8 Characteristics of a rational person

Human beings have the ability to reflect on our actions, emotions and behaviors. Beyond the fact that other living beings also possess this quality, what differentiates us is the possibility of verbalizing what happens to us, a condition that we use regularly in our daily lives. At the same time, the mind can reach unthinkable limits, fantastic ideas regarding the outcome of an enigma, novel resolutions of unforeseen everyday situations, among others.

On the other hand, planning can also be a tool that can bring us both benefits and disadvantages, especially in the case of rational people. In this Psychology-Online article we explain the main characteristics of a rational person.

Anticipation of future situations

First of all, one of the main characteristics of rational people is that They plan their lives based on what they think will happen in the future. For this reason, they usually establish mental schemes with hypothetical scenarios that may happen to them in life. Consequently, this type of person will meticulously follow the guidelines and planning that they had previously established, related to both personal situations and social encounters.

Difficulty accepting changes

Those people who have taken their time to think about what the best decision is usually have difficulties accepting changes. This occurs because the modifications involve letting go of the thoughts they had previously had. In some cases, rational people tend to have firm and inflexible ideas regarding personal issues.

If you want to know more about that topic you can read the article.

Prevalence of thought over emotion

Although rational people usually have a lot of mixed feelings throughout their lives, these types of people they put thought before emotionality. This allows them to act in a controlled and considered way to avoid unfavorable consequences regarding their actions.

Dialogue assessment

Another characteristic of rational people is that they tend to value the other person’s words, which makes it easier to reach agreements, even though the points of view may be very different. Therefore, in cases where people give rise to dialogue, it will be easier to present all the ideas and reach the conclusion of whether it is possible to establish a consensus with other people, leaving aside any harshness that could arise in social encounters. .

Generally speaking, rational people They do not usually act impulsively because that would trigger moments of intense emotions without taking into account the context in which they occur. In this way, the capacity for empathy in social environments will be developed.

Analysis of advantages and disadvantages

Rational people have the tendency to analyze situations completely. In other words, this means that they are able to clearly see the advantages and disadvantages of your decisions before taking them. In this way, they can anticipate the possible risks of an unfavorable decision.

On the other hand, this type of people here also tend to consider the benefits they can achieve through planned action, since rationalization gives them a feeling of security.

Lack of spontaneity

Although this does not happen in all cases, rigor in thoughts can lead to a . In other words, some rational people have problems accepting surprises that may arise in the development of their activities and incorporate them into them.

Development of the intellectual side

Intelligence can be measured in several ways. However, although there is a lot of variety within this classification, rational people usually make specific use of intellectuality to develop in areas of life that require it.

In this way, it is common for their arguments to appeal to the reading of books and/or academic texts, study of university courses, among others. In short, the main objective of rational people is to develop skills.

Lack of action

Beyond the fact that each person must be analyzed individually before placing them in a specific group, it is important to keep in mind that rationality can also be an impediment to their way of acting.

In this way, people who make excessive use of thinking may have difficulties in carrying out actions related to their previous ideas and present inhibitions in decision making. This occurs because there is usually the belief that reality will be different from the thoughts they have had.

This article is merely informative, at Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.

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Bibliography

  • Mendieta Muñoz, R. (2013). The conception of human rationality in organizational theories. Retos III Magazine, 2 (5), 43-53.
  • Sánchez, MA (2018). In what sense are we rational agents? National University of the South. Faculty of Philosophy.
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