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Many a times in hollywood, blondes are projected as unitellegent, stupid and dull-witted. In fact a perception around the world can be realized about the same. In friends circle, TV shows and social networks, everyone keeps hinting in one way or the another that blondes lack intelligence or good judgement.

So the question is, Is this true and do we have any research material that backs these sarcastic humor against blond women??

Sklivvz
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Pankaj Upadhyay
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    Consider that "pretty" people (especially women and girls?) have the option of influencing people by that hook and may practice that skill *instead* of "smarter" alternatives. So even if the statistics hold up the causality might be social rather than related to intelligence. – dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten Jul 18 '11 at 17:04
  • @dmckee: Ah, but isn't "beauty in the eye of the beholder?" I've observed that people tend to generally be attracted to those they see more often (so perhaps familiarity plays a role in assessing beauty?). I recall reading about some psychological explanation of this, but I'm unable to find it at present. =( – Randolf Richardson Jul 18 '11 at 19:39
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    BTW, I have strong suspicion, that in Hollywood vast majority of blond girls are actually fake blonds, but I can't find any reliable data about that. – vartec Jul 18 '11 at 22:36
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    @Randolf : As far as the attraction goes, you are correct. I too don't have a theoretical explanation but a practical one. Facebook has emerged BIG from this consequence only. People can see pretty faces anywhere but they tend to incline or attracted towards the faces they see more often. Hence, it's way ahead of any dating/blind dating website. – Pankaj Upadhyay Jul 19 '11 at 05:31
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    Could it be because stupid, dull-witted, girls tend to grab the pyroxide bottle more than others, while smart, intelligent, girls go for a brown colouring? :) – jwenting Jul 19 '11 at 05:37
  • @vartec: Remember, Hollywood has a particular specialty concerning special effects (and covering things up so that fake stuff looks more real), so when it comes to finding such reliable data I'd say the odds are stacked against you by some real pros. – Randolf Richardson Jul 19 '11 at 05:49
  • @Pankaj: Are you blonde? – user unknown Jul 19 '11 at 13:20
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    I guess the reason why Hollywood uses blondes for stupid people is the same why the bad guys in Westerns always wear black hats. Visual clues (subtle or not) are used to tell the audience what these people are. It's just one of the many tropes used in popular culture, see tvtropes.org – Lagerbaer Jul 20 '11 at 00:44
  • I remember seeing a study which showed that people with artificially dyed blonde hair had a reduced IQ compared to a matched group without dyed blonde hair. The same study found no effect from having natural blond hair. I'll see if I can find it... – Nick Sep 13 '12 at 15:09
  • @dmckee A related factor: Females with looks can often use those looks to get others to do things for them. Also, remember that an awful lot of blondes are from a bottle--thus "blondes" selects for those who are enhancing their looks and thus for those more prone to using looks to get what they want. – Loren Pechtel Jul 18 '15 at 22:43

1 Answers1

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If you take a look at the IQ by the country table

enter image description here

... and cross reference it with countries with significant blond population, you'll see that these countries are very close to top.

enter image description here

  • yellow represents 80%+ light hair
  • light orange is 50-79% light hair
  • light brown is 20-49% light hair
  • dark brown is 1-19% light hair
  • black represents no presence of light hair

Note however, that above map refers to natural blond, while stereotype does not make that distinction.

Since there seems to be some confusion, let me explain few things:

