If being contrarian interferes with your real goals, it isn't rational. As a reality check, I will happily fire someone who cannot control it after having been

If being contrarian interferes with your real goals, it isn't rational. As a reality check, I will happily fire someone who cannot control it after having been given sufficient support to redirect it. They waste so much time. I find De Bono's six thinking hats as a nice way to view how best to work rationally in a team. Contrarians only have one hat and miss the other five. The problems I have seen include: dominating discussion (a contrarian has something to argue in every situation, sometimes you need to cover some ground in broad strokes to get some feel of whats involved but a contrarian latches on the first point of uncertainty), off-topic (to stray from the high priority issue to argue in depth some low priority secondary issue), arguing from ignorance (they see argument as 'their way of learning' but in a group situation its very selfish, they should take effort to become better informed offline) negativity (its unrelentingly depressing and critical - picking holes and killing any newborn idea that might need some nurturing before looking at more critically otherwise you can give up on it too soon) personality clashes (there will be inevitable issues of butting heads with different personality types who feel criticism personally or consider arguments as fights or need negatives presented in a status aware manner etc.) Something that might concern you is that reflexive contrarians are very predictable and hence exploitable. The manipulator can basically dangle a designed target in front of them and the contrarian will say whatever is wanted. Reflex is not going to be rational at a high level because the frame its operates in is too narrow and shallow.