High-IQ Men Less Violent

[workathome]

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF02232723

Seems to work the other way too, lower IQ = more violent.

[arrrrgon]

They needed a study to prove that? Just look around.

[workathome]

They needed a study to prove that? Just look around.

Agreed! Some people have trouble "noticing things" though, and scientific studies can make the obvious more official.

[altoid]

Another reason to go for a smart guy, less chance to get domestically abused, lol.

The better is to make IQ info available, like a background search or sth.

[Tyler9000]

I think there's more to the story. Less physically violent doesn't necessarily mean less abusive or less dangerous. Just sadistic in a different way.

Plenty of serial killers are highly intelligent. Many brilliant politicians have started countless wars. And your typical Ivy League corporate executive is not some passive, peaceful philanthropist.

The intelligent are just better at hiding, justifying, and marketing their sins as strengths. A Harvard educated warmonger runs for President rather than enlisting in the army.

[arrrrgon]

I think that in general less intelligent people resort to anger and insults faster than those with highers IQs.

I believe less intelligent people get angry faster, but that doesn't mean that intelligent people don't get angry.

I would say that serial killers are the exception, not the rule.

[JamesR]

I think it might be partly a case of behavioural feedback. The higher the IQ, the quicker the person is going to learn from mistakes or recognize socially undesirable behaviour. Also good parenting helps.

The issue is that there's two kinds of socially undesirable behaviour - the ones that are visible and easier to produce feedback for, and the ones that are not.

Anger and physical violence is visible and the person is likely to get feedback easily (particularly at a young age), resulting in curbing that behaviour.

However, there are other violent behaviours that may never get appropriate feedback until too late. Like mentioned earlier, these behaviours can be verbal abuse, starting wars, serial killing, etc.

[Dragline]

So in conclusion, men with higher IQs are generally less violent, but more effective in creating mayhem when they choose (or happen) to be violent.

Something about this reminds me of the movie "Edmond" (2005) starring William H. Macy. A bizarre tale of an ordinary man sinking into depravity. David Mamet at his weirdest. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmond_(film)

[workathome]

But movies and TV-documenteries about the really rare genius serial killers probably aren't very accurate reflections of real life applications for this study.

[Dragline]

I don't think there are any real life applications for that study -- its of poor design and limited utility. After all, how often does this shocking competition happen in our day-to-day existence:

"Aggression was measured using a modified version of the Taylor reaction-time (RT) aggression paradigm in which subjects competed on a RT task and both received and delivered shocks to a fictitious opponent in provoking and nonprovoking conditions. Provocation conditions (High and Low) were defined by the intensity of shocks the subjects received."

I think I've only seen it in a James Bond movie. And it was one of the bad ones.

[Freedom_2018]

I would be more worried about high IQ and neurosis.

I will happily trade 10 IQ points for 10 EQ points

[workathome]

I can think of a couple immediate and practical application:

1) Using IQ data to determine ideal living environment. This could be country, state, or even city. For example, if you knew Hewlett Packard was hiring up a large number of smart people in the 50's and moved to Palo Alto you/your children would have been exposed to one of the best areas in the country for coming technological advancements. Plus real estate value boosts.

2) When planning your ERE retirement, avoiding low IQ areas would make you safer and protect your real estate investment.

3) When planning investments, you could look at company hiring practices. Perhaps knowing Google was using a complex testing system as a proxy for IQ would enable you to get in earlier.

Though these things seem pretty obvious on reflection, and the relevant proxies are easy enough and common sense enough most people should do alright naturally. Like most people want to live in safe areas and avoid high-crime areas, which statistics appear to now be known proxies for IQ.

[thrifty++]

Interesting. I think that it might have something to do with emotional people vs cerebral people. I have noticed quite regularly that people who are highly emotional, who start crying or yelling or who generally make snap judgments and responses to things tend to have less analytical and critical thinking prowess. Whereas people who have analytical and strategic/critical thinking prowess tend to be less emotional. I think its a matter of by design vs by nature. Maybe people who have higher intelligence do not rely on their instinctive emotional responses to things so much.
It could also mean that those with higher IQ could be nicer people as well, unless they are sadistic or sociopathic which is probably rare, because they are more likely to test out an analysis of natural morals against their decisions and the impact of their decisions on themselves and others before making such decisions. Rather than having a flash in the pan self indulgent response to things

[jacob]

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1 ... D13.f03t04

High IQ is predicted by high Openness, low Neuroticism, low Extraversion, and low Conscientiousness.

That does sound like a non-violent person to me.

Incidentally, the most intelligent MBTI type overall is the INTJ. Since we have a lot of those here, I suppose we could just ask? Ever been in any altercations?

[7Wannabe5]

Of course, this doesn't mean much given the tendencies of high-IQ women. Grrrrrrr!!

[thrifty++]

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1 ... D13.f03t04

High IQ is predicted by high Openness, low Neuroticism, low Extraversion, and low Conscientiousness.

That does sound like a non-violent person to me.

Incidentally, the most intelligent MBTI type overall is the INTJ. Since we have a lot of those here, I suppose we could just ask? Ever been in any altercations?

I have read quite a few times it is INTP. I would think INTJ has very high conscientiousness too.

[EMJ]

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1 ... D13.f03t04

High IQ is predicted by high Openness, low Neuroticism, low Extraversion, and low Conscientiousness.

That does sound like a non-violent person to me.

Incidentally, the most intelligent MBTI type overall is the INTJ. Since we have a lot of those here, I suppose we could just ask? Ever been in any altercations?

What do you think of the criticism of MBTI (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers%E2% ... #Criticism)?

[jacob]

@EMJ - I think I've discussed this before. It depends on where one is coming from. I think that the psychologist profession are defending their turf. They like statistics and particularly factor analysis that calibrate quantitative data along independent factors (see Big5 for example). While this is a nice feature in a quantitative model with linearly independent dimensions, it's not necessary in MBTI which is more of a cluster-analysis. For example, INTJs are only 1% of the population which is clearly bad from a factor analysis perspective (you'd expect each group to be more or less 1/16 = 6.25% large) ... however, it's clearly its own cluster so no problem from the MBTI side.

Basically methinks most of the criticism is due to the NIH syndrome. It's a little bit like the controversy between Western and Chinese medicine. They both work, but the methods are totally different so historically they've been dismissive of each other.

The main problem with using the MBTI is that most people don't know themselves. They confuse their preferences with how they have been trained to behave. Classic example is the introverted salesman who thinks he "fun and outgoing" but doesn't understand why he's wasted when he comes home from work. This problem can only be fixed by either using a psychologist who understands what the test is actually asking or by understanding the test yourself as well as being sufficiently introspective to understand yourself.

For my part, I encountered the test for the first time when I was 14 or so. I scored XNTJ. Over the last 25 years, I've gravitated towards INTX with a very consistent trajectory. Coming from a an minority type, I don't see very much of the horoscope effect. Yes, I can certainly relate to descriptions of a few other types as well. A lot to INTP, somewhat to ISTJ, and a little bit to INFP. But I don't see anything that describes me in the ESFP, ISTP, or ENFJ descriptions for example.

[7Wannabe5]

What type is supposed to be most violent? I would guess ESXJ. I tend to think of Ps as being more peaceable than Js due to wishy-washyness.

[The Old Man]

Incidentally, the most intelligent MBTI type overall is the INTJ.

I believe IQ tests are unintentionally geared towards the INTJ way of thinking, so it is pure accident that the INTJ does best.