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The Intelligence Myth – Why I cringe when someone tells me my child is smart

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Re: The Intelligence Myth – Why I cringe when someone tells me my child is smart

#51

Post by [deleted] »

renlo wrote: post #37
camdenlock wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are staggeringly enormous claims. Got any scientific evidence?

Just for argument’s sake, my opinion is that intelligence is a kind of social construct. What we view as “intelligence” is the manifestation of traits that are important for our current society to function. i.e, we value bridges, so the traits of bridge builders are viewed as positive traits, which we call “intelligence”. In other environments these traits might not be seen as intelligent. For example, from what I’ve…

[deleted]

Re: The Intelligence Myth – Why I cringe when someone tells me my child is smart

#52

Post by ralusek »

renlo wrote: post #37
camdenlock wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are staggeringly enormous claims. Got any scientific evidence?

Just for argument’s sake, my opinion is that intelligence is a kind of social construct. What we view as “intelligence” is the manifestation of traits that are important for our current society to function. i.e, we value bridges, so the traits of bridge builders are viewed as positive traits, which we call “intelligence”. In other environments these traits might not be seen as intelligent. For example, from what I’ve…

Our definition of intelligence continues to refine itself to be a highly generalizable aptitude for certain abstract skills. Your example of equating intelligence with wealth or bridge building is not even close to how intelligence is measured. It will be measured in dimensions like long term memory, working memory, pattern recognition, rotation of visual space, strategy/problem solving. And these abilities invariably dictate how people will be able to learn or perform at things like bridge building or software engineering. You will never be an exceptional software engineer if you cannot keep a suitably sized problem space in working memory.

It's so frustrating to me that we keep regressing our political conversations with assertions of this nature, that intelligence is a social construction, when in doing so we are literally turning a blind eye to what is arguably one of the greatest injustices our society faces. Intelligence is not a social construction, and it's not distributed equitably, and that isn't fair. It's the single greatest psychological signifier for material success. I'd much rather accept reality as it is, and spend resources attempting to ameliorate objective injustices, rather than making assertions that intelligence is a social construction because it gives some opening for a utopian alternative that can simply dispense with our "oppressive conceptions of competence."

Re: The Intelligence Myth – Why I cringe when someone tells me my child is smart

#53

Post by renlo »

ralusek wrote: post #52
renlo wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just for argument’s sake, my opinion is that intelligence is a kind of social construct. What we view as “intelligence” is the manifestation of traits that are important for our current society to function. i.e, we value bridges, so the traits of bridge builders are viewed as positive traits, which we call “intelligence”. In other environments these traits might not be seen as intelligent. For example, from what I’ve…

Our definition of intelligence continues to refine itself to be a highly generalizable aptitude for certain abstract skills. Your example of equating intelligence with wealth or bridge building is not even close to how intelligence is measured. It will be measured in dimensions like long term memory, working memory, pattern recognition, rotation of visual space, strategy/problem solving. And these abilities invariabl…

I agree with you, believe it or not, what I was referring to was “our definition of intelligence” (edit: ie, the collection of traits we see as “ingelligent”), not the underlying traits.

Re: The Intelligence Myth – Why I cringe when someone tells me my child is smart

#54

Post by abootstrapper »

dkarl wrote: post #41
abootstrapper wrote: post #39

I was called “smart” growing up. Looking back I believe it was a huge disservice. School was generally easy for me, but I was afraid to ask questions to risk appearing “not smart.” I learned a hard lesson in college. Smart isn’t something you are, it’s something you can become, through perseverance, dedication, and grit. Luckily I posses those qualities. We don’t use the S word around our kids. And when strangers tel…

I think that's a function of the school system. I had access to "honors" classes and so forth, but they weren't that advanced or challenging, so there was a pretty low ceiling on what you could accomplish in school. Since kids couldn't distinguish themselves by accomplishing more or harder things, and there was nothing glamorous about grinding out a 99 versus a 98, the "smartest" kids were the ones who didn't have to…

Reminds me of my high school experience. The kids in the top of the class worked hard to appear as if they didn’t work hard. I among them. I was relieved to find students at my university genuinely cared and worked hard on their academics. And the ones who didn’t failed.

My kids future high school has a reputation for being academically difficult. I’m thrilled by that. I don’t care if they’re C students, I just want them to be challenged.

Re: The Intelligence Myth – Why I cringe when someone tells me my child is smart

#55

Post by dmitrybrant »

In principle I agree that "it is up to the child to choose his or her destiny. It is never up to the parent." However, the following thought comes to mind:

The best musicians in the world, as well as the best figure skaters, the best gymnasts, the best tennis players, etc. seem to have been "pushed" into it by their parents, or at the very least heavily influenced.

