From the category archives:

Intelligence Theory

A commonly held belief: Blonds are “dumb” ….but have more fun.

However, hair color clearly does not determine intelligence.

What sort of purpose must the dumb blond “phenomenon” serve?

One possibly is that “dumb blond” jokes are used by insecure individuals to comfort themselves with yet another mislead, another distraction from looking into their own psyches.

How is the underlying fallacy not obvious? There are plenty of intelligent blonds in the world…and plenty of *less intelligent* brunettes. Why then do we so easily buy into such -dumb- stereotypes?

Think of the blond girls amongst whom society asserted the belief that their purpose was anything other than to share intelligent conversation. What has the effect  been? Were they not given the same opportunities as little brunette girls for learning? When the environment asserted so-called “stupidity” amongst little blond girls did they deter growth in the individuals? I doubt I can see the outcome any other way.

And what about cultural differences? In which societies is blond a hair color and not a level of intelligence? And why, I ask… it seems the differential may indeed be scarcity of natural blond hair, perhaps? For example, in Scandinavia or other Northern European countries, do blond jokes carry the same weight as they do in the U.S.?

(sharing of opinions is always welcomed here)

Continue Reading 5 comments Intelligence Theory


IQ is commonly disregarded as relevant. Many of my acquaintances who have 1) taken a intro to psych class, 2) psych majors, or 3) social work majors (who inevitably have been required to take several psych classes at a minimum) just don’t seem to get the importance of IQ. I’m not talking about people who say the IQ test is limited; I refer instead to those who just do not want to acknowledge or are not being taught properly. I think we seriously suffer because of the lack of understanding regarding IQ significance.

Real Life Application

Most must disregard the level of difficulty posed to the  upper and lower echelon. Surely both groups struggle in different ways. Is gifted an impairment? Does it end up hurting individuals?

Teaching Comparisons: Upper, Lower 2%

Take two people of the same age: One of the upper and one from the lower echelon. Compare via interview for data about the subjective experience. Optimal presentation of the data would be in live audiovisual form. There are of course ethical concerns but the benefit would be great of teaching such concepts.

Continue Reading 1 comment Intelligence Theory