Okay "Common sense" tells me that I am either doing something wrong with the presentation of this question or that no one sees this as a priority in life. Next "common sense" tells me my presentation is not too far off because I see that this was modified by an editor. So, in my opinion, my second theory holds some weight; people do not see this as a priority in life. This is sad to see. If I had to provide a tally sheet as to the importance of this answer; I would say that 9 out of 10 people are affected by this. IF YOU HAVE NOT HAD THIS EXPERIENCE THEN I WOULD DEEM YOU AS AN ABUSER.

1. ASK YOURSELF, HAVE YOU EVER BEEN TOLD TO USE YOUR COMMON SENSE WHILE YOU WERE MAKING A PRESENTATION?

2. HAVE YOU EVER TOLD A CHILD TO USE THEIR COMMON SENSE? DO YOU SERIOUSLY KNOW THAT THEY KNOW WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT?

I am not going to let this one go; so how about some input. Yes, I maybe sorry but common sense tells me this truly is an issue worth developing.

Hi Sandra,

In my experience, the phrase ‘common sense’ is often used in situations where a person is waiting for instructions or does not act rather than using their initiative (as opposed to acting inappropriately). Perhaps, where we feel that someone is not using their ‘common sense’ what we should be asking is “what is it that is preventing this person from using their initiative?” and the following are a selection of possible ‘amateur’ answers that come to mind:

1. The person has been conditioned to ‘obey’ (especially in a particular situation) and is now being expected to do otherwise.

2. The person has been the subject of ridicule in the past when they have shown initiative and they now feel that it is safer not to do something that may not be approved of.

3. In the particular situation, the person feels that it is someone else’s responsibility and does not want to ‘step on any toes’.

4. The person did think of a few different ways of tackling the problem, but did not feel confident in applying any single one.

5. The person was thinking so much about what to do that the opportunity to act had passed by (in the eye of the accuser).

How about that to start the ball rolling on this question?

Bijan; just what I was looking for Thank you ever so much....now what? I guess we wait and see. This right now in our nation is truly an important question with the tragedy we just had in our states; so many people "seems" to have not used their "common sense" on this one. All of your answers 1-5 confirm my observation notes.

I guess that no one feels I am serious about this question. I am very serious. Verbal abuse may not have numbers to support that it is the most serious abuse yet if researchers would follow through on physical abuse complaints; they would find that all physical abuse complaints started with a verbally abusive statement; generally found to be an attack on the psyche of an individual. Individual research and observation have found that the "common sense" is always in question by the attacker.

I was guilty of all five of Bijans' statements. This is what prompted me to follow through with this particular issue. I was a victim of physical abuse. My way of fighting back was to "study" my abusers. These not only included my ex-husbands [2] but also parents, siblings, relatives, authority figures, clergy, teachers and the government programs that I had to interact with in order to obtain benefits. This also included police, doctors, lawyers and even friends and enemies that came into my life. Anyone that I came into contact with became a study to me. A person does not have to do a study to know that they are being attacked. I have heard many employers tell an employee that it doesn't take common sense to know how to do their job. For the most part, that employer has not done the respective job in question. They just "think" that it is easy because they do not see the "little things" the employee has to worry about. Using a fast food restaurant as my example; what is so difficult about making that sandwich that is so simple? Anyone working there knows they are told about "cost efficiency"; thus the procedure is as follows-- certain breads receive certain ounces of food followed by specific cheese that must be a certain numeric ounce such as 1 [one]; followed by specifics such as lettuce, tomato, onions, pickles, etc. Who would have ever dreamed making a sandwich could be so complicated? But "common sense" should dictate and tell us that fast food is a business, thus they must make ends meet and cut corners like every other business. This is but one area where common sense becomes an issue and an attack on the self-esteem of many valuable employees. So, am I serious? Yes, very serious.

commen sense is not a commen word ,it is EXCEPTIONAL WORD .Those who are havig specific intelligence ,they can apply COMMEN SENSE.

Thank you Isaam and Nidhi; your responses are ideal to me and I will "tear" them apart later this evening as I have a priority at this moment. But most definitely wanted to thank you both for your responses; as with Bijans' response, there is much usefull knowledge within your responses. I look forward to giving a more practical response.

Start your background reading here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_sense

Ian thank you very much for responding but one thing that I question is my limited knowledge of computer I was told that Wikipedia is basically a "self-serve" dictionary. My explanation of that term meaning it is information contributed by other students such as myself or even a general person that simply knows how to post information. I think I would "boil" it down to saying that it is opinionated contributions from people seeking acknowledgement. If I am wrong, please feel free to "straighten me out" with the proper knowledge. However, I will follow through with at least reading the site you have suggested.

