Are gamers smarter?

[WayneLigon]

... rates himself below a 15 in INT. What that says to me, though, is that gamers are NOT more intelligent, because they out to be able to see that by the law of statistics, they likely have a 10-12.

Statistics doesn't work like that, though. The general total population has a 10 (if we go with the idea that a 10 Int = 100 IQ), because that's an average of all the highs and lows of all groups of people. It lumps in the truly stupid, the insane, and the retarded in with the quantum physicist and professor emeritus. If you did the test among, say, the student body of MIT the test would have a higher average because the (restricted) population you are testing is (we assume) much more intelligent than the population as a whole. Similarly the percentage of black people in America at a whole is roughly 12%. I live in Alabama, which is 26% black. I live in Montgomery county, which is 48% black. In contrast, the state of Idaho has a 0.4% black population. As you restict the population you can come up with different statistics.

 

[Umbran]

Indeed. Irony is the singularly most effective attack on my reasoning here. If I did not understand gamers being of above average intelligence to be statistically true, it would be a hard thing to ascertain just from anecdotal experience.

Which actually brings up a question - when asked "are these people more intelligent than average", what comes to mind? The actual statistical average intelligence, inlcuding all people? Probably not. When thinking about the "average intelligence" of the population, most folks will think in terms of "how smart is John Q Public?". I doubt they are really considering the Special Olympics people in their averaging.

Effectively, when asked this question, I think folks aren't thinking about the artihmetic mean intelligence. They are instead probably thinking about the mode - the most commonly seen level of intelligence. This isn't such a bad thing, insofar as we don't have a numeric measure we'd all agree upon. The mode is perhaps easier to glean from anecdotal experience as well. Unfortunately, it also leaves your simple analysis a bit weak, in that it is referring to the wrong measure.

 

[hunter1828]

No, gamers are not smarter.

And the fact that gamers argue over such a ridiculous and meaningless idea proves it.

hunter1828, who may or may not be serious

 

[fusangite]

Which actually brings up a question - when asked "are these people more intelligent than average", what comes to mind? The actual statistical average intelligence, inlcuding all people? Probably not. When thinking about the "average intelligence" of the population, most folks will think in terms of "how smart is John Q Public?". I doubt they are really considering the Special Olympics people in their averaging.

Effectively, when asked this question, I think folks aren't thinking about the artihmetic mean intelligence. They are instead probably thinking about the mode - the most commonly seen level of intelligence. This isn't such a bad thing, insofar as we don't have a numeric measure we'd all agree upon. The mode is perhaps easier to glean from anecdotal experience as well. Unfortunately, it also leaves your simple analysis a bit weak, in that it is referring to the wrong measure.

If you dismiss all quantitative measures, how do you propose to have a discussion at all?

Also, even if I were to accept that people unable to gain literacy and numeracy skills beyond the most rudimentary level should be removed from the model, would you not still agree that hobbies have a greater probability of attracting people who are good at them than people who are bad at them? If so, my model still works.

Also, to those who are on a quest to find some way of measuring and expressing intelligence that is wholly de-coupled from all forms of training (not you Umbran), let me ask this: are you willing to apply this kind of reasoning to other D&D attributes like strength. Can I call myself strong because, if I exercised I probably would be?

 

[Farland]

Statistics doesn't work like that, though. The general total population has a 10 (if we go with the idea that a 10 Int = 100 IQ), because that's an average of all the highs and lows of all groups of people. It lumps in the truly stupid, the insane, and the retarded in with the quantum physicist and professor emeritus. If you did the test among, say, the student body of MIT the test would have a higher average because the (restricted) population you are testing is (we assume) much more intelligent than the population as a whole. Similarly the percentage of black people in America at a whole is roughly 12%. I live in Alabama, which is 26% black. I live in Montgomery county, which is 48% black. In contrast, the state of Idaho has a 0.4% black population. As you restict the population you can come up with different statistics.

