I think it has to do with interests. Some people have an inmate interest in how stuff works, and specifically how it breaks.

I think you can teach someone to troubleshoot in a procedural and methodical manner, but they will always lack the creative "spark" that comes from being actually interested. Procedural troubleshooters are useful, but they won't exceed the bounds of the model they've been taught to work under.

Strongly agree. I think it correlates with high level of curiosity.

Also, for example, so many developers could see an issue and fix it without really understanding how the fix works.

I literally cannot live with that and have to understand why something works the way it works

Right - can you teach people to like different things? Maybe? Generally, no.

I don’t believe that’s true. It’s an attitude, not some kind of innate skill like reflexes. You can learn to believe in yourself, plus it’s teachable in my experience.

Yes attitudes are harder to learn than skills aren't they?

Ever notice people get more stubborn and stuck in their ways over time?

It's possible you cannot teach people to want different things.

That would be more of a psychological hack. I've never seen this happen. My experience is people behave a certain way (care about what they do up to a roughly defined level) and 10 years later they behave the same. Self esteem tends to change or fluctuate and can be thought, but personally i believe that is not enough for a non-troubleshooting mindset to turn around. Unless you could convince me otherwise?