Okay Ian; I have perused your recommended reading; and have found that that is why I opened this research up in the beginning. None of the information is geared toward the initial answer search that I am looking for. It, however, did and does give very good questions and an extreme amount of avenues which to pursue; which is what I did. "Boiling down" what I am looking for can best be described in layman terminology and example. Thus; if you read word by word my initial research question and most definitely Bijan's response whereby he indicates five possibilities; he had given me exactly what I wanted in a response. The problem I will have now is how to elaborate and build on what he has contributed. Again, thank you and any input is appreciated.

My presonal impression is that "common sense" can be described as the imprint of the given culture in the mind of people being grown up in the given culture. E.T. Hall in his book on nonverbal communication divided culture elements into three categories ("the great triad", as he called it): formal, informal and technical. What is normally called common sense is closest to the formal part (the informal is mostly unconscious) with some elements of the technical. Therefore "common sense" can be relied on only in a single culture, it does not work very well in inter-cultural dialgoue. To see what is "common sens" for others helps us a lot to understand some of our presuppositions.

Then Gyorgy am I to presume that what I would do with this answer of yours is to singularly research A. The Great Triad

1. Formal

2. Informal

3. Technical

Although I have observed that your answer points to nonverbal communication. My initial question asks about people that denigrate others by "badgering" them asking "don't you have any common sense? what is the matter with you?" How many times, not only for yourself, but others have you heard these phrases being used on children and/or adults? I have heard it as well as seen others being taunted this way and consider it a form of bullying. This is the basis of my research.

Sorry not indicating the source: E.T. Hall: "Silent Language" Anchor Books, New York, 1981 (original was written in 1959), Chapter Four. I believe this classification goes beyond nonverbal culture. The strong "moral" color is characteristic of the "formal" notions, which are inlcucated into growing children with a strong requirement of acceptance and obedience. These are the basic thoughts of the community how things are and how they should be. Usually negligation or negation of these things are badly tolerated by the community - this is refelcted by the reproach. do not you have common sense? Chellenging common sense view makes the life of innovators or foreigners hard. But I do not want to distort the line of your tain of thought and the topic you are really interested in - I simply added my thoughts.

Now that you have found out what is 'common knowledge' about "Common_Sense" from wikipedia, you can graduate to Scholar:

http://scholar.google.co.za/scholar?q=Common+sense

If that search is not focused enough, add in words like "judgement" to focus in on your research interest.

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Common+sense+judgement

To Gyorgy; I have no problem with your response. I just felt as though I was not properly communicating what it is that I really am trying to get "knowledge" about. I need to realize that psychology is the groundwork for such a question and with that all responses need a physiological foundation before pursuing any further hypothesis. The only problem here is that I am not looking for a hypothesis nor a theory but an absolute. What I am suggesting is ignorance and with that I would suspect that the best answer for ignorance is knowledge and awareness. Am I sitting in judgement of others? If by seeing the pain that is created within some adults and children because of such remarks is judgement then so be it. Sitting on a soap box --maybe....but this is verbal communication that no more has to be tolerated than swearing or obscene language. I stand by my statement that it is a form of Bullying. and until accepted as such will be a barrier in the fight against Bullying. Once again what Bijan stated is extremely important as far as I am concerned.

Just note Ian that I did follow your links; and am totally amazed at how medically professional it made "common sense" WOW Kant, Santos, Locke and so many more; I am sorry none of that will take away an alcoholics pain because his dad felt that he just had no "common sense" What is needed there is to grow up and figure the dad had no common sense to tell a child such a thing. I apologize if I appear rude but I am only trying to help not only myself but others like me.

@Sandra. You are skirting around what you really want to research. While this is fine (e.g., to disguise your informants / own experience) when talking or writing to people, it is not OK when using search engines. You have to type the words that must be in the target document. So do not be afraid to type in phrases like alcoholism, parent, abuse or whatever, to build your knowledge and awareness.

Thank you Ian; I very much appreciate your response and sincerely hope that I have the intellect to use it appropriately and someday present the "perfect paper".