I understand that. Of course gamers are a small segment of the population, and of course my numbers are not backed up by hardcore facts, but common sense dictates that if perhaps the numbers are skewed one way or another, because you still have a semi-diverse population in ages and educational backgrounds, the skew may perhaps be mitigated. In other words perhaps one could concede that the average gamer could have an INT of 12. But 15-20? Doesn't seem at all likely, and people who claim to have an INT that high should recognize that. Certainly everyone likes to think of himself as special, but objectivity is a sign of INT in my book as well.

 

[Teflon Billy]

That's because you only value a couple of kinds of smart, apparently!

Well...Duh!

 

[Desdichado]

If you dismiss all quantitative measures, how do you propose to have a discussion at all?

I find this statement to be a bit odd. Since, to my knowledge (and certainly no one here as quoted any), there are no quantitative measurements that have been taken of the gaming population and their intelligence, what quantitative measure do you propose we base the discussion on?

All we can do is fall back on anecdotal evidence and theoretical models that have nothing whatsoever to prop them up. And apparently, that's 5 pages worth of discussion by itself. This time around. This topic has come up before.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Yeah, and then try teaching using Gardener's multiple intelligences in a high-level English or philosophy class.

"Yes, I know that our main point here is to teach advanced comprehension, analysis, and synthesis of ideas within texts, but if you want to you can use your bodily kinaesthetic knowledge, Johnny, and act out the concepts within it. Can't act out Plato's theory of Forms? Why ever not? Okay, then, just act out what happens on the surface, the plot."

Yeah, Gardener's theory of multiple intelligences is PC-driven, and very, very flawed.

Only if you make the mistake of assuming that "multiple intelligences" means the same thing as "each form of intelligence is equally applicable to learning every imaginable concept." It's not, and any attempt to do so--even in the case of a rhetorical attack on the concept--is foolish at best. The idea of kinaesthetic knowledge means that some people learn better by physically doing/performing. It does not mean that such a method of learning is perfectly suited for all areas of study.

(Nor does Gardner argue that everyone is equal, if only you can figure out their specific type of intelligence. Some people are still smarter than others.)

The simple truth is, different people do learn better via different techniques, and no single techinque is going to work for everyone. If you don't want to call them "intelligences," that's fine, but the differences in technique and ability do exist.

 

[Norfleet]

I firmly believe that gamers are, in fact, a superior group of people to the "masses" simply by the fact that they are a self-selected group: There are inherent entry barriers to becoming one. The same applies to any *OTHER* selected hobbyist group. There's simply a cutoff point beyond which somebody is simply incapable of even stumbling through the hobby to serve as an object of ridicule and mockery to his peers. Anytime you have a selective group of people, those people are in some way, as an average, above the "masses" in whatever attributes that the hobby emphasizes. Anytime somebody has an encyclopedic knowledge, however seemingly useless it may otherwise be, that pertains to SOMETHING he finds useful, he's STILL better off than somebody who has no knowledge of ANYTHING useful....and there's an awful lot of people like that. There are an awful lot of those zero-point people who have no useful knowledge or ability in anything. People who just kinda amble through life with no interest or purpose in even being alive, who continue to live only because society today so values human life, even worthless ones, that they'll expend their own resources and effort to keep these people who contribute nothing in any way alive: They're totally dependent on society for their survival: They have no abilities or interests of any kind. Clearly, as these people are not included in the ranks of gamers, or, indeed, any other group, by default, "gamers" must be better than the average.

Just remember also, most of the world's population is of below average intelligence. There's no upper limit on how intelligent someone can be, but there *IS* a lower limit, beyond which assessment of ANY kind of intellect is impossible because the person is, quite plainly, retarded or brain-dead. If you use IQ as your measuring stick, the mean maybe 100, but the median will be somewhat lower. It's like taking the average income of a college classroom plus Bill Gates: The resulting average is by no means an accurate view of the distribution.

