Intellectual giftedness and lack of or inept social skills?

dr.selfhelp wrote:I'm no Psychologist but this issue is fascinating to me.
I don't know if there is any connection at all between these two but i was wondering if anyone out there did.

In my personal experience dealing with people who are highly intellectually gifted, they often lack basic social skills such as understanding personal boundries, understanding sarcasm or wit, etc.

Maybe I'm just crazy but I can't seem to get this out of my head.

Thanks for looking or replying.

Dr.selfhelp

This all depends. Very gifted people can have very good social skills, but can also have mood disorders such a low self-esteem which makes them sensitive to "jokes". Having a low self-esteem is not always in he mind, it can be in the body failing to produce feel good neurotransmitters.

dr.selfhelp wrote:In my personal experience dealing with people who are highly intellectually gifted, they often lack basic social skills such as understanding personal boundries, understanding sarcasm or wit, etc.


Dr.selfhelp

EI and IQ are two different measurements of the human mind. Your EI score and IQ score have no relationship with each other and servers as no indication of potential outcome. If someone has an IQ of 140 , doesnt mean they will have an EI score in the 90th percentile.

Further complicated by the prospects that a person with a high Ei score has the ability to project different personas to folks around them. it could be the case that you have the counselor persona and some one with a high EI score may be projecting a cave man personal just to satisfy your ego need to counsel. Basically, you really can't judge a persons Ei by direct observation of them....you have to judge their EI by observing the influence they leave on others.

dr.selfhelp wrote:I'm no Psychologist but this issue is fascinating to me.
I don't know if there is any connection at all between these two but i was wondering if anyone out there did.

In my personal experience dealing with people who are highly intellectually gifted, they often lack basic social skills such as understanding personal boundries, understanding sarcasm or wit, etc.

Maybe I'm just crazy but I can't seem to get this out of my head.

Thanks for looking or replying.

Dr.selfhelp

I don't know what your question is. However, maybe you would like a reply from someone who does have "high intelligence" credentials. I do not call it being gifted, because it's no more of a gift than a pretty face. It's just something you're born with. The lucky ones are taught social skills by their families and environment just like everybody else, without undue attention to their intelligence. The less lucky ones are encouraged through either positive or negative rewards to overfocus on the intellect, and don't do well with other people. I don't know what my IQ is, but I was accepted into Mensa and saw both types there. I know two people right now who are far more intelligent than me. One of them has great social skills and the other is a disaster.

I think you notice the dysfunctional overintelligent more, because the socially aware overintelligent hide it better. In my personal experience, high intelligence has been a problem to be overcome, not a "gift."