Bias against those with more self control

[Ray H.]

This topic doesn't seem to neatly fit in one of the other forums, so here ya go.

 

This study found that people have higher expectations but lower evaluations of individuals with high-self control. Since high-self control is correlated with higher personal and interpersonal success, this means those that are achieving the most have more expected of them, but are judged to be not trying hard enough.

 

I've experienced this in every job I've had.

[Alan C.]

I think that impulse control is also highly correlated with higher intelligence.

 

One of the things that I notice about people who are not exceptionally bright, or who have very average intelligence, is that they are more indulgent, hedonistic, have higher time preference (preferring present consumption over future consumption), and shorter time horizons (lack of prudence and foresight).

 

They will tend to make decisions based upon criterion such as whether or not it feels good or tastes good, rather than long-term costs and consequences.

[thebeardslastcall]

Isn't this basically what people do with morals and responsibility? We expect saner and more intelligent people to act more responsibility than others. This goes right in with the sanity defense where someone can basically get away on some level with doing something crazy, particularly the "temporary insanity" defense, which may allow someone to actually have some sort of life afterwards. This type of 'double standard' seems pretty prevalent throughout how people treat each other and hold people responsible. It's also why people have trouble holding their parents responsible, because they just downgrade their agency and hold them to a lower standard. It's pretty hard to think of a retard as not trying hard enough because you have such low expectations of them. Whereas when people think of smart people they just open their mind up to the world of possibilities and 'potential' and compare them to all the other successful people in the world and find something lacking. Many people have this notion of 'wasted potential' and it's much easier to apply to a smarter person.

 

Another similar thing is going from being the richest person in a neighborhood to the poorest one, not by making a different amount of money, but simply by moving to a richer neighborhood. Then all of a sudden you seem to be lacking and deficient even though you are equally successful in a way.

 

To many people it isn't about how successful you are in fact, but related to other people and to some imaginary potential for success they give you. It's all about perspective and where people put the goal post for you and the more you succeed the more they will want to shift it forward. Going 5 more meters when you can only go 50 is very different from going another 5 meters when you've gone 5000, even if it's infinitely harder. The greater your success the more distorted expectations become.

 

Edit: Also made me think of how some people might suggest to Mr. Molyneux that he isn't doing enough for the cause. Same idea I think.

[Jakethehuman]

recently I experienced this at work, had a person yelling at me and then got in my face trying to provoke me, I stayed calm and in control throughout and was held equally responsible for the altercation, the boss made all kinds of excuses for the guy, but seemed unwilling to acknowledge my self-control in trying to defuse the situation. Maybe it frustrated him more that I didn't react, so it ends up being my fault for not responding to aggression with aggression and therefore somewhat neutralising the exchange, the boss said this is just a huge waste of time and a headache. Being rational in an irrational world is hard!

[Frosty]

Anecdotally I find this to be true.

 

I'm Head of UK ICT for a medium sized business with offices in various different places including some in the US where we have a guy in a similar position as me but he's responsible for his office, he's constantly messing up and providing to be unreliable and his works spills over to me because I'm know as someone who can just get it done. Not only does he not suffer the consequences of needing to have some of his work handed to me, but I can also suffer consequences if I don't do his work to a higher degree of expectation.

 

It seems like a fact of life, as you continue to produce good work, peoples expectations go up for you, you're judged relative to your prior successes and not by any kind of absolute scale.

[Wuzzums]

In a work environment it's difficult to point out the individuals with high or low self-control. High self-control might be linked with a higher intelligence but a smarter person might simply choose not to put forth their competence lest they get more work. This is called strategic incompetence, which is when a person chooses to perform a task poorly in order not to be assigned that task again.

 

This leads to a catch-22 like scenario, in which if you have high self-control then you're gonna have a bad time because people treat you unfairly and if you have low self-control then you're gonna have a bad time because you're your own worst enemy.

 

However if a person is passionate about their work then this prejudice against their success can only push them strive for a higher level. If we judged the best of us by the standards of the worst of us then how can we ever raise the bar?

 

There's this story of a teacher that gave his students an assignment and when they submitted their projects the teacher was literally blown away by the quality of their work. He was speechless, it was far beyond anything he could have done, so he asked his mentor what he should say to them. He said he should keep a stoic face and tell them that: "You can do better."

 

For someone who's fully dedicated in some field, knowing for certain they reached the zenith is a terrible blow... I imagine.

[PGP]

My experience of this is that once a person has choice independent of conforming to the irrational and perhaps even malicious, self-serving demands of others, discipline and self-control is, dare I say it, easy. In my own case, seeing my family for what they are and dealing with it allows my intelligence to come to fruition. Having traction in reality free from others crazy-making. Just my experience though.