 

[Umbran]

If you dismiss all quantitative measures, how do you propose to have a discussion at all?

I don't dismiss all quantitative measures. I question them. I admit that I'm thoroughly unconvinced that the operation of something as complex as the human mind can be accurately summed up in a single number.

The original intent of the exams was sound. They were originally designed to screen children to see which ones might have troubles in school for whatever reason. Maybe it was because they weren't bright. Maybe it would be because they had dyslexia, or emotional difficulties, or because their parents didn't stress homework, or what have you. The test didn't claim to identify the cause, but only note the effect. The idea was to give the test, discover who might have difficulties in school, and then follow up in person and find the actual problem and deal with it. And the exams are actually pretty decent at this job.

The connection of those test scores with "intelligence" was, to be blunt, racist, eugenicist nonsense, conflated with inappropriate interpretation of statistics. The "g" measure, statistically, tells you how well a person with a particular socre on one test is likely to score on other, similar tests. With carefully constructed tests, you might be able to identify the socre with performance in school. To go further and say that it measures "intelligence" is pretty darned weak, because there's lots of barriers to school and test performance that have nothing to do with intelligence.

Be that as it may, my note was more of a practical bent. I know of no quantitative measure that everyone here (or even everyone in the business of studying human mentation) accepts as valid. That does make discussion difficult. I tried to say that early on, but nobody listened.

However, as Mr. Dyal has already pointed out, we don't have any quantitative measures on the population in question. So, we can't really have the discussion based upon quantitative measures anyway, now can we?

When quantitative measures fail, we can fall back to qualitative measures. These include, but are not limited to, the anecdotal evidence we gather here.

... would you not still agree that hobbies have a greater probability of attracting people who are good at them than people who are bad at them? If so, my model still works.

Hr. I avoided Zander's foray into discussing such barriers at first, because it was dealing with skills, and not intelligence. But I'll wade in now.

First, I am not solidly convinced that being good or bad at a thing alone provides a measurable change in the probability that one takes up a given hobby. An anecdotal analogy - I know many people who like to sing. Some of them are good. Many (perhaps more) are not so good, but they make joyous noise anyway, because they like it. I know some people who don't like to sing. Quite a few have very nice (if untrained) voices. Some of them have nice, trained voices, but they don't find the practice particularly pleasureable. From all this, I gather that actual singing ability has little to do with singing for one's own pleasure. Now, singing at home for fun is a vastly different activity than gaming. The same dynamics may not apply. But it does brinng up the question.

RPGs do have some basic entry barriers. You need junior high school literacy to read the rulebooks. You need the most basic of math skills (addition and subtraction, usually of numbers less than about 20). Let us, for the sake of argument, assume that being good at these skills makes one more likely to be a gamer. The question is, though, if being good at those skills has much to do with intelligence.

Those barriers are pretty darned low. Very few people are limited to grade-school and below in them. As stated previously I think when cosidering "average intelligence", most folks are leaving out people that disadvantaged. Anyone who leaves high school with a valid diploma is supposed to be good at these skills, well above these barriers.

So, we're talking about people who don't leave high school with a valid diploma. Well, in the US, I'm pretty sure that intelligence isn't the main determiner. People drop out far more often due to social and economic pressures than due to lack of intelligence. People slip through the cracks and leave without being able to read well more due to poor funding and teaching quality in schools than due to lack of intelligence.

It seems we're talking about problems of economics, social status, and public education methods than we are about intelligence. That's politics, and we probably shouldn't go there.

Also, to those who are on a quest to find some way of measuring and expressing intelligence that is wholly de-coupled from all forms of training (not you Umbran), let me ask this: are you willing to apply this kind of reasoning to other D&D attributes like strength. Can I call myself strong because, if I exercised I probably would be?

Okay, let me ask this on the flip side - were there intelligent people before the invention of written language?