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The Psychology.Wikia page Correlation between intelligence and social deficiency states:

Abnormally high intelligence, 3 or more standard deviations above the mean, tends to correlate strongly with poor social skills.

Is this claim backed by studies (especially studies beyond WEIRD subjects)?

Christian
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    3 standard deviations above the mean (IQ 130 or greater) is by no means "abnormal". The whole article seems to be purely conjecture, and seems to be designed solely to make people with lower IQs feel better about themselves. – gnasher729 Nov 04 '14 at 23:36
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    I agree with gnasher729 although I'd point out that 130 IQ is 2 standard deviations. So if you work in a professional field and/or went to university then you are likely to know people in that third standard deviation group (130-145, the top 2.2% of the population). And IQ of over 145 (> third st dev) is actually not so uncommon that you wouldn't have met someone that "smart" if you went to university or work as a professional. – Tim Scanlon Nov 05 '14 at 13:09
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    @gnasher729 3 standard derivation equals roughly 0,3%. We call plenty of human characteristics that are more common "abnormal". – Christian Nov 05 '14 at 17:02
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    It'd help if you clarified what "WEIRD subjects" mean? Evokes "Weird science" - definitely poor social skills there :) – user5341 Nov 06 '14 at 13:22
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    Also, is Psychology Wikia notable? (In my experience, Wikia sites range from well-known, widely notable ones to random 10-user no-better-than-a-blog ones, at least when it comes to scifi/fantasy subjects) – user5341 Nov 06 '14 at 13:23
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    @DVK In this context WEIRD stands for participants from Western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic cultures. Especially psychology undergraduates. I added a link to make it clear. – Christian Nov 06 '14 at 14:06
  • @DVK Plenty of blogs are notable enough for questions on this website to ask whether a claim is true. On the other hand Psychology Wikia might not be good enough to justify an answer on this website. – Christian Nov 06 '14 at 14:12
  • I don't particularly like Psychology Wikia and the lack of providing primary sources to substantiate tertiary literature. Sometimes the information is put in by credible people using credible sources. Sometimes it is the complete opposite. The inconsistency makes it hard to take the information at face value in lieu of knowing where the information came from. – Kasierith Nov 06 '14 at 15:31
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    @Christian: No, we don't call people in a 0.3% range "abnormal". We might call them "unusual" or "extreme", "abnormal" is an insult, and to judge by the rest of that Wikia page, that seems intentional. – gnasher729 Nov 07 '14 at 16:26
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    @DVK "WEIRD" is a standard acronym in social sciences. I forgot the exact words it stands for, but it is a warning that the study was conducted on typical American college kids and so shouldn't be generalized to the rest of humanity. – rumtscho Nov 12 '14 at 10:39
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    Re: notability - this phrase has been [quoted/plagiarised](https://www.google.com/search?q="high+intelligence%2C+3+or+more+standard+deviations+above+the+mean%2C+tends+to+correlate+strongly+with+poor+social+skills."&oq="high+intelligence%2C+3+or+more+standard+deviations+above+the+mean%2C+tends+to+correlate+strongly+with+poor+social+skills.") often enough on the Internet to make it notable, IMO. – Oddthinking May 07 '15 at 12:59
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    It might be worthwhile to ask just who is making the judgement about how poor the social skills are. An extremely intelligent person (or non-human being) might relate quite well to individuals of similar intelligence, but be utterly clueless when relating to the much less intelligent. And vice versa, of course. – jamesqf May 07 '15 at 22:00
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    @gnasher729 I would argue that having a high (or low) IQ that is 2 standard deviations from the mean is [**by definition**](http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/abnormal) abnormal, since they both deviate significantly from the norm. I would not consider being called "abnormal" an insult, and I feel that its usage as an insult is not etymologically justified. – March Ho Dec 08 '15 at 13:19
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    A answer already exists for high IQ correlation with good social skills here-http://cogsci.stackexchange.com/questions/9746/does-high-iq-correlate-with-good-social-skills – pericles316 Dec 08 '15 at 14:17
  • @MarchHo: I'd recommend that you shouldn't call Mike Tyson whose boxing skills are more than 2 standard deviations away from the mean "abnormal" to his face. And with an insult, what _you_ think doesn't matter. What the insulted person thinks matters. And you are confusing "deviation from the average" with "deviation from the norm". – gnasher729 Dec 13 '15 at 00:54
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    The reasons that the article claims are just daft. One reason given is that highly intelligent people are right more often and don't avoid conflict about their opinion. But that's the case with everyone who strongly believes they are right, and has nothing to do with social skills. Another claim is that highly intelligent people are supposedly more arrogant because of their skills. That is pure conjecture. But then if a highly intelligent person can produce a good display of justified arrogance and use that to achieve their goals, surely that is a strong social skill. – gnasher729 Dec 13 '15 at 01:14
  • In my opinion your question made no sense when you added the part "(especially studies beyond WEIRD subjects)". –  Jan 09 '16 at 21:02
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    "Social skills" sounds like a poor hubris-fueled attempt at mitigating cognitive dissonance. Meaningless buzzword. – mike glenndale Mar 10 '16 at 00:28

1 Answers1

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Disclaimer: I am not a an expert/professional in the field.

For normal measures of general/emotional intelligence, the studies I found say that correlation is actually positive, e.g. the study "Distributed neural system for emotional intelligence revealed by lesion mapping", published in the apparently very reputable peer-reviewed journal Social Cognitive & Affective Neuroscience.

The study did not use WEIRD subjects and instead relied on Vietnam veterans who suffered brain damage in combat as participants. Other studies (relying on WEIRD subjects) found no relationship.

This article from the US National Library of Medicine gives a very good rundown of empirical studies about "gifted individuals"

For the “warmth” dimension describing socioemotional characteristics, evidence favors great similarity between gifted and average-ability individuals. The gifted are no more prone to depression, anxiety, or suicide (Reis and Renzulli, 2004; Martin et al., 2010), show similar levels of wellbeing and stress (Zeidner and Shani-Zinovich, 2011), and are as agreeable as average-ability persons (Schilling, 2009; DeYoung, 2011), conscientiousness (Ackerman and Heggestad, 1997), and social abilities (Schilling, 2009; overview: Neihart et al., 2002).

(emphasis mine)

With regards to the subjects of the studies/books: Both Neihart et. al 2002 and Schilling 2009 talk about children/adolescents in Western democracies. I haven't read Neihart, but the Amazon description mentions that "The book also summarizes several decades worth of research on special populations, including minority, learning-disabled, and gay and lesbian gifted students".

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