Published by mark.tyrrell November 19th, 2007 in psychology-research. 0 Comments Edit

‘Researchers discovered what might be called the “bimbo delusion” by studying men’s ability to complete general knowledge tests after exposure to different women. The academics found that men’s scores fell after they were shown pictures of blondes’. This article seems to show that we fall in line with the unconscious stereotype we hold about someone.

The comments re this article kind of miss the point me thinks. The argument degenerates into whether blondes are dumb or not-which is a bit of a dumb response to the article. Of course there are plenty of super-bright blondes. What to me is fascinating about the research cited here is the power of unconsciously held stereotypes to determine behaviour and even IQ score.

In my ‘Suggestibility: How to be an Einstein’ article I cite other research that shows we: walk slower after exposure to elderly people (even if we ourselves are very young) and perform better on IQ scores if we have just been exposed to a collection of ‘people who look like scientists’.

It is the stereotype that is important. If we are shown just one picture of a super brainy individual (such as Einstein) we may perform less well on a test because we tend to distance ourselves from ‘the one off genius’ but tend to subconsciously want to ‘join the group’ of brainy types.

So the type of person we surround ourselves with (even in photo/picture form) is very important to our ongoing intelligence and even physical health and fitness it seems.

Mark