Okay Ian upon reflection and re-reading your response my question is: when typing in a phrase such as parenting would I type in my search engine: parental common sense? Be aware now that I have just thought of that I will be attempting it after leaving this site. I can not see it being that simple? And yes, you have honed in on what is the most sensitive area of the "research". One needs to use examples in order to support statements yet one must "disguise" their "informant". One such incident that I had; it did indeed net me the grade of "A+" actually in my psychology class yet when I described the material that I had used; I was actually hit with "did you use this without my permission?" In order to be effective I had to use the tape and even though it infringed on me [I was woke at 3-4 in the morning by a woman that had been gang raped and she was sobbing hysterically plus she was over 1200 miles from her family so while on the line with her I notified rape centers, women shelters, police, hospitals all the necessary steps that are formally taken to help rape victims. Trust me, there was so much "learned" that night. [I am on another board about "learned" education; of which this is synchronous]. At that point, I ascertained that the material was indeed my property; but that I needed to use the material discreetly; which I attempted to do; such as I am doing now. I am not actually divulging the name of the individual, yet one should be able to tell that it was of course a relative. That example taught me in regards to another sibling involving alcoholism. In my family alone is a volume of information but sadly it involves them but it infringed on me and my life and how it affected my children and relationship so once again: does one actually disguise their experiences in order to better substantiate what has been "learned"? Sorry if this post appears convoluted for me it is early in the morning. Interesting I was checking my dictionary to see if "convoluted" was an appropriate term for my statement, and the first words that I encountered were "common sense"--good sense in everyday affairs, practical intelligence. Hmmmmm???? I was trying to figure to use convoluted or periphrastic; which is a very favorite word in my life. I like to describe myself as a periphrastic person--a person that talks in circles but always keeping my point in focus.

Put phrases into the search engines using quotes before and after, like this: parental "common sense". That search won't find pages with 'common parental sense', but that is to your advantage. Yes, it is that simple. You will get more returns than you can easily digest! However, don't believe every example you come across. Use your brain!

The disguising of respondent's names is easily done via a look-up table that only you have access to.

"Convoluted" does not mean "common sense". Get a better dictionary. I use TheSage a lot.

I agree I do need a more updated dictionary. However, The "old" Thorndike Barnhart advanced dictionary by Scott, Foresman edition is really great because it not only shows the synonyms but describes in detail the comparison usages. I think that in my message I did not mean for convoluted to mean common sense. I think that I was describing my message as being convoluted. I am aware though that written communication is mostly never tantamount to verbal communication. And yes, I used that dictionary and reworded my sentence to try to convey my thought. In that particular area, the dictionary stated tantamount to being "equivalent" and then it used an example sentence, then proceeded to give a synonym study denoting the word "See equal for synonym study" [

afterthought: Oh yeah "use your brain" I have heard that too. Factually that is where I associated common sense to mean brain. Common sense is a by product of the brain; not the brain itself.

I was trying to avoid using "use your common sense" as it triggers unwanted reactions. Perhaps I should have said "Tie what you read with your own experience".

That would have been a most acceptable statement to me. You are most definitely correct in your presumption about the trigger. Thank You.

just to let anyone know that I am still on this. I have been responding to other boards and hopefully incorporating the usages of my research as well as determining variables that are necessary for a complete and factual paper. To Ian; you have been extremely helpful with your book; thank you. To Bijan; I have no idea where you are with your research but please accept that your initial list response is the foundation for my research. You clarified very well the responses that need to be addressed. Now I am just reading a fellow researchers book in order to find out what to do with it. Best of luck in your research.

Being a physicists, I'm unable to precisely define what is common sense (Question C).

But I can express my feelings about this subject. First of all, I think common sense is a social product. More specifically, you need a group of people (a society) to generate some rules, later known as common sense (that's why the word "common" is here). Therefore the common sense for one group may be substantially different for another community. Surely, there are some universal rules, like "no matter what, I want to survive" - but they will be most likely called instincts rather than common sense. Thus the answer to Question A is essentially NO. Consequently, the one breaking rules of her/his community is likely to be considered as a person lacking common sense (who wants/desires to be punished?). Sometimes she/he will be declared mentally ill, as being different from the rest of "us". As to the question B, yes, there are people without common sense. Fortunately, majority of them are only temporarily in such state. Next time they will be rational, in most cases.

Marek thank you for your input; it has given me much to ponder and work with......1. common sense --a social product; very interesting. I first ask myself what do you mean by "social product"? next, your differentiation about instincts vs common sense. I knew this to be a major contribution--many good points with this...last temporary lack of common sense??? what of the mercenary? the professional hit man? professional assassin? are they ever rational? I think that they rationalize not that they are rational. I hope to hear from you again. Thank you for your input.

Sandra,

The easiest part is with temporary lack of common sense. You can't expect one when the person is sleeping, drunk, unconscious, or just a moment after the car accident. But it may also happen during military service, when stupid orders have to be obeyed. As to the social product ... think about lemmings. Or about the abnormal influence of various media (radio, tv, newspapers, advertising, etc.) on susceptible people. They (those people) need not to be mentally ill, they are simply lazy or just uninformed. No matter what, some of them will always buy another fantastic mixture for growing their hairs (or diet pills).

