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Smart People Choke Under Pressure
People perceived as the most likely to succeed might also be the most likely to crumble under pressure.
A new study finds that individuals with high working-memory capacity, which normally allows them to excel, crack under pressure and do worse on simple exams than when allowed to work with no constraints. Those with less capacity score low, too, but they tend not to be affected by pressure.
Interesting, I wonder if I can argue that point to my professors after a timed exam.
I remember seeing something like this on some ... page ... let's see if I can find it ... God damnit, why is it so hard to find these pages when I'm in a hurry ?! I hate my laptop, I hate my keyboard, and I HATE MY LIFE!!! ARGH!!
I fall apart like a month-old spongecake if someone so much as asks me for the current time. That must mean I'm really bright, right? Right?
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
HA you inferior swine! Now Pinky can take over the world while Brain takes the day off!
... a demonstration of a web server cracking under pressure. :^P
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Donovan McNabb really is smart.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
So trollish. So delicious.
:)
As if a "smart" person would fail to understand the difference between a controlled study, and a personal anecdote!
Bravo, Dancin Santa - I enjoy all your work
um... er... GAH!
To explain that smart people aren't really smart after all. It helps lend self-esteem to the not-so-smart.
This would explain why stupid people tend to get 'first posts.'
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
Dude, I know. I'm an "inventor" genius, too. Also, I'm funny and attractive and girls like to have sex with me. I pretty much rock. It's just that I freeze up when it comes to being a genius or funny or attractive or having sex under pressure, so other people don't see those things, which is why I have to tell people how great I am instead of just letting them see it.
So you're a moron with severe learning disabilities. They have special classes for you, but you'll have to sit around with other kids with Down's syndrome at worst and ADHD at best.
Seriously. If you are smart, don't make excuses and shut the fuck up and do what you need to do. If you are smart, you realize that to win, you need to play the game. You can win the game if you play it, and the object is to eventually come to the point where you are writing the rules. If you are smart, you can do it.
If you are a whiny moron, you can talk about how hard you work to make each sentence perfect while throwing away your efforts. That's okay too, but don't be surprised if you are treated like a special ed kid too.
Oooooooh! BURN! Hahahaha, he got you, paulm! You're TOTALLY jealous of guys who can go onto semi-anonymous message boards and tell other people that they're smart, and you KNOW it, bitch!
Did you get your inspiration for this post by reading magazines that have steroid advertisements every other page?
I don't know about religious, but was definitely worth upgrading from Windows 1.0 to Windows 3.1.
Multitasking ROCKS!
What people need to understand is that sometimes even the best of us make the wrong judgement. This things happen.What people need to understand is that sometimes even the best of us make the wrong judgement. This things happen.
;)
Yeah, these things do happen
Damn! I had an intelligent and well developed response to that all thought out but when I got to the comment box my mind just went blank.
If it hadn't been for the girls [who says geeks can't date like demons?].
I think geeks generally do date like demons (bad manners, poor social skills), which may be part of the cause of their general unpopularity.
My other first post is car post.
An 'A' at Harvard?!?! Why that's but a 'B' anywhere else... except for Stanford where it would be whatever comes after an 'A+'.
From TFA:
Then the two groups were given the same test, but were told that they were part of a "team effort" and an improved score would earn the team a cash reward. They were also told their performance was being evaluated by math professors.
Under this higher, real world pressure situation, the HWM group's score dropped to that of the LWM group, which was not affected by the increased pressure.
== snip ==
The problem here is putting the HWM group into a team environment. My hypothesis is that this group was poisoned by at least one MBA-type student who propagated the atmosphere of "gotta make the cash," while at the same time spawning the existence of endless meetings, mission statements, and other pointless endeavors designed at taking away task focus. The work was probably then outsourced to India so it could actually be done while the students in the group participated in a Six-Sigma study of why they couldn't get any work done. Since the work was done in India by the lowest common denominator, the equality of score between the HWM group and the LWM group is explained.
Did I leave anything out?
The Jerk: [drops a ruler on the ground] Recruit, would you please pick up my ruler?
His Boss: You don't have to do that, recruit.
Jerk: I said, pick up my ruler.
Boss: Don't do it, recruit.
Jerk: IF YOU DON'T PICK UP MY C$#!$C#@! RULER, I'LL $$#@$ KILL YOU!
Boss: I'm giving you a direct order: don't do it.
[repeat for about 2 minutes]
Jerk: [suddenly calm] Recruit, do you like me?
[rest of room: silence and quiet giggles]
Me: SIR! I BOTH FEAR AND RESPECT YOU SIR!
Jerk: GET THE $#@() OUT OF HERE!
[rest of room: hysterical laughter]
I have no idea where I came up with that, but I'd swear on a bible that it happened pretty much exactly that way. That night, I learned that I do OK under pressure.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Okay, I'm sorry, but I think this is too good to not talk about.
In my Masters program, I took a course on the Psychology of Human / Computer Interaction. We talked a lot about human performance, and the topic of pressure (stress) came up.
She drew a graph showing that human performance actually goes up as stress increases, up to a certain point, and then performance drops again.
Then she drew on top of that the same graph for an expert in the field, and talked about how their performance goes even higher, and they can handle even more stress, until finally their performance drops off again.
Right after showing us this, she reminded us to get started early on our term papers.
I raised my hand with a smirk on my face and asked, "But, from what you've just shown us, shouldn't we wait until just before the paper is due, so our performance will be higher?"
She laughed and mumbled something (possibly a curse). =)
Education is the silver bullet.