Friday, January 25, 2008

You're not so smart


According to Newsweek (and University College London professor, Adrian Furnham) men are not as smart as they think they are and women all over the world under estimate their own intellectual abilities. But the oddest part of the study was that it wasn't just men over estimating and women downplaying their own intellegence. Men and women both think that their dads are smarter than their moms. If they have children men and women both think the boys are smarter than the girls.


4 comments:

Ken said...

That study never asked me anything. I usually look at differences between children and find girls do tend to get better grades, but then, that is because they tend to work harder, boys seem more interested in just having fun.

Looking at my parents, they are equally smart, but in relation to different things. Some things my dad gets that my mom doesn't and vice versa.

Lastly, I tend to think myself dumber than than the compliments I receive. But that is context as well. In comparison to my peers in seminary, I'm no where near the top of the totem pole, but in relation to others outside the seminary world regarding seminary-type stuff, of course I'm smarter. But this is only because of opportunity, not because of some genetic predisposition to intellectual ability.

So anyway, I'm not much of a fan of these studies, because the issues are usually more complex than the scope of the research is capable of analyzing.

Melody said...

Trying to be smarter than the study are we?

Robin Marie said...

Note: the researcher studied several different countries and several different cultures in an effort to obtain and compile these results.
It's interesting how in an attempt to flippantly discard something, one could end up proving it.

Unknown said...

Haha! Ken, you've been caught!

 
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