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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

    Votes: 64 33.0%

  • Not more moral and not more intelligent than others

    Votes: 27 13.9%
  • Total voters
    194

More moral and/or more intelligent than others?

11274 Views 71 Replies 53 Participants Last post by  Wisteria, 
aconite
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.
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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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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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Word Dispenser said:
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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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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cades said:
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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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.
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Jennywocky said:
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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There is psychologist named Jonathan Haidt who believes he and his colleagues have found six universal moral foundations. Although they exist in all known cultures there is a variation, for example with political view and personality. According to this theory it seems you would score high on the Loyalty/betrayal, and Liberty/oppression, and Care/harm dimensions.

I've been meaning to do some kind of poll on that but here is the homepage with a test:Moral Foundations Theory Homepage

And here Haidt is doing his TED talk:
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roughestimate said:
I know a little and I try to live pretty righteously.
I don't pride myself in being above the cut in either, or one of the two will inevitably suffer...won't it ;)?
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Is that your feet? I rarely see anyone who has the same wide spaced toes as I have.
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Fictionalizer said:
My friend is a liberal and I am a conservative. She knows I am more intelligent than her and has even made a comment to me about it. My therapist confirms this. As for morality, we are about equal although we did not always see eye to eye. I was more moral.
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Did you watch the TED lecture of Jonathan Haidt that I linked above? It's really interesting and worth the time. He suggests that the difference between liberals and conservatives is that liberals focus on justice and caring about other people - which conservatives do too - but that they reject authority, ingroup loyalty and purity/sanctity that conservatives embrace. Haidt means that all the great civilizations were built using all these principles and that it's all about finding a balance and a proper implementation of them - if I understand him right.
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BTW, if this topic interests you, feel free to answer what your moral foundations are: http://personalitycafe.com/general-psychology/104325-what-your-moral-foundations.html
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