First, let me just put it out there: I'm not the most outgoing type. But I don't necessarily believe extroversion is better than introversion... a fact that that makes me a minority (people who believe introversion might be a good trait) among minorities (people who are introverts). Seriously, most introverts whine and moan about being shy and not being "sociable" like introversion is a disease. I'm the type of person that wants to get in the world's face and yell "fuck being sociable. fuck 'having a good time.' i'm under so much pressure to say anything that what will come out of my mouth will likely be idiotic drivel and... i won't 'have a good time.' why can't i just hang back, observe people, and chill? I'm not hurting anyone. And if I feel I have something inordinately interesting to say, I won't be afraid to say it." What pisses me off about clubs is everything about clubs. For men, it's a losing game. In game theory terms, it would be described as a non-zero sum game where the (male) participants aggregate losses and gains are less than zero. I think my points are best illustrated by delving into 2 examples:
Example 1. I'm hitched. I go to the club with my significant other because she wants to. After making some run of the mill conversation, her dancing all around me and obviously much more enthusiastic than I am, we move to the dance floor. I'm trying to enjoy myself and get into the music (which is not my favorite). Within no time, I find 5 girls dancing around me, all 9s or 10s, and while I'm flattered I'm also hitched. So I try my best to go "seriously, thanks for the attention... I honestly thought you were out of my league, but... I've got a girlfriend and so would you kindly stop trying to hump me?" Meanwhile, I'm wondering whether my significant other is rebuffing advances with similar expediency and trying not to look too cool because I don't want to upstage her. Then I think about how this never happens when I'm single. Go figure. Girls only want what they can't have. Not that similar accusations haven't been leveled at me.
So you might protest at this point and demand proof that these girls were actually being so scandalous. That they weren't just interested in "fun" and were drawn to me because I seemed to be enjoying myself (interestingly, at the time my ex accused me of NOT enjoying myself). Well, although I'll admit that I don't specifically remember anyone exploring my nether regions, my feeling about the situation was that it involved more than girls wanting to have innocent "fun." And, there have been other similar situations that demonstrate the "girls only want what they can't have" principle and I can give much more detailed descriptions of these events if necessary. Anyway, I'm left feeling awkward and confused and not "having a good time." There are several factors that contribute to these feelings: 1. I'm trying to seem like I'm having fun so that my gf would be happy. 2. I'm worried she might have decided to look for greener pastures. I don't want to appear to be looking for greener pastures either. 3. I'm trying to extricate myself from situations that might make my gf jealous. This is hard to while trying not to be a wet blanket. After all, I might just want to keep my options open in case she has decided to look for greener pastures.
I'd like to think that chicks dig me cause I'm just cool like that, but the truth is it's probably the fact that I came with female attention and again, girls only want what they can't have. So I don't even get an ego boost, just a reaffirmation of my cynical worldview.
Example 2. I'm single. I go to a club with my friend because I can't think of anything better to do (sad, but true). My friend is a little drunk. We make conversation which which is mostly yelled like this: "So, we're going to a strip club at midnight?!"... "It depends. If the club fills up by 11:45 then we'll go at 12:30, but otherwise we'll go at 11:45!" I think to myself that at this point I'm already looking too desperate for any girl to be within about 8 feet of me, but I'm not 100% sure about that and want to believe that this isn't true. Maybe they didn't hear us over the loud music (there were breaks in the music, so they probably did). So at around 11:30 me and my friend retire to the dance floor and I try not to look uncool. I'm nodding my head to the beat making some limited movement back and forth... just trying to get loose and take in the scene. Maybe I'll put out a few moves and surprise myself if I feel into it enough. My friend is going all around the place talking to randoms and delighted that girls reveal their names to him. I see a girl that reminded me of someone else I dated, only less attractive. I'm not really interested but my friend thinks I should be. Because he noticed I looked at her. Meanwhile I think to myself "god, i really can't get into this scene." Anyway, when your friend goads you to approach a girl, it makes you look like you lack testicular fortitude and it makes you look desperate. Fast forward: My friend involves himself in some of this girl's business and I thought it funny. I'm naturally very curious and I had to know what her take on the matter was. So, having seen her go outside I go find her and her friend. I overhear bits of the conversation: "...let's go talk to Adam." Being polite I let her go talk to Adam and I decided to get some air anyway since it is nice outside and I'm there. Anyway, a sliver of my attention remains on this girl. I note that Adam isn't there so I go up to her and say "my friend was the one in the picture you took..." and she gives me this leer and says exasperatedly "can't you see we don't want to talk to you..." I'm a little surprised because I wasn't even trying to hit on her, I personally think that I'm too good for her anyhow, and I've never been ignored to the point that people don't even want to talk to me. Anyway, dear belle of the ball, if you read this then I've got 3 thoughts: 1. You might think I'm slow on the uptake, but chances are me and my friend are the smartest guys you'll meet at that place. And our pockets are deepest too. 2. I've pulled much more attractive and interesting birds than you. 3. seriously, fuck you bitch.