  • The claim in the question is that blonds are dumber. Lack of negative correlation of prevalence of natural blond with IQ proves, that in case of natural blonds the claim is false;
  • there are great many definitions of intelligence, it's known that IQ does not measure intelligence directly, but it is highly correlated with it. Even if you do not agree with particular metric, it doesn't change the fact that's its highly correlated.
vartec
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    Ah ha! So, then, it's a matter of jealousy! ;-D – Randolf Richardson Jul 18 '11 at 19:35
  • Looking at the IQ map, it seems Americans aren't mixing the wrong words. May be the IQ level for blondes in America is on the lower side and hence the myth – Pankaj Upadhyay Jul 19 '11 at 05:36
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    Keep in mind that IQ tests are based in part on cultural background. Applying the same test to people from different cultures tends to yield different results (which this map seems to indicate, I don't believe for a moment that the average African is dumber than the average Asian or North American for example, they seem to have set out to prove that blacks are stupid, as by that map the average IQ in Africa is 50% of that in China). – jwenting Jul 19 '11 at 05:36
  • @vartec: If you would have a majority of intelligent people in Group A, and a majority of blond people in Group A as well, this is only an indication for blond people being intelligent, nothing more. Beside: I don't agree with that definition of intelligence, used in the map. – user unknown Jul 19 '11 at 13:20
  • @User: "blond people being intelligent, nothing more" - isn't that enough to answer question "Are blondes really that dumb?" – vartec Jul 19 '11 at 14:59
  • *indication* was the keyword, here. In contrast to *evidence*. – user unknown Jul 19 '11 at 15:28
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    @user: how is high IQ scores from countries with 80% blond population not *evidence*, that claims about blondes being dumber are false? – vartec Jul 19 '11 at 15:30
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    Because it is an average, so the higher IQ might come from the other 20%. They might even overcompensate. If there is no other influence than the hair color, you would be right, but it could be anything. And why are the Italians intelligent without being blond? What makes the difference between Norwegian and Sweden? Look at your maps! – user unknown Jul 19 '11 at 15:38
  • Please **move this to the chat**, thanks :-) – Sklivvz Jul 19 '11 at 15:59
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    -1 You aren't comparing within the same populations. I could find 3 things Scandinavia and Italy have in common to "explain" why we have higher IQ. This might've been interesting if you compared the IQ of blondes in Sweden with non-blondes in Sweden, as it is this is a sherry picked correlation with to many external factors that is glaced over. For all you know the higher IQ countries spend more time in school, have more educational TV or have subtleties in their cultures that makes them favor IQ raising activities. For instance: Sweden is (was?) the most food secure place in the world. – Kit Sunde Jul 19 '11 at 17:02
  • @Kit: your complaint would be valid if the question was *"are blondes **genetically** dumber?"*. As the question does not specify this, there is no reason to discount external factors, only thing that counts is the final result. – vartec Jul 19 '11 at 20:54
  • Yes because there's no genetic differences between blondes and non-blondes so clearly the question isn't about that? The question also doesn't mention fake blondes. – Kit Sunde Jul 20 '11 at 02:34
  • @Kit: Question is if blonds are dumber. Answer is no, blonds (who mostly happen to live in northern Europe) aren't dumber. In fact there is no negative correlation at all. So what's is your point exactly? – vartec Jul 20 '11 at 07:50
  • -1 what Kit said. If you accept this rationale for why blonds are "smart", you'd by extension say that blacks are "dumb" (I don't think so). Cross-cultural comparisons of intelligence are tricky. The question was about the individual level, not the nation level. I find little valid research in a cursory search. This article contains some okay thoughts, but little empirical results http://www.neoteny.org/neoteny/a/coloring.html – Ruben May 30 '12 at 20:29
  • @Ruben: cute, but how does it matter in practice? In practice natural blonds are of north-European descent. Both genetic and cultural. These are real people in real life, not lab experiment in controlled environment. – vartec May 31 '12 at 09:14
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    @vartec Intelligence tests aren't culture-fair, they were meant to differentiate between people in the same culture (originally to assess aptitude for higher education). You can handwave this, because "eh it's just about proving a stupid joke wrong", but I'd hope you wouldn't do that because you might be quoted or linked by someone who wants to prove "Aryan superiority". Not so cute. Also, again, [national comparisons don't speak to the individual level](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_fallacy). – Ruben May 31 '12 at 14:14
  • @Ruben: perception on a person as intelligent or not isn't culture fair either. And again, since were talking about real people living in real world, there is no point in abstracting out real world factors. – vartec May 31 '12 at 15:01
  • @vartec True, but I'd actually think that the dumb blonde stereotype is held by non-blondes in countries where they coexist with blondes, otherwise the hair colour isn't such a salient feature. Even if it isn't so, both of the points hold anyway :-) I'll stop responding now to prevent a "is not" – "is too" conversation. We can move this to the chat if you want me to explain the ecological fallacy etc. to you. Your counterarguments (80%...) don't hold. – Ruben May 31 '12 at 18:01
  • I'd like to see a relation between hair color, actual intelligence, and intelligence assumed by their peers. I wouldn't be surprised if the correlation between hair color and assumed intelligence is much higher than the correlation between hair color and actual intelligence. Many people have learned that acting stupid can be to their advantage. – gnasher729 Jul 18 '15 at 06:50