Associations between intelligence and childlessness in men (2019) [pdf] | Hacker News Reader

Associations between intelligence and childlessness in men (2019) [pdf]

duo.uio.no

54 pointsdrocer8839 comments

The actual title should include "in men" as it does in the study.

> Results: No linear association between intelligence and childlessness was found. However, follow-up analyses showed that higher risk of childlessness was associated with the highest stanine intelligence score (two standard deviations above the normed average), and that this effect was mediated by whether participants had ever been in a relationship by their late twenties. No significant direct effect of the highest stanine intelligence score was found when the question of whether participants had ever been in a relationship by their late twenties was included.

>...and that this effect was mediated by whether participants had ever been in a relationship by their late twenties. No significant direct effect of the highest stanine intelligence score was found when the question of whether participants had ever been in a relationship by their late twenties was included.

I don't know if it is just me, but I am struggling to parse the meaning of the part regarding the effect of "ever being in a relationship by their late twenties" on the premise of this study. The only way I see it now is it means "being in a relationship by their late twenties negates the whole phenomena of childlessness and intelligence score relationship that was observed in the study", but that doesn't feel right.

If someone in the thread can offer a more readable/simplified version of that statement, it would be very appreciated.

I think that more readable one may be "not having been in a relationship in late 20s is a stronger predictor of subsequent childlessness than scoring high in intelligence."

This seems correct to me, i.e. the current title here is clickbait.

From the paper:

"The results of the present study did not support my hypothesis that intelligence should be negatively associated with childlessness."

In fairness, the somewhat confusing verbiage here is from I assume a Norwegian non-native English speaker.

To their defense, a lot of academic papers even from native English speakers tend to have barely readable convoluted wording here and there. Either for the purpose of making it sound more complicated or to pad the length of the paper, I have no idea. But it is something I have been consciously noticing since a while ago.

Ah, that makes perfect sense to me (both your wording and the conclusion itself), so thank you.

I’m not a professional academic, but I’m reading that sentence the same way you are.

It sounds like the conclusion here is that not ever being in a relationship by your late twenties AND having a high intelligence predicts childlessness. For that to be interesting/worth mentioning, I would assume not being in a relationship by your late twenties and having mid level intelligence does NOT predict childlessness, or at least not as strongly.

I’m guilty of jumping straight to the comments after not reading the article, however, so there might be more details either supporting/refuting that conclusion that I’m missing, I’m just going off of your quote.

In this study men with the highest AND lowest intelligence were the least likely to have kids.

It reminds me of "Smart Teens Don't Have Sex (or Kiss Much Either)" discussed in http://www.gnxp.com/blog/2007/04/intercourse-and-intelligenc.... There was an analogous relationship with having sex. My interpretation: assortative mating.

Obviously enough intelligent people are more prone to question the popular idea everybody is to have children (let alone early) in the first place. And then only reproduce once they feel like they have enough time and money to raise children in accordance with their reasonably high standards (which may turn out negative until its too late). While stupid people don't care and just fuck.

I read the title as “association between intelligence and childishness”. Made it halfway though the abstract trying to see if my immaturity meant I was actually intelligent. Disappointed.

Title is misleading (see conclusion below).

It could also be interpreted that higher intelligence leads to delayed family formation (for a myriad of reasons), which necessarily involves less offspring.

Conclusion: The present study revealed a complex association between intelligence and childlessness. The mediated association between the highest stanine intelligence score and childlessness was interpreted as an expression of delayed family formation. It is still unclear whether this delay in family formation will “catch up” if childlessness is measured at an older age, which raises the need for additional studies on the subject.

Did they investigate if this was by choice?

Is that because wealthy people are less likely to want children? Doesn't mean you are intelligent if you don't have children

I thought this study was done years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXSz0bA9CiE

Regression to the mean?

It's because we are so annoying to normal people.

I bet it has more to do with refusing to develop even a minimum baseline of social skills, thinking that being very smart can compensate for being intolerable around other people. The reality is, you gotta have both on at least a baseline minimum level.

And no excuses like "it has to be one or the other" are really valid, because I've definitely met people who were both extremely smart by any possible metric (even if the baseline of intelligence used for comparison is an average of other engineers), as well as extremely socially intelligent.

refusing to whom?

>refusing [to develop skills] to whom?

