--
John.

Except that (a) I'm at a public park, and (b) the music is coming from my own iPod.

It's too bad that common sense just doesn't seem to be that common anymore. This makes sense - but their "predictor" statement is backwards.

In youth, being outgoing is a natural trait of children. Those who cannot keep up with their peers intellectually will not be able to express themselves, and end up resorting to anti-social behaviour (bullying - though kids see it as strength, any sane amount of investigation will see that it's just a front for weakness). Thus, those who can keep up (IQ's of 80+, give or take) will retain their openness for a bit longer.

But, after graduating (whether high school or post-secondary), the smarter ones will start teaching. Teaching their peers, their coworkers. And, eventually, they'll hit some brick walls, because they don't know how to teach. And they'll become bitter when people excersise their free will to oppose their "obviously" superior advice. They'll learn ('cuz they're quicker on the uptake) that people only ask their advice if they've already made up their mind to do something "obviously stupid" and just snap at others, not always being aware of the difference between honest questions (really wanting to know the answer/opinion) and sham questions (already know what they're going to do, just going through the motions of asking). And then the frustration at explaining things that are beyond the listener, and the listener not getting it...

Besides that, in knowledge fields, such as computing, companies don't hire people to be "yes-men" - we don't want to just hear "yes" to everything. We need people who can confidently disagree. Because that tells us they're paying attention, and that we aren't infinitely superior, but probably have missed something that another viewpoint can see.

I dunno ... I just think this is somewhat an obvious part of human nature. I'm not trying to justify it, just state it's common sense.

See, it even perfectly applies to we perl hackers being more intelligent.

In our youth, we're open and free and eager to try new things, so we learn perl. Then, as we age and have used it for years, we come grumpy and resistant to switch to any other language. We're like, double smart.

Perl: The Ultimate Intelligence Test. :-)

I tend to think of .NET as the Ultimate Intelligence Test. That is, you're exposed to it, and if you run screaming, you've demonstrated your intelligence. ;-)

I kid, I kid. *dodges flames*

<–radiant.matrix–>
A collection of thoughts and links from the minds of geeks
The Code that can be seen is not the true Code
I haven't found a problem yet that can't be solved by a well-placed trebuchet

Allow me to explain for those who don't find that statement self-explanatory.

A latitudinal study is when you take people of different ages, look at them, and try to draw correlations. A longitudinal study is when you take a group of people, study them, then follow them through time and keep on following up on them over time. Latitudinal studies are a lot easier and faster to do. The problem is that you don't know - in fact you can't know - which young people should correspond with which old people. That kind of question can only really be answered with longitudinal studies.

To summarize the research, they looked at a lot of people and found that in different age groups the relationship between personality and intelligence is different. And they found that while dewey-eyed idealists were smart youngsters, the smartest people are crotchety old folks.

My point is essentially that you don't know whether being crotchety is an effect of having been smart for a lifetime in a world full of (relatively) dumb people, or whether crotchety folks start off slow and then keep on improving throughout life.

If I had to guess, I'd say that personality changes and intelligence does not. So all of the amiable, agreeable guys & gals, listen up. Listen to the old man (me). You are doomed to cynicism in your old age, but don't rush to get there. You have a lot of disillusionment ahead of you, and you want to savour every heartbreak as your naivete is shattered.

Given my sunny disposition and advancing age, perhaps it was the last shreds of my naivete that sought to find an excuse.

...and I did add a smiley :0

Personally, I thought that the study had set out to prove the less often quoted latter half of a famous aphorism: "fools seldom differ".

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Examine what is said, not who speaks -- Silence betokens consent -- Love the truth but pardon error.

Lingua non convalesco, consenesco et abolesco. -- Rule 1 has a caveat! -- Who broke the cabal?

"Science is about questioning the status quo. Questioning authority".

In the absence of evidence, opinion is indistinguishable from prejudice.

And I was just getting in practice for my crotchety old age. Which I haven't really reached yet. :-)

All you have to do to screw up their little theories, is to be unpredictable. (Actually, it pays to be a little bit predicatble for awhile, so they think they have you analyzed, then throw in some unpredicablity, and they have fits. )

If you can't do, teach; and if you can't teach, be a psychiatrist and spew B.S. for a living.

But when I read the article I recognized this as what it was - a grant-funded study producing a result that would definitely lead to yet another grant-funded study.

For, you see, they didn't study the most obvious next question: which came first, the grumpiness, or the intelligence? That is, was the grumpiness a predictor of tendency toward intelligence, or was it simply a predictable result of "superior knowledge/intelligence"?

After a couple decades of people doing rash/stupid/irrational things in spite of your sage advice, what would be the most likely personal outlook on life? Yep... hrmmph!

I don't really wonder if my favorite quote came from his older years... (smiley included)

S'funny, but I thought the most rational explanation for the finding was that the authors were all miserable ol'scientists pissed off with the young guys getting all the grants ;)

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Examine what is said, not who speaks -- Silence betokens consent -- Love the truth but pardon error.

Lingua non convalesco, consenesco et abolesco. -- Rule 1 has a caveat! -- Who broke the cabal?

"Science is about questioning the status quo. Questioning authority".

In the absence of evidence, opinion is indistinguishable from prejudice.

Only if you're old. It was a negative predictor in the young group:

Personality predictors of cognitive abilities differed among the three groups studied. Openness and extraversion were important predictors of general knowledge in young adults, presumably the time of life when general knowledge increases fastest, with those higher in openness and lower in extraversion scoring higher on general knowledge. Openness was found to be a strong predictor of young adults' ability to retain general knowledge and store short-term information.

(emphasis added)