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What do you think of yourself?

  • More moral, but not more intelligent than others

    Votes: 19 9.8%
  • More moral and more intelligent than others

    Votes: 84 43.3%
  • Not more moral, but more intelligent than others

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  • Not more moral and not more intelligent than others

    Votes: 27 13.9%

More moral and/or more intelligent than others?

11291 Views 71 Replies 53 Participants Last post by  Wisteria
The Muhammad Ali effect, according to wiki:
The Muhammad Ali Effect is a term used in psychology that was named after him when he stated, "I only said I was the greatest, not the smartest" in his autobiography The Greatest: My Own Story. According to this effect, when people are asked to rate their intelligence and moral behavior in comparison to others, people will rate themselves as more moral, but not more intelligent than others.
So, do you agree or not? Because I'm the opposite - I think I'm less moral and more intelligent that most people. Do you think that Enneagram and MBTI might play a role in the answer?
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More intelligent? Yes. More moral? Hell no.
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Hard to tell. There is a measure of intelligence and judging from that I'm clearly above average. But there is no measure of morals, not that I know of anyway.

I guess it could be that feelers have stronger morals than thinkers since their basic interpretation of the world is good and bad as opposed to the thinker's true or false, although I suspect a lot of thinkers would disagree. ENTP and ESTP probably behave more immorally than average on account of their impulsivity.
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More intelligent and more moral, however I never act on my moral.
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Everybody's got a different set of morals.

I'm sure in tons of cases, a Thinker and a Feeler would agree and even share some of their morals. They just acquire and process those morals in different ways. And I think that a thinker may be more likely to change their mind if more information comes along that either supplements said morals, or changes them. Or completely annihilates them.

I'm not certain if I have a firm grasp on the concepts of feeler and thinker, though.

I mean, there are a few morals that I've acquired that haven't budged, and I'd imagine I'm a thinker. But maybe this is only my over-active imagination. In either case, I will continue to masquerade as a thinker until I think I'm not a thinker, thoughtfully!
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Everybody's got a different set of morals.

I'm sure in tons of cases, a Thinker and a Feeler would agree and even share some of their morals. They just acquire and process those morals in different ways. And I think that a thinker may be more likely to change their mind if more information comes along that either supplements said morals, or changes them. Or completely annihilates them.

I'm not certain if I have a firm grasp on the concepts of feeler and thinker, though.

I mean, there are a few morals that I've acquired that haven't budged, and I'd imagine I'm a thinker. But maybe this is only my over-active imagination. In either case, I will continue to masquerade as a thinker until I think I'm not a thinker, thoughtfully!
You may well be a thinker but in my opinion the MBTI seems to overtype all the preferences that are less common - I, N, T, and P. The majority of men are supposed to be thinkers but I can't see that in real life. I test pretty even on the TF scale in spite of being a very clear F.

I agree that a thinker is more likely to change their moral position in ligth of new information. But I suspect morals are more synonymous to ethics for thinkers, rules of social behavior rather than something that necessarily boils down to right and wrong.
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You may well be a thinker but in my opinion the MBTI seems to overtype all the preferences that are less common - I, N, T, and P. The majority of men are supposed to be thinkers but I can't see that in real life. I test pretty even on the TF scale in spite of being a very clear F.

I agree that a thinker is more likely to change their moral position in light of new information. But I suspect morals are more synonymous to ethics for thinkers, rules of social behavior rather than something that necessarily boils down to right and wrong.
Very succinctly put.

I couldn't imagine being anywhere outside of the realm of -N-P. I don't really fit in to any types outside of those guidelines.

I fill in the T because it makes the most sense; it's really how I seem to operate. But, it took me quite awhile to be even mostly sure of this.

E is because, even if I've been a loner, I've always been much more happy and energetic with company. I really don't like being alone for very long. Lots of people seem to need time away from others, everybody. I've never been like that. I'm always happy if there are people in the immediate vicinity, one or more, it matters not.

I'm still kinda expecting people to jump out and go, ''IMPOSTER!!!''

I'm preparing a proper reaction to this when it happens.
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More intelligent than others? Yes.
More moral than others? No. There are definitely people that are way more moral than I am.
I'd say I'm more moral than most and I would say more intelligent but I know there are lots more intelligent then me. Plus education does not equal intelligence. But this probably happens because you can always imagine some super smart people somewhere and think well there are a lot of people smarter, even if it is only a minority.