Not sure what's the point of confusion here, but the way I understood the question, my answer is "to themselves". I don't get how one can develop skills "to anyone else", but themselves, unless we are talking about teaching or mentoring or something similar.

develop social skills towards themselves?

I was simply answering with the same convoluted wording that was used in your previous question.

I still have no idea what you mean by your question or what's your point of confusion. In my original comment, I said that some smart people "refuse to develop social skills". How is this confusing at all? This is just a simple example of using that word in a context of "someone refusing to do something".

refusal implies that someone required

When you refuse to get out of bed immediately after you wake up or refuse to work out at the gym, who are you refusing it to? I think the answer is "yourself", which is the same case as in my original comment.

P.S. If you were genuinely confused, I hope this answered your question. If you were just trying to nitpick in hopes to annoy, then congrats as well, because it was definitely somewhat effective.

that would be a case of split personality. in reality, people see a benefit to getting out of bed or working out, or else they wouldnt be willing to do either.

In analogy, it is entirely possible that a few people have weighed the pros and cons and decided to spend their time in something they find more beneficial than developing social skills. saying they refuse to, implies that they should be willing to, but that is just an assumption that we commonly make. The fact that they are supersmart allows them to get away with it: being able to solve your problems easier than other people creates an extreme sense of self-reliance

>in reality, people see a benefit to getting out of bed or working out, or else they wouldnt be willing to do either.

You haven't seen many people out there who refuse to work out, despite them obviously benefitting from it? Just because people refuse to do something, doesn't mean that they weighed all the pros and cons and made an educated decision.

If people refuse to learn social skills and are totally ok with not reaching their full potential, that's their right to do so. Just like if someone refuses to learn intelligence skills and is ok with being treated by others like a person with subpar intelligence.

People prefer to marry those who have similar intelligence to themselves.

When one gets out 2, 3, 4, 5 standard deviations from the mean, there's only a very small number of others of similar intellect. Very very very small at the high end.

The chance of finding someone who is of compatible intellect and who is also compatible in even basic other ways is extremely small.

This accounts for the results of the study. There's no need to propose mechanisms whereby the exceptionally intelligent somehow foolishly believe that their intelligence gives them a pass, which it obviously doesn't. Mere observation and life experience shows that to be the opposite of reality.

I think you misunderstood my comment. Emotional/social intelligence and "technical" intelligence are completely separate things. I agree with your point, but I don't think that it works against my original hypothesis, it works alongside it.

I wasn't trying to say that all exceptionally intelligent people believe that they have no need for social skills because they are so smart. In fact, I brought up an example of the opposite.

And I agree with you that it makes sense that people would prefer to pair up with people of similar "technical" intelligence as them. However, I doubt that if you take a potential couple, where both people possess "technical" intelligence but only one possesses emotional intelligence, that person is going to be very willing to be with someone who lacks it to such a severe degree.

Leading me to a conclusion that a lot of very "technically" smart people are limiting their already narrow pool of people of similar "technical" intelligence level by not working on their emotional intelligence/social skills.

and normal people are annoying to us.

I'm curious if this is just a Western thing. I feel like in Asia the government takes steps to prevent this from happening (one/two child policy and the ability to "buy" more children).

Asia isn't just Mainland China.

According to whom? The PRC might disagree with you.

You have to be colossally ignorant to not know India is in Asia.

And I'd be colossally surprised if the PRC had never fantasized about ruling India (not that they could). They seem to feel just about everything ought to belong to them.

Well intelligence is partially hereditary, and childless men won't be passing on their genes, so I counter that these men really aren't as intelligent as claimed.

> and childless men won't be passing on their genes, so I counter that these men really aren't as intelligent as claimed.

Hmm, I guess we found the breeder?

Not even sure where to begin with this, circular reasoning?

Have you perhaps considered that these intelligent people have considered tgat passing on their genes is not as valuable to them as other things they might value? I'd posit you haven't, and further, you shouldn't consider yourself among them.

I don't have any kids, so you failed to find "the breeder".

Nor do I consider myself particularly intelligent, making you 0 for 2, and it all the more wonderfully ironic if you considered yourself amongst that group.

I said you shouldn't consider yourself among them, not that you do.

Also your circular arguments towards childless men being stupid while also being a self-proclaimed "stupid & childless man" is poetic and somehow makes sense to me.

It's possible to be intelligent but not have an interest in passing on the genes for such.

I challenge that notion. It displays a shortsightedness which is uncharacteristic of intelligence.

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