I've been reading Nate Silver's 'The Signal and the Noise,' which talks about how statistical predictions have failed or have improved over the years in a variety of areas, including the real estate crash in '06-'08, baseball, weather, and political races, among others. Silver gained fame mainly for predicting the last two presidential elections correctly in all 50 states. His chapter on predicting races for political office touches on this topic of big picture vs detail-oriented prognosticators, and uses an analogy seen as far back as Greek literature but attributed to Philip Tetlock: that of foxes and hedgehogs. From
this review:
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Hedgehogs, Silver says, are those who believe “in governing principles about the world that behave as though they were physical laws.” Foxes, by contrast, “are scrappy creatures who believe in a plethora of little ideas and in taking a multitude of approaches toward a problem.”
I've found when it comes to studying new things and being thrust into new situations, it is important to be a fox. That is, it's important to not stubbornly hold on to a view in spite of new information coming in. I think it's very important that people in technical fields be this way, including science, engineering, medicine, law, etc.
However, most people are not interested in details, leading them to gravitate towards the more magnetic and seemingly self-assured personalities of hedgehogs. You won't attract a bitch by being wishy-washy. I see the value in being a hedgehog in different, non-technical situations, in developing a 'system' regarding personal things such as your morality or expectations of those around you, and not waver from that. Make your own big picture. It's ok to be stubborn about your quality of life. It helps to attract others and to be a more magnetic leader.