Now, I imagine you protesting again. This girl wasn't trying to meet guys... she was just there to have "fun." And then when I latched onto her, she was desperately trying to get away... and all chances of fun being had were ruined! What is this "fun" that has been repeatedly mentioned? Well, we know it's something you might find at a club and something that's worth the club membership and maybe a cover charge as well. It also has to be worth fending off unwanted advances and ogling. We consider that it is possible to play loud music and dance with your friends at your place of residence. We consider that it is possible to buy alcohol and take it home with you. So, maybe it is the fact that alcohol is free if you get a guy to buy it for you! But, that would have to be 4 drinks or more, because the money saved has to be equal or greater than the cover charge (alcohol at the supermarket is cheap). So we've ruled out alcohol, music and dancing with your friends (exclusively) as being what this "fun" is essentially composed of. You can save the cover charge by buying alcohol at the supermarket and dancing at home. What's left is dancing with other guys or girls, the attention you receive at the club... and maybe meeting guys (or girls, if you swing that way). There is not much to dancing better than the other guys at the club. From my observations, if you can keep the beat, you're ahead of the game. So, since I can keep the beat and make appropriate movements I'm ahead of the curve. So, here I am, an OK-to-good dancer (relatively speaking), and, as far as I can tell, not unattractive, talking to this girl who is, I'd say an 8.5. Why in the hell? She should be talking to me instead. But it really isn't like I latched onto her! Fuck, she was dancing relatively close to me on the dance floor and I was mostly just minding my own business. Sure, I might have looked at her and noted that she's slightly less attractive than a girl I dated. That doesn't necessarily mean anything. I just basically left her alone. Let me tell you this: when a girl is interested in you (either as a dancer or as a romantic partner), she will go out of her way to make things easy for you. Truth is, I wasn't "latching" on, she just wasn't interested.
To be fair, I've had a club experience where I did have fun at the time. But I was disappointed in the way it ended. Ending definitely could have gone better.
Anyway. I don't want to deal with more social rejection. I've had far too much of it already. And we were getting rejected left and right. It's not like I really cared that much what these bimbos thought, it's just that I wasn't drunk enough to have a good time crashing that party. But. Went to the strip club afterwards. Felt much calmer. It was the first time we actually paid to get in. And it was the first time I got a lap dance. I'm OK with the fact that they only show interest in me cause I'm giving them money. Because this is probably the only place in the world where the gender roles are reversed. It's nice to be the rejecter and to have girls go to great lengths to please you (not the other way around). A girl doesn't even need to show interest, all I need is for her to be hot and naked. And it's not objectification... there were quite a few discussions with the strippers about their life aspirations (yeah, actually one of them was getting a MS in social work). Point being... we men don't view strippers as sex objects (and not people) just because they're strippers.
On a related line of thought: I feel like I understand the tension between the sexes better. When a guy behaves a particular way, those traits are projected on all males. Females behave as if though all guys are a particular way, and males then react to females' eccentric behavior as if though all females behave that way. I don't know which gender started this projecting. All I know is I can be a part of the solution.
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Why I don't believe timed IQ tests measure g
I'm not a psychologist, but you know what they say about assholes and opinions... So I wanted to divulge my opinions about timing IQ tests because I feel particularly insecure about being relatively slow today. IQ tests are often timed for 2 reasons:
1. Convenience
2. Because smarter people "get" things faster
Well, I agree with 2... that smart people get things faster.
But there still exists a problem timing IQ tests. When you time IQ tests, you introduce several extraneous variables:
- One such variable is a "thinking style." Some people rush to find quick answers and miss details. Now, for every timed IQ test, there will probably be an optimal level of urgency, or, in other words, an optimum depth of analysis. Analyze the question too superficially and you'll pick the red herrings and miss all the tricks in a trick question. Analyze the question too deeply and you run out of time while looking for the fifth different pattern in a simple number sequence (which has an "obvious" solution to everyone else and 3 obvious solutions to you), just to be sure you found the right answer. So, besides g, you're also measuring the testee's subjective feeling of being rushed (and his inclination to rush).
- Another variable is resistance to time stress. My experience has been that everyone's brain shuts down to different degrees when they realize they have only 10 seconds to solve a problem. Instead of inspecting the figure series people to different degrees paralyze themselves by thinking "oh shit, I only have 5 seconds left!"
