Mica makes me chuckle. The speed at which she forms judgements is comical. Milliseconds after I finish any sentence that inclines toward a response of good/bad or right/wrong, she is espousing her judgement with vigor.

We all do this — we form quick judgements instinctually.

That said, it is not imperative to form these rapid judgements. Not only is it okay to not have an opinion on something 5 seconds after you learn about it, perhaps it is beneficial in forming accurate beliefs.

After you obtain or state a rapid judgement, you are in some sense tied to it. It becomes unnecessarily hard to move from that original position. This it is hypothesized that this happen for at least two reasons. First, and most obviously, we don’t like to admit we were wrong. It kills our self-righteous ego a bit. Secondly, we have a cognitive bias to believe things based upon their mere repetition. Quick judgements suffer from both these costs.

The practice I want to start is implementing is to suspend judgement unless an opinion is really warranted. The response to more questions should be “I don’t know what I think about that” or “I don’t have an opinion on that yet”.

As for Mica… all I hope for is that she keeps making me laugh.