Most of the time we are not reasoning people. Dogs tend not to argue about syllogisms, but they still seem bright. Chuck IBM's Deep Blue chess computer and a dog into a pond, and see which one climbs out first. Which means that intelligence is grounded in survival. If you haven't got a reason to think, you won't think, and survival is what motivates us.
Nothing is a waste of time.
But there's been a backlash against symbolic AI and everyone is now far more interested in nematodes. There is a huge middle ground that nobody seems to be exploring, an area where psychology starts to make sense but human reasoning is irrelevant. More than an insect, but not quite human . . . Alan Turing predicted that the idea of machines thinking would be routine by the end of the century. The very second that time ran out for his prediction was the second that computers were set to demonstrate their complete stupidity because they couldn't add up dates.