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.'"

Comments

That's okay...

[Anonymous Coward]

Chewing gum makes you smarter.

This just in...

[billcopc]

In other news, wearing plaid may cause sterile pregnancy among young virgin schoolgirls.

Seriously, I can attest to the 'rejected people tend to be more violent and aggressive', because I am grossly violent and aggressive (I actually factor in 'destroyed gadgets' into my monthly budget).

Am I dumber than I used to be ? Well yes, but not because of being turned down once too many. The brain is like a muscle, keep it in shape and it will work well. Let it sleep for a few years and it will become a lump of silly-putty. Being rejected often will make you depressive. Being depressed will put you and your brain to sleep for prolonged periods. So by the time you crawl out of your darkness, BAM! you're a retard. You need to get those neurons back into shape, to restore your former I.Q.

Dumb dumb dumb...

[ttfkam]

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.

How do you explain geeks?

[LastToKnow]

I mean, according to this, my IQ should be negative by now. And I'm still... ok, bad example.

Re:How do you explain geeks?

[Cy Guy]

I mean, according to this, my IQ should be negative by now.

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.

Rejection does NOT make you dumb!

[c.r.o.c.o]

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.

Oh, the Irony!

[YetAnotherLogin]

Taco, you bastard!

2002-03-16 17:16:47 Rejection makes you a dumbass (articles,news) (rejected)

Evolution

[Perdo]

Assuming this is true, it is interesting to think of what might be the evolutionary advantage for this.

For example, humans go unconscious seemingly just when we need our minds the most. If the body or brain receives trauma, we loose the capacity to fight the cause of trauma. This does not seem to be to our advantage. But the brain shuts down for only one reason: lack of cooling capacity.

The most processor intensive task the brain has is consciousness. The difference between consciousness and unconsciousness is 15 watts of heat. Shock id caused by a partial loss in cooling capacity caused by blood loss or dehydration. So, when we loose blood or receive a head injury, causing the body to reduce blood flow to the head to reduce aggravation of a bruising condition, we loose consciousness.

While unconscious, we remain combative. We have reptilian response that does not shut down. We still swallow and can place one foot in front of the other as these functions are controlled by the lizard brain and brain stem.

Cut circulation to the arm and it falls asleep due to lack of oxygen in about two minutes. Cut the blood flow to the head and we loose consciousness in as little as 3 seconds not because there is no oxygen but because the body shuts the brain down to prevent overheating.

So the seemingly illogical response of loss of consciousness just when we need it most is in fact a life saving measure. So, that begs the question: What do we gain by becoming stupid and aggressive when rejected? A "sober" man rejected by a woman does not procreate. A "drunk" man rejected by a woman might create the opportunity to procreate by force. A "sober" woman rejected will not procreate. A "drunk" woman rejected might become promiscuous.

Basically anyone rejected will lower his or her standards for the next opportunity to procreate. We hardly needed a study to tell us this is true.

excellent

[gtx]

finally, somebody has come up with an explanation for why jocks and rock stars are smarter than geeks...

wait...

dammit.

-c

It's not dumb. Testing common sense is science!

[melquiades]

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.

Acceptance Makes You Dumb

[pubudu]

Researchers at Ohio State today announced findings that contradict those announced just days earlier by a rival team at Case Western: being accepted makes one dumber than before.

A control group of 10 males between the ages of 16-24 were administered a series of IQ tests in separate booths. Another group of 30 similar males, split into three cohorts of 10 each, took the same series of tests, but were presented with varying levels of "acceptance" in between.

One cohort received "mild acceptance," which usually involved the promise of a date with a well-known pretty girl that night. Results from the control group suggested a 3% drop due to fatigue, but Cohort A experienced an average drop of 6%, double that of the control group.

Cohort B received "moderate acceptance," which was either an "enthusiastic" (bright smile, touching of arm, perhaps hug and kiss) yes-response from a well-known girl, or a merely "interested" yes-response from a previously unknown yet astoundingly gorgious woman. Cohort B experienced an average drop of 12%.

Cohort C received "extreme acceptance," which was either immediate "fellatio" by the known girl, or immediate "fellatio" by a previously unknown yet astoundingly gorgious woman. In order to maintain the integrity of the tests, subjects were allowed to repeatedly "venture" their self-image on the possibility of "acceptance". Cohort C found itself unable to complete the final round of testing.

This study sheds new light on the previously published (albeit in the New Scientist) report from Case Western that claimed to show that rejection makes you dumb. Seeing as the opposite also seems to hold true, the hypothesis offered at the end of Ohio State's article is that any extreme emotional variation adversely affects intelligence. So, they sugget, avoiding romantic attachments of any kind may be the key to better intellectual performance.

The Case Western team suggested that that was exactly what those eggheads over at Ohio State were doing.