Slashdot Mirror
Rejection Makes You Dumb
photozz writes: "Just when I was looking for more reasons to hate the girls that dumped me in high school, this article at NewScientist explains how studies have shown that rejection actualy makes you dumb. From the article: 'Rejection can dramatically reduce a person's IQ and their ability to reason analytically.'"
I started dating the female who is now my wife my Freshman year in High School, and we have been together ever since. Guess this gives me an advantage at becoming an alpha geek someday.
I Don't Work Here
Let's say you're about to take a test (math test, IQ test, art history test, doesn't matter). Just before you take the test, I show you a relatively current picture of your father diddling himself with ben wa balls. Wups! You don't do as well on the test as you would have. Your apparent IQ has gone down.
Just before you take the test, I stomp on your foot. Wups! You don't do as well on the test as you would have. Your apparent IQ gone down.
Just before taking the test, your boyfriend/girlfriend breaks up with you. Wups! You don't do as well on the test as you would have. Your apparent IQ gone down.
Anyone know why there are so many psychology students in US colleges? Because a large portion of college students are too stupid to handle a real major. Unfortunately, those psych majors eventually graduate and publish studies such as these.
- I don't need to go outside, my CRT tan'll do me just fine.
When I read the article, the first impression I got was that since it was a scientific study, it should hold some truth. However, upon closer inspection, I do not think that is the case.
The biggest reason I do not trust the findings is because the exact setting of the study is unknown. Depending on the subjects (age, background, education, social status), the actual transcripts of the study, the atmosphere of the study and the subsequent IQ tests, hell, even what the subjects had for breakfast, the end result could vary dramatically. It is very well known that studies can be skewed. I seem to remember some test showing that NT was much faster than Linux, and immediately after that, other tests proving the contrary. If you set up the test properly, even if you deal with computers, cars or people, you can get almost any result that you want. Note that I said ALMOST.
Given this, the study should be viewed with skepticism. And there are other things to consider. It is pretty obvious that if you tell somebody that he/she is a reject, a loser, and outcast, that person will get enraged. Especially if those comments come from a trustworthy professor. If you expect that while being angered you do not become more aggressive, well, Newton's law applies quite well here. Also obvious should be the fact that while in a highly emotional state (anger in this case) the brain does not function at its full logical potential. Most of its concentration is focused on the emotions. This in turn skews the IQ results, which are very much based on logic.
I took a few IQ test myself, and while in all the scores were fairly close (I didn't have anybody telling me I'm an idiot when I was taking them), the final IQ result was never the same. So there is a wide margin of error here too.
So in the end, we are left with somebody who wants to prove at all costs that rejection makes one dumb, creates a test specifically designed to get that result, and lo and behold, he does. It's a great day for science.
I don't think so.
It never ceases to amaze what a tenuous grasp otherwise intelligent people ... um, OK, this is Slashdot, but I'm giving the benefit of the doubt here ... what a tenuous grasp otherwise intelligent people have on the nature of scientific research.
Yes, it is obvious common sense that rejection -- or psychological upset of any kind -- would make subjects perform poorly on a test. We'd all expect the study to come out this way, and probably wonder why it's necessary.
But common sense is often wrong. That's why we have science.
There is tremendous value in taking things that we all presume to be true, and seeing whether they actually hold up to scrutiny. Another interesting psychological tidbit: although it's "common knowledge" that children pick up new languages much faster and with much more facility than adults, no study has ever actually managed to show conclusively that children have an inherently better language-learning ability.
Suddenly, a piece of common sense is full of interesting questions: Is there a neurological change in the brain's language centers around puberty? Or is there a social change? Are adults simply less willing to jump in and make mistakes? Nobody knows for sure.
Remember -- common sense once held that the sun and the planets revolved in perfect circles around the earth. A few brave souls started questioning that, and everybody said, "dumb dumb dumb", with a dash of "die heretic" thrown in for good measure.
Granted, this study is not the most exciting one in the world. It's unsurprising, and other research suggests about the same thing. But it is never "dumb dumb dumb" to question common sense -- even when common sense turns out to be completely correct.
That's science. Don't knock it.
One of the most important lessons people should take from this:
Whatever IQ measures can fluctuate wildy due to environmental factors.
Remember that next time you are tempted to argue that IQ tests measure some inate quality. If an IQ score for the same person can vary by 25% depending on environmental factors, it should be pretty damn obvious that IQ scores for different people can vary at least as much due to purely environmental factors.
I think the problem with the study (or at least with the New Scientist write-up) is that it doesn't indicate how long the effect lasts for. It says the lower IQ was shown immediately after the rejectioin event. But what about 1 hour later, 1 day later, week, month, year, decade, etc?
I think other studies I learned about in Psych 101 or Soc. 101 indicated that rejection causes a release of adrenalin and hormones associated with stress. This is called the 'fight or flight response' and is a natural defense machanism. If our ancestors discovered they had made a mistake in their life and death environment, it likely meant they had to prepare for a physical confrontation or to flee for their life.
These stress hormones deliberately hamper the operation of higher brain functions so that lower brain functions can take priority. If you are about to be attacked by sabre tooth tiger that now plans on eating you, when you had thought you could kill it and eat it, you don't want to be admiring its asthetic beauty, or trying to decide how closely it might be related to a house cat, you want to decide quickly what's the best escape route. So naturally while these hormones are coursing through you, you're not going to preform well on an IQ test that primarily measure higher brain function.
But what about two days later, when you are back to normal, has your IQ been altered merely becase of the events two days ago? I doubt it.
Work for Change & GET PAID!