such as Slate, Science, Scientific American and more. For the last six years, Julia has hosted the Rationally Speaking podcast.

The Ted Talk

Perspective is everything, especially when it comes to examining your beliefs. Are you a soldier, prone to defending your viewpoint at all costs — or a scout, spurred by curiosity? Julia Galef examines the motivations behind these two mindsets and how they shape the way we interpret information

What's the Point?

Julia talks about the role of emotions in influencing your "warrior" or "scout" orientation.

What she doesn't discuss is what influences our emotions although she makes references to potential factors along the way.

We recommend this lecture because it provides another way using our Performance Model to understand both what occurs that impacts emotions and how the combination of factors impacts behavior.

Click here or the image above to watch the Ted Talk.

P.S. Her use of the Dreyfus Case is an excellent tool to explain how the phenomenon might play out in real life