I'm seeing that this morning because something made me want to read the subreddit "Asian Masculinity: Culture, masculinity & racial identity for Asian men," and I happened across a discussion of that video — "Ray is a good example of Asian Masculinity." Quite a bit of the discussion there is about whether a soft-spoken man can be attractive.
The video itself is quite something — inviting these 6 individuals to judge each other's intellligence and then — as they're sitting in order of supposed IQ — surprising them with an IQ test. Then they're reseated — or not — according to the test results. It was a very funny (and disturbing) situation because they were openly expressing some prejudice while decorously resisting mentioning other prejudice.
There was some vocal assertion that "emotional intelligence" is part of IQ, but the IQ test wasn't about emotional intelligence, and the strongest booster of the idea of "emotional intelligence" lacked emotional intelligence (I think).
And the test was taken under ridiculously nonneutral conditions, as they'd all just heard judgments about themselves and were seated right next to the people who'd judged them. Plus they were taking the test on a laptop that was balanced on their knees (or a handheld iPhone) — in front of a camera. That made it partly a test of aptitude for concentrating and keeping calm. I think the laptop-on-knees position would have shaved 10 points off my IQ.
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5 comments:
Jokah writes:
okah Macpherson
1:38 PM (1 hour ago)
to me
This is a very interesting video. It's funny that the two most under-rated participants are the white military guy and the cute blonde. It's important to emphasize, though, that all six of them are way above average. The top four are clustered around 130-136, which is around 95th percentile, and even the two lower ones are still 80th percentile.
Given all that, it's a little distressing to hear all of them (except, once again, the white military guy) be so dismissive about the importance of IQ. While it certainly has limitations, IQ is far more powerful and robust than any other metric devised so far at predicting performance at all levels across essentially every cognitively demanding task. EQ may exist, but I am not aware of anyone that has found a way to meaningfully measure it in a way that captures predictive power not already covered by IQ. All six of them have a huge gift and it makes no sense to minimize its importance for ego protection just because one or more strangers have slightly more of it.
Overall, though, I give them credit for mostly being mature about it; it's awkward to be forced into making these types of judgments about anyone, and no one pitched a fit or got their feelings hurt.
Wince writes:
"There was some vocal assertion that "emotional intelligence" is part of IQ, but the IQ test wasn't about emotional intelligence, and the strongest booster of the idea of "emotional intelligence" lacked emotional intelligence (I think)."
Not to mention how a *male* with a comb-over like that would have been judged.
Assistant Village Idiot writes:
Fair points, but concentration is part of intelligence, and keeping calm - by which I think you meant something closer to "thinking clearly under pressure" - is as well. The adaptability of testing under various circumstances, so long as they are equal, is also related to IQ.
What people believe "IQ" is is a mixture of accurate scientific beliefs plus some of their intuitions based on the popular usage of the word. Like "depression," or "mass," (or "racism") it has a precise meaning but is used along a continuum to describe things farther and farther away. In popular usage I detect a large element of regarding it as a showy, unpleasant personality held in tension with the idea that some cognitive abilities are real. The popular usage creeps in even among those who really know better when you ask them to define their terms. They can get it right, but then the resentment against the people who "think they are so smart" bounces right back in a few minutes later. The stories people tell of "some guy who had this high IQ but was a real asshole and didn't listen to anyone and ultimately wasn't useful or even all that smart" are legion.
This is true even of some of the people in the ultra-high IQ societies! They know very clearly what IQ is and isn't, yet have their own resentments against those who preen, and are enormously defensive, going to ridiculous lengths to reassure others they aren't like that.
When you break the tests and testing conditions down into component parts, most people agree pretty quickly that "Oh sure, that's part of intelligence...and so is that...and that and that..." But the cultural need to tear down the idea of IQ is far more common than the worship of IQ - which is a myth. People seldom bring it up socially because of the reflexive anger, resentment, and insult it brings.
Mark J writes:
What a delightful experiment. Truly, truly delightful because it demonstrates in stark tones how the left view the right ... steeped in prejudice and WRONG. The marine was every Trump voter I know, belittled by “midwits” who are his inferiors.
I must say that whoever did this experiment likely expected these results ... and likely is a closet conservative/Trumper.
Whiskeybum writes:
A very candid look into social perceptions. Based on how he handled himself, I was sure that Tyler would be revealed to be in the upper half of the group when ranked for IQ (and he was only 2 points lower that software developer Kaylee who admitted she was very familiar with IQ tests, whereas Tyler had never taken one before). Tyler also took the slights of his fellow participant’s comments graciously and didn’t strike back at anyone, which to me displayed some credibility in the “EQ” department.
But for me, schadenfreude manifested itself when Maria ended up at the lowest IQ level. She was so confident in her educational background, and that she worked in a particular industry that is perceived to be ‘sexy’ that she must be of high intelligence. She was also the one who proposed that intelligence was the sum of IQ, EQ and street-smarts. I don’t see it that way at all. People with high IQ – that can solve difficult (non-social) problems in their sleep often can have the wool pulled over their eyes in street situations. And EQ is just a way of saying good social skills – you may get along well with co-workers and grease the skids of cooperation, but if you don’t have the IQ to match, you’re not solving your team’s technical problems. Of course, in any given person, these three aspects can be present at any combination of levels – you could have high marks in all three areas. But the focus here was on intelligence, and because Maria seemed to think of herself as having a high EQ = high intelligence, she was set up for the fall.
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