

He's Not as Smart as He Thinks - edw519
http://www.newsweek.com/id/101079/output/print

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orangecat
Given that females are almost universally attracted to
confidence/"alpha"-ness, males are better off believing that they're better
than they are. (And knowing this may make you worse off, for either gender).

~~~
demallien
"Given that females are almost universally attracted to confidence"

Do you have a citation for that assertion?

~~~
orangecat
No, just anecdotal evidence and personal experience. And the dismissiveness of
the sibling poster aside, yes, pick-up artists can be very successful by
faking signals of confidence and status. Believe me, I wish it weren't true,
because my personality is the exact opposite of what most women appear to find
attractive. (Of course it's great for being "friends"...)

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lionhearted
This true and known, though the researcher didn't mention an important piece -
men have a much, much larger standard deviation of intelligence/success/etc
than women. So men are more heavily represented in engineering, physics,
mathematics, etc, but they're also more frequently mentally retarded,
homeless, die of homicide, commit suicide, and wind up incarcerated - general
"failing" type things.

One hypothesis is that for most of history, the difference in results between
being "above average" and "exceptional" was very large for men, and a less so
for women. So you've seen men go on dangerous trading journeys, fight for
honor/prestige/titles/land, engage in duels and competitions, fight wars,
break paradigms, take on establishments, and so on. Whereas for a woman -
historically speaking - by simply being reasonably capable in all of the
duties society expected of a woman, she could find a husband. For a woman, the
best strategy would be to be a bit above average and work to progress, but not
take huge risks. For men, taking victory or death type risks might've made
more sense.

One of the most interesting statistics I read was about what percent of people
historically had children - I believe the numbers were estimated at 80% of
women and 40% of men (not sure if this is all people, or people who survived
infancy which was a legit problem back then).

If this sort of thing interests you, there's lots of information and
statistics here:

<http://www.psy.fsu.edu/~baumeistertice/goodaboutmen.htm>

Very interesting read, I saw it here on HN originally. The difference in
standard deviation/failure rates between men and women surprised me, but it
made a lot of things make sense after reading it.

~~~
aquateen
FTA:

"Although [men and women] are on average the same, the people at the very top
and the very bottom of the IQ bell curve are more likely to be men. That is a
pattern that we see in the university setting, with men either being at the
very top of the class or at the bottom."

~~~
ssanders82
I have a real problem with them jumping from intelligence to university
academic success. When I was in school and had to develop team projects, if
everything else was equal I'd go for a girl partner every time. Not that I
thought they were any more intelligent on average but very frequently they
just _cared_ more. I could see it in their solo work as well - on average they
just put in more hours than the guys.

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snitko
_What was interesting was that some groups of people, both men and women, got
it so wrong. Men with average to below-average intelligence think that they
are quite clever. And very smart women think their intelligence is low._

That's clearly a misleading statement which has nothing to do with genders.
The thing is, as far as I understand, is that the smarter people are the
better they are at assessing themselves, and the more they tend to be careful
about their estimations. Dumb people, on the other hand, usually think they
are smart, because they have very little data and knowledge to prove
themselves the opposite, and every little step they make and piece of
knowledge they learn seems a big deal to them.

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blasdel
Henry Ford: "Whether you believe you can do a thing or not, you are right."

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kennethh
Most IQ test are made to be gender neutral so one can not use the IQ test as a
measurement who is the smartest. That men believe they are smarter might just
correspond to higher levels of testosterone.

