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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Elric" data-source="post: 1212257" data-attributes="member: 1139">In the sense that gaming is an intellectual hobby, those who game are probably somewhat more inclined to intellectual hobbies as a whole.  This probably reflects the fact that gamers are more intellectual, which probably reflects the fact that gamers are smarter.  But this is a rather weak chain with rather minimal implications for the intelligence of gamers.  An argument involving creativity (that gamers are more creative) would be more plausible, especially given the number of other creativity oriented activities that gamers engage in.Everyone who has some small niche of intellectual ability and/or expertise probably considers themselves above average in intelligence.  People do not really think about themselves as a whole in assessing their strengths and weaknesses- they look at what they are good at and like to do.  Thus, it is no surprise that something like 80% of college students consider themselves smarter than their average peer.  Average has come to imply a negative and getting a “C” is a mark of Cain. If I get triple-bogeys regularly in miniature golf, I could take this as evidence that I am a terrible miniature golfer and thus a terrible athlete.  Or I could reassure myself that I never play golf, don’t particularly enjoy it so I shouldn’t define my athleticism based on it.  On the other hand, if I am a veritable wizard at miniature golf, I will probably take this as evidence that I am a good miniature golfer and a good athlete.  I like miniature golf and I play it often, so I can define my athleticism by it. Plus, intelligence has something of an odd meaning anyways.  If you were a ranger, you would probably consider those incapable of learning how to identify a creature by its tracks dumb.  On the other hand, a bard might consider intelligence the ability to learn to identify chords of music.  For the wizard, intelligence will be the ability to memorize tomes of ancient arcane knowledge written in long-dead languages.  Each is likely to consider himself more intelligent than average.</blockquote>

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