Professional assassin is, perhaps, like an ordinary bureaucrat ("it's my job"). They both switch their common sense off, when "on duty".

Thanks Marek. It is always refreshing to see that you never switch your sense of humor off. ;)

Marek Again thank you for your response. I would like to single out the word "drunk" only for the simple fact that is my most obvious data input. Without giving you the specifics; this may be a little difficult but I will try my best to defend my statement. A drunk person appears to lack common sense however if one takes extreme amount of time and patience will find that the drunk has more common sense than the observer. This is a fact proven to me. I don't know how the numbers work out because I have not done surveys or such however I can support my "theory". I like what you said about 'stupid orders"; once again factual input but only on a general level meaning simple knowledge not a rank, temporary common sense is not lacking; simply subdued. If other emotions become dominant, common sense becomes the factor dictating any violent actions and responses. I am hearing a lot of comments about people being "lazy". I am starting to question this. I think that I have found people not to be lazy but too smart, smart enough to get others to do for them what they should do for themselves. If the outcome is profitable they take the credit, if not they blame it on the "other guy". Professional assassin I only know what I see on television and read in the media at least as far as I know as there are approximately three unsolved cold case homicides in my immediate families. These are based on "mob"/"mafia" blame. I, however, choose not to believe the stories. I believe they were all simply violent factor related deaths. I do not factually know. Lastly, Lemmings, thank you for giving me something to "do" in regards to this research. But lemmings I have no idea what they even are....lol but I will shortly as I will most definitely be doing follow-up research.

Common sense is the "reason" that everybody states, when he has no logical reason.

Most definitely Juan I like your response. There is so very much truth to such a "simple" statement. However, the reason for this particular research question is the pain that I have seen this "stupid" response create. If you note my original question, I put within it my explanation and sincerely believe that not to be so stupid but a reason to get people to not be so "lazy" with their responses and interaction with those less verbal, I guess one could say I am looking for accountability for verbal abuse. This should be punished as well as physical however as in at this point, I am not certain, but I believe it was Dr. Susan Forwards book titled "Toxic Parents" states that verbal abuse is dominant but nonpunishable because of the generality of it. One can not be punished for "talking", no matter the content of their communication. Albeit, slang is slang and nothing more---wrong???

Sandra,

Though, I like Juan's comment in that it is very excuse when one has no proof of his statement.

To me commonsense is what people learn from their experience in day to day matter of life or work and know what their response, action should be. That is to say OBVIOUS ONE initiative expected of a sane person living in a certain community. Imagination, dreams and induced imagination through intoxication may lead a person in a dream world where every thing is possible. But when a creation or initiative based on imagination, dreams and induced imagination through intoxication in life should based within limits of possibilities that is OBVIOUS ONES one who attempts to go beyond these obvious one possibilities is just naive.

Sandra,

If you want response regarding social abuse telling a person that he/she is lacking commonsense is less abusive. We teachers experience it daily, to us to the word stupid is strongest word relative to lazy while to tell a student in lab or in class that use your commonsense (meaning thereby, are you lacking common sense is weak and perhaps has no burden on or injury to the students or children than call them stupid or lazy.

Sandra,

If I tell you "you lack common sense", then it is equivalent to making a very strong judgment on your intellectual capacity. Of course, the negative connotation is obvious, with all its consequences.

On the other hand, if I tell you instead "It does not make sense TO ME because ...", then I am not necessarily judging YOU but rather simply expressing MY lack of understanding as well as stating what I THINK is the reason for it. It seems to me that, in this case, there would be no negative connotation. It would be simply perceived as an invitation for further clarifications from your part and it might even turn out that I was wrong in the first place.

Okay Mohammad thank you for responding. At first, I felt your response was totally negative. However with further reading, I think that I am able to correctly interpret your response. I hope so. First let me say I like what you said about "induced imagination"......then you further clarified it to a comparison which definitely intrigued me. 1. based on intoxication 2. based on life..Naivety; a simple, but profound truth....for people such as myself this would appear to be a clear and concise defense however, it is no excuse for improper input. As in my case I will admit when I have actual knowledge based on experience and knowledge based on naivety. Usually when it is the latter, I input for the sake of giving me something to research so as to make factual input at later dates. When I truly have no facts to input, I find my opinion will usually suffice so as to create questions for people that actually have the experiences can express themselves in a more clear, and less dangerous way. I find when it comes to communication the minute people do not hear what they want to hear they become volatile, whether it be verbal or physical for the most part it is unavoidable; thus the intimidation setting in thus the stopping of displaying what is or has been learned. Name- calling is just that; name-calling and is usually a juvenile attempt for attention with the knowledge that it will be a negative attention that will definitely be turned positive because the attention has been addressed. It will stop until the next time that student wants attention again.