- Reading speed. This may be related to inclination to rush. People read differently. Some people read very quickly and get the gist while missing the details. As I've said before, my feeling is that for every IQ test, there is an optimum degree to which you should rush (and read fast) that would give the highest IQ score. Reading speed is different because it is more dependent on a person's natural inclination to either read for detail or to get the big picture. A detail oriented person might take longer to inspect a figure sequence but will be more likely to discover the important details of the sequence.
- Expectation of item difficulty: In a figure sequence test, the order in which your brain registers certain details of the figures in the sequence should almost be random. There is a probability that the brain registers the "right" details during a given time. But nevertheless, if a person has the expectation that the problem will be difficult, he'll probably try to find a complicated pattern in details that are irrelevant to the "correct" pattern without noticing other details of the pattern that would lead him to finding the correct pattern. By not timing the test, you eliminate this concern because the testee will then feel free to take his time and inspect all the details of the figures before deducing a pattern.
- Speed of darkening ovals on a scantron sheet.
- Ability to focus. Figuring out patterns is fun to me. But doing this under timed conditions stresses me out and exhausts me. I often find my mind starts to wander and I have to reign it in.
My overall opinion on this matter is that you should give people plenty of time to finish a test (enough time that 95 % of people have at least chosen an answer to every item). Such a test would produce a much more reliable measure of g. If you insist on including a measure of mental speed, I would say the way to do that is by giving a person a series of simple tasks and measuring the amount of time it takes the person to do these simple tasks (barring obvious distractions, etc.), not by restricting the amount of time the person has to complete a series of tasks (which introduces unnecessary time stress).
So Jensen commented that the time it takes a person to solve a problem is related to his/her intelligence and to the problems difficulty. It makes sense that if you gave a smarter person an untimed test he would not rush through items but also naturally "get" the patterns faster than a dumber person. Thinking style would only minimally interfere because when the test is not timed, everyone is more inclined to be careful in inspecting figures, etc. However, as soon as you inform the person that the test is timed, the extraneous variables will start to appear (every person will start feeling time pressure and start analyzing things more/less superficially dependent on their natural inclination to analyze in depth or shallowly, etc.). This is why this latent response time is actually a big red herring.
ALSO: Just so we're absolutely clear, I don't think I do badly on strictly timed IQ tests (12 questions, 2 minutes type tests), just not nearly as well as I do on less strictly timed IQ tests (tests timed like the GRE, etc.)
1. Convenience
2. Because smarter people "get" things faster
Well, I agree with 2... that smart people get things faster.
But there still exists a problem timing IQ tests. When you time IQ tests, you introduce several extraneous variables:
- One such variable is a "thinking style." Some people rush to find quick answers and miss details. Now, for every timed IQ test, there will probably be an optimal level of urgency, or, in other words, an optimum depth of analysis. Analyze the question too superficially and you'll pick the red herrings and miss all the tricks in a trick question. Analyze the question too deeply and you run out of time while looking for the fifth different pattern in a simple number sequence (which has an "obvious" solution to everyone else and 3 obvious solutions to you), just to be sure you found the right answer. So, besides g, you're also measuring the testee's subjective feeling of being rushed (and his inclination to rush).
- Another variable is resistance to time stress. My experience has been that everyone's brain shuts down to different degrees when they realize they have only 10 seconds to solve a problem. Instead of inspecting the figure series people to different degrees paralyze themselves by thinking "oh shit, I only have 5 seconds left!"
- Reading speed. This may be related to inclination to rush. People read differently. Some people read very quickly and get the gist while missing the details. As I've said before, my feeling is that for every IQ test, there is an optimum degree to which you should rush (and read fast) that would give the highest IQ score. Reading speed is different because it is more dependent on a person's natural inclination to either read for detail or to get the big picture. A detail oriented person might take longer to inspect a figure sequence but will be more likely to discover the important details of the sequence.
- Expectation of item difficulty: In a figure sequence test, the order in which your brain registers certain details of the figures in the sequence should almost be random. There is a probability that the brain registers the "right" details during a given time. But nevertheless, if a person has the expectation that the problem will be difficult, he'll probably try to find a complicated pattern in details that are irrelevant to the "correct" pattern without noticing other details of the pattern that would lead him to finding the correct pattern. By not timing the test, you eliminate this concern because the testee will then feel free to take his time and inspect all the details of the figures before deducing a pattern.
- Speed of darkening ovals on a scantron sheet.
- Ability to focus. Figuring out patterns is fun to me. But doing this under timed conditions stresses me out and exhausts me. I often find my mind starts to wander and I have to reign it in.