If parents didn't push their kids in this way, would we have the same caliber of performers/champions/etc that dominate their respective disciplines?

Re: The Intelligence Myth – Why I cringe when someone tells me my child is smart

#56

Post by fromthestart »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #26
bitreality wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It reads like a 1000 word humblebrag.

I skimmed it. It's not a particularly compelling piece, but research supports the idea that praising kids for "being smart" is inherently problematic. Furthermore, she's a woman in a man's world. Women tend to spend a great deal of their time performing unpaid labor in the form of raising children and running the household -- aka "women's work." This creates myriad problems in them trying to establish a public reputa…

>unpaid labor in the form of raising children and running the household

What a backwards society we increasingly live in, where putting time and effort into one of the most rewarding aspects of life, tending to the success and well-being of your offspring, is dismissed as "unpaid labor."

>Women are constantly put in a double bind when it comes to trying to claim their competence, establish a public life, etc.

Maybe that's because they're trying to have their cake and eat it too. The choice to leave the breadwinning to the male and become the primary caregiver is ultimately a male one in today's heavily pro-female corporate climate.

Re: The Intelligence Myth – Why I cringe when someone tells me my child is smart

#57

Post by astazangasta »

fromthestart wrote: post #56
DoreenMichele wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I skimmed it. It's not a particularly compelling piece, but research supports the idea that praising kids for "being smart" is inherently problematic. Furthermore, she's a woman in a man's world. Women tend to spend a great deal of their time performing unpaid labor in the form of raising children and running the household -- aka "women's work." This creates myriad problems in them trying to establish a public reputa…

>unpaid labor in the form of raising children and running the household What a backwards society we increasingly live in, where putting time and effort into one of the most rewarding aspects of life, tending to the success and well-being of your offspring, is dismissed as "unpaid labor." >Women are constantly put in a double bind when it comes to trying to claim their competence, establish a public life, etc. Maybe t…

I'm guessing you are not a parent. I have a toddler and a one month old. It is rewarding in many ways, but it is also crushingly boring, repetitive work. It's also overwhelmingly placed on women; men simply don't do as much child care by a factor of probably ten. I'm pretty sure no woman is trying to have her cake here, and every single one would choose to have help so they could do anything else on occasion.

Re: The Intelligence Myth – Why I cringe when someone tells me my child is smart

#58

Post by Retra »

astazangasta wrote: post #44
camdenlock wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are staggeringly enormous claims. Got any scientific evidence?

Claiming success is a social construct seems to me to be trivially true, not a staggering claim. Intelligence is less obvious since there is a vast literature around it, but, again, it is clearly a social construct; we must struggle to agree on a useful definition of intelligence, therefore it is a social construct. I'm also not sure what "scientific evidence" would look like here. You seem to have had some sort of a…

>we must struggle to agree on a useful definition of intelligence, therefore it is a social construct.

This makes everything a social construct, which negates any usefulness of the distinction. Having to agree to definitions cannot be a realistic definition of social construct, because it's a basic part of using language.

Re: The Intelligence Myth – Why I cringe when someone tells me my child is smart

#59

Post by astazangasta »

ralusek wrote: post #52
renlo wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just for argument’s sake, my opinion is that intelligence is a kind of social construct. What we view as “intelligence” is the manifestation of traits that are important for our current society to function. i.e, we value bridges, so the traits of bridge builders are viewed as positive traits, which we call “intelligence”. In other environments these traits might not be seen as intelligent. For example, from what I’ve…

Our definition of intelligence continues to refine itself to be a highly generalizable aptitude for certain abstract skills. Your example of equating intelligence with wealth or bridge building is not even close to how intelligence is measured. It will be measured in dimensions like long term memory, working memory, pattern recognition, rotation of visual space, strategy/problem solving. And these abilities invariabl…

>Our definition of intelligence continues to refine itself to be a highly generalizable aptitude for certain abstract skills.

This is exactly what social construction is: reifying a set of observations into an abstract notion. Intelligence is a social construction.

Re: The Intelligence Myth – Why I cringe when someone tells me my child is smart

#60

Post by akhilcacharya »

nicolethenerd wrote: post #4

There is a distinction between the pressure that comes from growing up in a "tiger family" and the consequences of growing up with the "smart" label, and I feel like the author is conflating the two. Personally, growing up with the label (but not the parental pressure) was one of the best things that could have happened for me and my education - the fact that others believed (whether true or not) that I was lightyear…

I grew up similarly but with very different results because I’m not intelligent - the proof is in me not getting into MIT. I think you’re the odd one out here.
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