Sandra, Google gives me as first meaning as:

Naive, Adjective

(of a person or action) Showing a lack of experience, wisdom, or judgment: "the rather naive young man had been totally misled".

It has been awhile but just to let all know that I am still on this. It may not seem like it but I check in on this frequently while responding to other boards. Please interpret in your own language and whatever phrase is chosen that all have "A very Merry Christmas and a Wonderful, safe and Happy New Year." So much of this I want to include in a compilation but I am quite certain that I need approval from all to include, my email is: [email protected] Please email me a short statement as to the acceptability of the usage of your statements that I will print out and keep together for future use. Thank you.

Common sense is a basic ability to perceive, understand, and judge things, which is shared by ("common to") nearly all people, and can be reasonably expected of nearly all people without any need for debate.

For the most part, it sometimes seems that "common sense" is faulty, illogical, and irrational reasoning. As Johnson-Laird commented, "It has become a truism that whatever formal logic may be, it is not a model of how people make inferences.". As cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience (and similar fields, such as evolutionary psychology) have shown, we are prone to particular biases, errors in reasoning, and faulty thinking. Although I've never used them in their entirety for teaching, I have often used extracts from several popular and highly accessible books which summarize and explain the research on this topic, including:

Ariely, D. (2008). Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces that Shape Our Decisions.HarperCollins.

Gilovich, T. (2008). How We Know What Isn't So: The Fallibility of Human Reason in Everyday Life. Simon and Schuster.

Piattelli-Palmarini, M. (1994). Inevitable illusions: How mistakes of reason rule our minds. Wiley

Sutherland, S. (2007). Irrationality. Pinter & Martin

For more serious treatments, a few examples include:

Sternberg, R. J. (Ed.). (2008). Why smart people can be so stupid. Yale University Press.

Gilovich, T., Griffin, D., & Kahneman, D. (Eds.). (2002). Heuristics and biases: The psychology of intuitive judgment. Cambridge University Press.

David, D., Lynn, S. J., & Ellis, A. (Eds.). (2010). Rational and irrational beliefs: Research, theory, and clinical practice. Oxford University Press.

Gigerenzer, G. (2008). Rationality for mortals: How people cope with uncertainty. Oxford University Press.

Magnani, L. (2009). Abductive Cognition: The Epistemological and Eco-Cognitive Dimensions of Hypothetical Reasoning (Cognitive Systems Monographs). Springer.

It's not that people are stupid (hence the title of the first academic book cited above). In fact, a fair amount of research had demonstrated that the systematic biases and failure to think rationally are more or less independent of any measures of intelligence, as shown in the study ("On the Relative Independence of Thinking Biases and Cognitive Ability") linked to below. Nor are the ways in which "common sense" fails us all downsides. As anybody who has spent any time on algorithms and methods in soft computing, computational intelligence, AI, machine learning, etc., will attest to the most perfect exemplars of logic (computers, which rely quite literally on physical instatiations of logic in the form of logic gates) that so vastly outstrip the greatest mathematical minds when in comes to computatations, make for incredibly poor cognitive systems despite cutting-edge technologies and 50+ years of work trying to get computers to do things as basic as recognizing characters. Our best AI/computational intelligence systems are dumber than mice. Our tendency to see patterns where none exist, to see design  or cause where none exist, to find probability and formal logic counter-intuitive, and so on, all have more benefits than not as they allow us to extrapolate from examples, classify novel instantiations of some conceptual category (e.g., cars, trees, etc.) with ease, and basically most of what makes us capable of conceptual processing as opposed to the syntactical processing (computing) that computers are limited to.

However, "common sense" does fail us in particular, predictable, and systematic ways. I'm probably a little to jaded here as I've spent considerable time researching and trying to participate in solutions to the current state of mathematics education to pre-college teenagers and undergraduates, not to mention my own frustrations trying to teach mathematics concepts and analytic writing to students who have come to think of mathematics as a bunch of procedures and who have never received the necessary instruction in critical thinking/analytic reasoning to even construct an argument, let alone do so in an academic paper.

http://www.keithstanovich.com/Site/Research_on_Reasoning_files/JPSP08.pdf