What people think is extremely influenced by pop culture. Programming was boring, coding is cool. Investing is boring, VC is cool. Being a lawyer was boring, being a lawyer is cool.
The impact factor of the journal is 5/10
Study show that people think that data analysts and accountants are boring
31–40 of 80 posts
Re: Study show that people think that data analysts and accountants are boring
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, my mistake. But how can such person be considered boring? In my mind the are the persons that tackle the data, find connections where others don't see it, good at observing patterns...
Don't worry, people on HN know what filthy beasts data analysts truly are. Everyone who digs that type of mathematics, is also doing some other naughty things for fun. What is surprising from this shotty paper is that they conclude boring people are perceived as "less competent". Seems counter-intuitive, considering accounting and taxes.
I’m guessing you didn’t read the whole paper. Perhaps you thought it would be boring?
They did two different studies. One took a list of occupations, and asked the respondents “Joe is an accountant. How boring does that make him seem, 1-7?”
The other study then created a vignette combining attributes that were individually rated into a bigger description, then asked “how competent (skilled, hard-working) does this person seem?”
So the connection is boringness -> low competency, and not necessarily all data analyst -> boring.
Data analyst was down the list a bit on boringness - less than accounting, law, and a few others. Mathematics on the other hand had the lowest boringness rating of the occupations.
Re: Study show that people think that data analysts and accountants are boring
#33A possible limitation that jumps out to me about the study is that the participants were all from crowd-sourcing services (mainly Amazon's Mechanical Turk, residing in the USA; but also Prolific.co, residing in the UK). Are people who work for crowd-sourcing services representitive of the wider population?
I found their definition of boredom interesting:
> Boredom is often conceptualized as the adverse experience of wanting but being unable to pursue satisfactory activity. It is an unpleasant emotion characterized by low or mixed arousal, a lack of interest in the situation, the perception that time is passing slowly, failure to sustain attention, and a lack of perceived purpose. Boredom, an affective experience, signals that current (in)activity fails to offer a sense of meaningfulness and propels the pursuit of actions that, for example, offer a sense of purpose, novelty, or might temporarily distract from one’s immediate predicament.
And what might make people boring:
> [prior] results indicated that stereotypically boring people are characterized by negative egocentrism in interactions (e.g., lack of interest in the other person’s contributions and constant complaining) and banality (e.g., interest in a single topic only; repeating jokes); they talked less and shared relatively little subjective information.
> Our research shows that being perceived as boring likely conveys low competence and low warmth, being a social burden, thus causing avoidance by others.
Their table of stereotypical characteristics of boring people: https://journals.sagepub.com/na101/home/literatum/publisher/...
Their table of boring jobs: https://journals.sagepub.com/na101/home/literatum/publisher/...
Their table of boring hobbies: https://journals.sagepub.com/na101/home/literatum/publisher/...
Re: Study show that people think that data analysts and accountants are boring
#34Study shows that studies are boring
Re: Study show that people think that data analysts and accountants are boring
#35_People_ are boring.
Re: Study show that people think that data analysts and accountants are boring
#36I couldn't help chuckle at this one. I've known quite a few accountants over the years. Some fit this typical stereotype rather well, and others have been a bit more "dynamic". However, they are notable in that nearly all of them have been some of the nicest people I've ever met, with very high levels of integrity and authenticity. Very level headed, high attention to detail, professional, knowledgeable and kind. Obv…
a higher barrier to entry to become even a "junior" accountant
I couldn't help chuckle at this one.
When I was in college, engineering was known as "pre-accounting" --- those who couldn't handle the math went into accounting.
This is not to say accountants aren't nice people but the math involved is what my engineering professors disparaging referred to as "kindergarten" algebra so the barrier to entry is really not very high.
Re: Study show that people think that data analysts and accountants are boring
#37Title reads like every one of my public school bullies.
Re: Study show that people think that data analysts and accountants are boring
#38I would love to know what people think about software engineers.
Re: Study show that people think that data analysts and accountants are boring
#39I couldn't help chuckle at this one. I've known quite a few accountants over the years. Some fit this typical stereotype rather well, and others have been a bit more "dynamic". However, they are notable in that nearly all of them have been some of the nicest people I've ever met, with very high levels of integrity and authenticity. Very level headed, high attention to detail, professional, knowledgeable and kind. Obv…
a higher barrier to entry to become even a "junior" accountant I couldn't help chuckle at this one. When I was in college, engineering was known as "pre-accounting" --- those who couldn't handle the math went into accounting. This is not to say accountants aren't nice people but the math involved is what my engineering professors disparaging referred to as "kindergarten" algebra so the barrier to entry is really not…
He didn't mean in terms of skill or difficulty; he was referring to the bullshit one has to go through to actually be an accountant (certifications, etc).
Re: Study show that people think that data analysts and accountants are boring
#40I couldn't help chuckle at this one. I've known quite a few accountants over the years. Some fit this typical stereotype rather well, and others have been a bit more "dynamic". However, they are notable in that nearly all of them have been some of the nicest people I've ever met, with very high levels of integrity and authenticity. Very level headed, high attention to detail, professional, knowledgeable and kind. Obv…
a higher barrier to entry to become even a "junior" accountant I couldn't help chuckle at this one. When I was in college, engineering was known as "pre-accounting" --- those who couldn't handle the math went into accounting. This is not to say accountants aren't nice people but the math involved is what my engineering professors disparaging referred to as "kindergarten" algebra so the barrier to entry is really not…
I think there is a bit of confusion between topics here.
Software Engineering as an academic topic can be very difficult; as a career, because of various factors over the last 30 years, it's anything but.
Accounting as an academic topic is fundamentally very simple (it's mostly about giving precise names to money movements); as a career, because of rigorous qualification paths in most countries, it's anything but.