My overall opinion on this matter is that you should give people plenty of time to finish a test (enough time that 95 % of people have at least chosen an answer to every item). Such a test would produce a much more reliable measure of g. If you insist on including a measure of mental speed, I would say the way to do that is by giving a person a series of simple tasks and measuring the amount of time it takes the person to do these simple tasks (barring obvious distractions, etc.), not by restricting the amount of time the person has to complete a series of tasks (which introduces unnecessary time stress).
So Jensen commented that the time it takes a person to solve a problem is related to his/her intelligence and to the problems difficulty. It makes sense that if you gave a smarter person an untimed test he would not rush through items but also naturally "get" the patterns faster than a dumber person. Thinking style would only minimally interfere because when the test is not timed, everyone is more inclined to be careful in inspecting figures, etc. However, as soon as you inform the person that the test is timed, the extraneous variables will start to appear (every person will start feeling time pressure and start analyzing things more/less superficially dependent on their natural inclination to analyze in depth or shallowly, etc.). This is why this latent response time is actually a big red herring.
ALSO: Just so we're absolutely clear, I don't think I do badly on strictly timed IQ tests (12 questions, 2 minutes type tests), just not nearly as well as I do on less strictly timed IQ tests (tests timed like the GRE, etc.)
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Scores
Argh. Sometimes I think about that home test. I remember my dad timing me and everything. I got a fucking 137. "You have a good chance of passing the mensa exam." what the F.U.C.K. Just annoyed that I have to wait now for my results. And I'm obsessing again when I really, really have more important things to do.
In prep for an official IQ test, I've decided to take a few practice exams:
GMAT 760 (99th percentile)... this corresponds to an IQ of ~150 (15 pt. sd)
GRE 1480
SAT 2050 (with conservative guess on writing section... guessed a fairly low score on the essay)
Anyway, I really wiped the floor with the GMAT. It caters to my unique thinking style. It's more lenient on the time restrictions. I could really kick its ass if I were to take it for realz.
It's disappointing to note that I can't even come close to 150 on a real IQ test because I just suck when rushed. But, doing an IQ test fast and doing ELEMENTARY cognitive tasks fast are two different things. Perhaps my IQ really is on the order of 150 (raw mental power wise). Anyway, I can do better on both the SAT and the GRE if I actually put in some sort of concerted effort.
The test went OK to well. I do have a good feeling about it.
But then I took this: http://www.kent.ac.uk/careers/tests/spatialtest.htm. And while there were distractions and such, I nevertheless didn't earn a satisfactory score (average for graduates). Upon making an error analysis, I found all the questions I missed were the EASY ones! The ones at the beginning of the exam! My thought process goes like this: I've got the idea... this looks right. Ok, next! But then upon more careful inspection, I missed some important detail. Fuck me. I hate my impatience and tendency towards carelessness and sloppy thinking.
Ok, so I also took the MAT practice test and got a score of 77/100. If that's a good indication, I'm probably about 140 (s.d. 15), as I've thought all along. Gave a somewhat ambiguous percentile score though 81 - 99 (probably between 120 and 150 IQ wise... remember this is not relative to the general population). Anyway, I think I could break 83 or so with some grit and join a high IQ society.
In prep for an official IQ test, I've decided to take a few practice exams:
GMAT 760 (99th percentile)... this corresponds to an IQ of ~150 (15 pt. sd)
GRE 1480
SAT 2050 (with conservative guess on writing section... guessed a fairly low score on the essay)
Anyway, I really wiped the floor with the GMAT. It caters to my unique thinking style. It's more lenient on the time restrictions. I could really kick its ass if I were to take it for realz.
It's disappointing to note that I can't even come close to 150 on a real IQ test because I just suck when rushed. But, doing an IQ test fast and doing ELEMENTARY cognitive tasks fast are two different things. Perhaps my IQ really is on the order of 150 (raw mental power wise). Anyway, I can do better on both the SAT and the GRE if I actually put in some sort of concerted effort.
The test went OK to well. I do have a good feeling about it.
But then I took this: http://www.kent.ac.uk/careers/tests/spatialtest.htm. And while there were distractions and such, I nevertheless didn't earn a satisfactory score (average for graduates). Upon making an error analysis, I found all the questions I missed were the EASY ones! The ones at the beginning of the exam! My thought process goes like this: I've got the idea... this looks right. Ok, next! But then upon more careful inspection, I missed some important detail. Fuck me. I hate my impatience and tendency towards carelessness and sloppy thinking.
Ok, so I also took the MAT practice test and got a score of 77/100. If that's a good indication, I'm probably about 140 (s.d. 15), as I've thought all along. Gave a somewhat ambiguous percentile score though 81 - 99 (probably between 120 and 150 IQ wise... remember this is not relative to the general population). Anyway, I think I could break 83 or so with some grit and join a high IQ society.
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