From: cjdcosta@eos.ncsu.edu (CHRISTOPHER J DCOSTA)
Subject: Re: Being ashamed of being in Mensa
Originator: cjdcosta@zepplin.ece.ncsu.edu
Reply-To: cjdcosta@eos.ncsu.edu (CHRISTOPHER J DCOSTA)
Organization: North Carolina State University, Project Eos
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1992 01:19:01 GMT


fuller@athena.cs.uga.edu (James P. H. Fuller) writes:
   >[...]
   >And (considerably more rudely) cjdcosta@eos.ncsu.edu (CHRISTOPHER J DCOSTA)
   >
   > >
   > > Or, "It's a known fact" ..or "Everybody knows that " .. 
   > >
   > > Would you care to document the sources on which you base your assertion?

Please don't get all holier-than-thou, now.

I apologize if you found me rude, but we have been swamped with far too many 
unsupported assertions from a lot of opinionated people of late. I couldn't
help noticing that the tone of your first post was set by a sneer, which I don't 
think was particularly polite either:


In article <1992Aug10.214552.8303@athena.cs.uga.edu> fuller@athena.cs.uga.edu
(James P. H. Fuller) writes:
   
   >perhaps it's that one expects people who really *are* smart to have something
   >more interesting to talk about than how smart they are
   >[...]
   >
   >Slight whiff of fish here, too.  The top 2% means two folks out of
   >every 100, which isn't very exclusive considering the number of people
   >there are in total.  E.g. in a typical 80,000-population hick town there
   >will be 1,600 or so people who are your intellectual equals -- or  
   >superiors.


You will agree that there are friendlier and more effective means of dispensing 
information - if that was your objective- than to imply that 1600 hicks could 
be one's intellectual superiors. It seemed to me that you were fishing for an
argument.. 


   >
   >   
   >   
   >   Certainly.  The basis of most modern generalizations about gifted 
   >persons is the immense longitudinal study of one thousand gifted California
   >children by Lewis M. Terman and his colleagues at Stanford, begun in the 
   >1920s and followed up at intervals throughout a large portion of the rest 
   >of the century.
   >
   >[Long list of publications deleted]

Thank you. Your references were interesting, though I'd be especially interested
in knowing which of those publications contributed to that sentence above :~7

But I don't think you've grasped the nuances of what we were discussing here. 
All those references you have cited dealt with studies of *gifted people* and 
*their* abilities or reactions to social situations. To quote you again,

>    "The deviation of gifted children from the generality is in the upward
>direction for nearly all traits; there is no law of compensation whereby the
>intellectual superiority of the gifted is offset by inferiorities along
>nonintellectual lines." (vol. V, introduction)
>
>    "The examining physicians, notwithstanding occasional disagreement in
>their results, were in complete accord in the belief that, on the whole,
>the gifted children of this group were physically superior to unselected
>children.
>
>     The combined results of the medical examinations and the physical
>measurements provide a striking contrast to the popular stereotype of the
>child prodigy so commonly depicted as a pathetic creature, over-serious and
>undersized, sickly, hollow-chested, stoop-shouldered, clumsy, nervously
>tense, and bespectacled." (ibid.)
>
>    "Many different types of data converge in showing that if the typical
>member of our gifted group differs at all from the average child in his
>social traits it is probably in the direction of superiority." (vol. III
>p. 172)
>
>    "Children above 140 IQ are not as a group characterized by intellec-
>tual one-sidedness, emotional instability, lack of sociality or of social
>adaptability, or other types of maladjusted personality.  Indeed in prac-
>tically every personality and character trait such children average much
>better than the general school population." (ibid., p.473)
>
>    "It is to be hoped that the superstitions so commonly accepted relative
>to intellectually superior children have been permanently swept away by
>the factual data these studies have presented.  It is simply not true that
>such children are especially prone to be puny, over-specialized in their
>abilities and interests, emotionally unstable, socially unadaptable, psy-
>chotic and morally undependable." (ibid., p.474)


 These studies clearly only concluded that people with high IQs excelled at most
activities, and performed well in social settings. This a conclusion that I - 
and many others, I'm sure - will heartily endorse. Anyone who has been to an AG 
or RG will attest to the fact that most Mensans are anything but unsociable.


    >Of course this doesn't prove that there aren't *any* unpopular dorks
    >and dweebs with high IQs.  Of course there are -- but if such people are
    >unpopular it isn't merely because they're smart, it's because they've found
    >other methods of being unpleasant.


Not necessarily. The art of vibing with another is a two way street. If mensan
'A' cannot get along with some 'B' it could either be because the mensan has 
poor social skills, or because Mr 'B', for whatever reason, simply doesn't 
want to get along with 'A'. The likelihood of the former being true is extremely
small, as your studies go to prove. It is the attitude of Mr. 'B' that merits
investigation. In a nutshell: When we spoke of social acceptability or otherwise
it wasn't *our* ability to socialise that was suspect, but the attitudes of 
those who would react unfavorably to an intelligent person. What would be much 
more informative would be studies of normal everyday folk, *their attitudes*,
and *their reaction* to the HiQ person. It would help if you could unearth some 
information on this. 

    >   Finally, one more reference which I hope will be especially useful to
    >cjdcosta@eos.ncsu.edu (CHRISTOPHER J DCOSTA):
    >
    >       TITLE:  Teaching gifted elementary pupils how to do research      
    >               LB1555.T67                                                       
    >      AUTHOR:  Torrance, E. Paul and Myers, R. E.                         
    >     PUBLISHED:  Minneapolis, Perceptive Publishing Company, c1962.            
                                                                 
I'm dying to give you this nice juicy rejoinder, but in the interests of peace,
I will ignore that closing comment. Ciao.
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
|   Christopher J. D'Costa           cjdcosta@eos.ncsu.edu |
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~