Why Do We Sometimes Act Irrationally?

It must have happened to you sometime: you have acted irrationally. You have done something spontaneously, such as making a wrong decision or committing an act that you always end up regretting. You don’t have to be a teenager to perform actions that escape all understanding, even your own.

You acted irrationally because at that moment you may have found yourself in a context that pushed you to do a certain thing. Or, it is possible that your emotional state required you to react in a way that was not exactly the most appropriate.

People are complex creatures apparently endowed with balance and rationality, but the truth is that this is not always the case. In addition, seeking the justification for our actions when they are irrational is always difficult. However, there are several explanations in this regard that are worth reviewing to understand why these behaviors occur. Would you like to know more?

Why do we act irrationally?

We cannot always know the reasons why someone acts irrationally. However, thanks to research, we can get pretty close to the bottom of the matter.

1. Halo effect

The halo effect is a very common cognitive bias. Let’s find an example: we like a person. We do not know her very well, but the little we do know about her is enough to believe that everything she does, says and thinks is just as positive and good.

We build a series of self-interpretations that do not always conform to reality, but the attraction that this person exerts on us is enough to think that it is as good as the feelings that it provokes in us.

All this induces us to carry out acts and behaviors that are justified by the halo effect, by thinking that we are doing things for someone that is really worthwhile. It is undoubtedly one of the most recurrent errors, and one that can happen to us at any time.

2. Cognitive dissonance: When the mind acts in the face of the irrational

Our life and reality are full of contradictions. It is the usual and expected. There are people who know how to face these facts normally, interpret them and act according to appropriate principles, without hurting anyone.

However, other people may not bear this ambivalence, it makes them anxious and restless. How to keep two contradictory ideas in mind? Let’s take a fairly illustrative example. You love your partner, the person you live with.

However, you are very attracted to a co-worker. So much so that he ends up betraying him. How to bear that dissonance? “I love my partner, however I am cheating on her.” People who do not know how to face reality and who prefer to stay with dissonance, will end up looking for an explanation that benefits them: I have cheated on my partner because he / she did not love me enough.

It would therefore be small self-justifications with which to maintain our own integrity. A way of feeling good, despite not acting correctly.

3. Blind obedience to authority, even if the order is irrational

There are many experiments, such as the one carried out by Stanley Milgram, that show us how people are able to follow in the wake of a certain person or group, even when their ideas conflict with our own principles and values.

Why is this happening? Perhaps, due to the need to be part of a group, due to pressure, comfort, not being different. For maintaining the same idea or behavior to the group that one belongs to. Quite shocking realities that tend to occur very often in our day to day, on a small or large scale.

In conclusion, it may be that, on some occasion, even we ourselves have been pressured or induced by a group of people to carry out some irrational act of greater or lesser importance. Some of what even today, we wonder why we got to do it. Obedience to authority is perhaps a simple explanation.