Todays Psychology Lecture :-/

Post Reply New Topic

The discussion topic today in psychology class was intelligence. How does that relate to anything aspergers? Part of the discussion was for the class of 235 people to come up collectively with a description and list of traits of people who would be considered intelligent and on the flip side, those whom they would consider unintelligent.

Here's the list they compiled...

Intelligent people
--------------------
- Socially capable
- Can keep up with a conversation
- Athletic ability
- Book smarts
- Creative

Un-intelligent people
-----------------------
- Socially inept, aloof - A "jerk"
- introverted
- Clumsy
- Ridgid, close mindedness
- Lack of wit

After this little exercise my professor began explaining that the lists were not all-inclusive, and he began to elaborate about his PhD advisor who was a brilliant man who had absoultely no social ability at all and had no idea of it, let alone how to change, and how he tried to stay away from that person at all costs. He asked if any of us knew people like that, those who would they consider unintelligent, or, a "jerk" as he put it. Almost half the class put their hands up.

I couldn't help but think during the transpiring of all of this that they were all describing people with AS without realizing it. I can see how my professor could miss the connection, his area of focus is in industrial psychology.

So is this how the general, ignorant public views us, as "jerks"???...

Pretty much, sensitive people will not say so once they realize you are AS. But most NTs will just say, "what a jerk". I've mentioned a "friend" who has started diagnosing people she doesn't like with AS or autism.
I'm a fan of Xena Warrior Princess and one other person wrote an essay (Virginia Carper @ Whoosh!)that basically diagnosed Joxer as AS. Anyone who doesn't like his character will say he was a creep and a jerk.
My husband works with a guy who he suspects as AS and the other coworkers have accused him of being creepy and pervy, mostly because of his eye contact issues and his lack of recognition of personal space.

Your class's definition sounds more like refinement and culture than intelligence. Besides, there's lots of different kinds of intelligence, like emotional, creative, and academic.

I'm not surprised.

No surprise here.

However,

THis reminds me of polls and surveys concerning the traits of overweight people compared to skinny people. People most often attribute laziness, lack of intelligence and a bad personality to the overweight people, while they attribute intelligence and a good personality to skinny people.

Yes, they have done similiar studies with attributes of people with attractive/symetrical features and those without and found the same results.....those who were attractive where judged with many positive qualities.They were thought to be nicer,smarter,etc.

People scare me.

Thanks, the next time somebody says that aspies shouldn't try to change, they should just be themselves and people will notice and love them... I'll post a link to this thread.

What school are you attending?? The University of The First Circle of Hell?

What does "Can keep up a conversation" mean? Chit chat about crap? how does that define intelligence?

Did the people think about what makes others intelligent or did they just list things THEY were good at and considered the opposite 'bad.'

Intelligence is the capacity to objectively define intelligence

Nah, intelligence is being able to give a good retort to the people who try.

The subjectivity of some of those answers says more about the people who came up with the answer than about intelligence. People with limited understanding of the human psyche and only average intelligence do tend to think people who are more intelligent are people they personally find attractive for reasons other than intelligence. Normally, it's something that person posseses than the other person wants: success, money, good looks, popularity, an accessible sense of humor, good manner (i.e., not threatening in a social situation), etc. On the flipside, egos are very easily threatened, so anything off-putting, like homely looks, a sense of humor they don't get or awkward or cryptic behavior, immediately gets deemed signs of poor intelligence. That way the ego thinks it doesn't have to compete with such a person in the almighty intellgience social status stakes game. Your class neeeds to cover "ego defenses" because that's all it is: little people with mediorce brains, big egos and even bigger insecurities.

I don't think we should take this personally. I don't think these people are singling out just AS or any other condition. You'd be giving them WAY more credit then they deserve. They're just reacting to what they find attractive and not attractive without thinking critically. They're basically operating on the psychological level of a 14 year old. And do you hold 14 year olds accountable for understanding their own behavior and motives? So basically, these people are idiots who physically graduated from high school, but psychologically don't realize high school's over. Pity them. And get used to it, because the world's full of idiots like that.

Your professor is the jerk, and so are those class "mates" that put up their hands...