The more education the more moral i think, but more education doesn't really mean more intelligence.
Just like typically the more educated people get the more liberal they are (which focus on moral issues) but that doesn't mean they are any smarter.
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I'm mildly ashamed to admit yes to both, but oh well, lol. Chalk me up to receive some cocky bastard points, please :p
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I don't really think anyone is going to say that they're 'less' intelligent than others. Also I have a difficult time believing when somebody say they're not smart/intelligent that that is really true. It takes somebody who is very sharp to be this self-aware and candid with their shortcomings.
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I don't really think anyone is going to say that they're 'less' intelligent than others. Also I have a difficult time believing when somebody say they're not smart/intelligent that that is really true. It takes somebody who is very sharp to be this self-aware and candid with their shortcomings.
Good point. When I imagine someone I perceive as unintelligent, I think of oblivious people. The ones who have no insight into themselves whatsoever, and some of those people are technially "intelligent", but not in my book. Being able to do differential equations in your head, but zero insight into yourself qualifies as ignorance to me.
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PerC, where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average.
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more intelligent than most everyone I have encountered in my life so far, but certainly not more moral. morals are pretty ridiculous if you really think about it. they are 'illusions'... part of the human condition, I suppose.
I'd say I'm more moral than most and I would say more intelligent but I know there are lots more intelligent then me. Plus education does not equal intelligence. But this probably happens because you can always imagine some super smart people somewhere and think well there are a lot of people smarter, even if it is only a minority.

The more education the more moral i think, but more education doesn't really mean more intelligence.
Just like typically the more educated people get the more liberal they are (which focus on moral issues) but that doesn't mean they are any smarter.
There is some research to suggest that liberals have higher intelligence, which is in line with them scoring higher on Big Five Openness, a trait strongly correlated to IQ. This of course should not be construed as evidence that the liberal position is somehow objectively better.

But are liberals morally superior? I can't say I see that. They just seem to focus on other questions than conservatives.
both :wink:
I don't really think anyone is going to say that they're 'less' intelligent than others. Also I have a difficult time believing when somebody say they're not smart/intelligent that that is really true. It takes somebody who is very sharp to be this self-aware and candid with their shortcomings.
The important difference is that it doesn't say "are you not as smart?" It says "Are you more smart?" In other words, being average doesn't make you stupid.

I generally consider myself more moral than the average, but I see too many people being apathetic. More intelligent, not really.
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There is some research to suggest that liberals have higher intelligence, which is in line with them scoring higher on Big Five Openness, a trait strongly correlated to IQ. This of course should not be construed as evidence that the liberal position is somehow objectively better.

But are liberals morally superior? I can't say I see that. They just seem to focus on other questions than conservatives.

I agree with this. I mean it just seems so true. Liberals are all around just more open-minded, which, if you ask me, just results in a more intelligent person, for obvious reasons really. A more moral person, not so much... because of all the influences of the world I suppose. At least that is how I see it.
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Well I see my intelligence as average, but average is still better than most people so I may have to change my answer~~lol
Everybody's got a different set of morals.
Yeah, I mean what is "moral" anyway? Doing what you believe is right?
So it doesn't even matter whether your morals emulate the conventional wisdom, you still have some.
(For example, I would consider "intellectual honesty" to be a typical moral for INTPs.)
So I think the question is vague and misleading as proposed.

That being said, @Staffan's comments seem right on... I think that Thinkers are more likely to "deduce" their morals from information; the information changes, the moral will change. Feelers are actually keying off something internal to themselves and when that anchor changes, the moral changes, and external information can be ignored if the inner moral compass is still firmly valuing what it has always valued.

For my morals, I typically try to:

1. Keep my promises even at my own expense.
2. Retain intellectual honesty regardless of my feelings.
3. Be open to other people and their experiences, without simply writing them off.
4. Treat other people with dignity rather than dehumanizing them.

But these are broad philanthropical morals, rather than "don't lie, don't drink, don't murder, don't swear, etc." or uttering words like, "Well, I don't do THAT."
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