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How do smart people "find their level" in conversation?
I am interested in identifying how smart people (gifted/exceptional or whatever word we’re using this week) people recognize each other.
I have observed that they can identify each other relatively quickly, and even broadly determine where they sit relative to each other while average or “less smart” people can usually identify that they are dealing with “smart” people but not necessarily the extent to which they are smart.
Some things I have observed that are “tells” of being “quicker”:
1. A willingness to leave the conversational basics behind and explore deeper into the subject (and if the person they are conversing with does not follow, drop back to the level the other can cope with).
2. Anchoring - taking the current topic of conversation and looking for a frame of reference they are already familiar with to understand it better.
3. Quips and parallel commentary - fleeting comments that are not meant to derail the main thrust of the conversation.
Any other keys you have observed in your experience?
Andrew Lundsgaard
We often get the values and abilities wrong, but not the intelligence.
Astra Singh 20+
Let me firstly say that I enjoy your views and always read your comments when I come across them.
Much has already been addressed on this topic but I would like to add my two cents: With regard to the ‘smart people’ and that in relation to the three ‘tells’ you posted I take ‘smart people’ to mean gifted conversationalists and not just IQ smart. (Since those ‘tells’ pertain to face-to-face moments and not, for example, digital conversation like this one.) A gifted conversationalist also has high EQ and is able to engage others from all walks of life on any topic in animated conversation.
With regard to your remark: ‘I have observed that they can identify each other relatively quickly…’This, I feel, may have to do with the topic of interest (e.g. a common vocation) and not necessarily with being ‘smart’. I feel that everyone is smart in their own way….and some people are just good people-persons.
People usually sort out circumstances, people, topics etc. that they feel comfortable with and/or motivated by. For example: I was exhilarated in finding the TED forum because it offers so many great discussions…that I don’t easily and readily encounter elsewhere. However, I haven’t been able to get some of my ‘smart’ friends to join yet. But that may be another topic :)
Do you also have ‘smart-people tells’ when it comes to digital conversation?
Kind regards,
Astra
Gisela McKay 30+
I think it was identified elsewhere in the thread that there are people who seem to be able to pick up on conclusions or next steps even before you finish outlining the premises - and this can take place both online and in person. Sentences (usually in person) such as "Ahh, I see where you are going with that." are signs that someone has taken the threads you are weaving, pulled them together with information (experience, past conversation) they already have stored in their minds and put the pieces together.
It could be argued that that is area of expertise specific, but more than that, I have experienced it as simple induction or deduction (reasoning) even where they do not necessarily have great depth of experience in that field.
I don't know that I would limit it to people who are gifted conversationalists - while that certainly may be one of the "multiple intelligences".
Alex Smith
E G 10+
Gisela McKay 30+
(Of course, I wouldn't consider immediately dismissing things out of hand without contemplating them to be a particularly positive sign. But that's just my opinion.)
Astra Singh 20+
The foundation of education: No question is foolish! It all depends on how you wish to address it.
Kind regards,
Astra
Jason Hinchliffe
Thomas Jones 100+
I would disagree. Your reply, Jason, assumes there is only one reason to ask a question (to solve it.)
There are many reasons to ask questions: social bonding, curiosity, clarification, "testing the waters" to see what others think; checking for other, unthought of perspectives; misunderstanding, teaching, and so on.
And, in my opinion, there are no "foolish questions." There are, however, foolish answers.
E G 10+
Jason Hinchliffe
Obviously in a situation where there in attempt to solve a problem, this would be untrue, but frankly, I think it's pretty obvious that's outside of the scope of mmy comment. So I'm not sure what you're disagreeing with.
Do you not feel in an educational environment, that is behooves students to try and figure things out for themselves first before asking?
Thomas Jones 100+
No. I think it behooves us to make education an exciting and enthralling undertaking. We do not do this if we make the student feel foolish (for any reason.)
[In general, we do not make education compelling for any number of other reasons. But that is a topic for another conversation.]
I have responded to questions I thought were foolish only to find the questioner had a unique, and quite intelligent, perspective that was outside of my frame of reference.
As an aside, I do not think the object of education should be to find answers. At least not in the conventional sense of the term.
Western education is primarily based on the principle of "Right/Wrong." There are questions and they have a right answer - one right answer; and they have many wrong answers.
This practice teaches us to learn and remember information (at least until we take a test;) it does not teach us to think.
I think asking questions, even foolish ones - and encouraging such inquiries - does more to promote and teach active and creative thinking than does our current (Western and Chinese) system of education.
Astra Singh 20+
Thomas has replied so much more eloquently to your remark than I could, so I will just take shelter under that umbrella with a ‘thumbs up’ :)I enjoy the discussion and your points of view, thank you both for that.
In an attempt to spiral this conversation back to the original conversation topic by Gisela one remark to: ‘Do you not feel in an educational environment, that is behooves students to try and figure things out for themselves first before asking?’ In my opinion it depends on the circumstances. If you take ‘an educational environment’ to mean a school or similar institution, then ‘yes’ because there students are trained to function that way.
However, to me anywhere can be an educational environment. Some people grow up with a ‘Why?’ period in their youth. Some are silent and observe more. We learn differently and we express ourselves differently. And of course it isn’t a black and white vision and certainly not a case of ‘always’ or ‘never’.
To me a smart person does ask questions, when something is unclear to him/her (as you are doing on this TED forum) and it would be ideal if the person addressed receives that question with enough love and wisdom to provide a respectful answer.
With respect,
Astra
Farrukh Yakubov 50+
Conrad Green
Tiffany Ard
This approach has a bonus: If you meet someone whose lies convince you, you won't even realize they were lying. So you get to go through life thinking that you never meet anyone smarter than yourself. :-P
Tiffany Ard
Does this person contribute spontaneous insight and original ideas to the conversation?
Are their jokes sophisticated, original and surprising? (or literal and unoriginal?)
Is this person curious about the world?
Is this person open to new ideas?
How does this person act when he doesn't know something or turns out to be wrong?
Can this person deal with grey areas?
Does this person follow side trails in the conversation?
Does the person acknowledge nuances?
Am I hearing a lot of bad logic? Does the person defend failed logic?
Has this person tried to convince me to attend their church and/or try homeopathy?
Borrah Campbell
Tiffany Ard
They are sort of meta-words that mean "I'm thinking about this" or "I'm about to tell you something new"
Borrah Campbell
Conrad Green
Gisela McKay 30+
Granted, there are questions with relatively "stock" answers, but one of the reasons I get interviewers to send me a list of questions that I will be asked on air before-hand is so that they do not ask me something that requires I mull over and assemble an answer on the fly. It is true that most interviews don't go in that direction, but it has lead to dead air in the past while I run through my mental filing cabinets for the correct answer.
In one-to-one conversation, I prefer people who refrain from asking banal questions (ones to which I have the answers immediately at hand).
Salim Solaiman 50+
Following the discussion below , it seems in some comments SMART is synonymous to INTELLIGENCE, if it is so than I am a bit confused.
I know some highly intelligent (at least with in my domain) persons who being very introverted or non- communicative , don't have that much frriends, if someone else is not pro-active they might live a solitary life. Being intelligent they work best alone.
Autumn Frisco 10+
Salim Solaiman 50+
Having said that I don't mean that a person with High IQ can't be SMART person. Definitely s/he can and there are plenty examples, and that's a golden match of two qualities in one.
Austin R 20+
jaeyun hwang
Smart people learn about everything they can. They have opinions in fields they are not experts in. The understand words like pharmacology, string theorem, uncertainty principle, metallic hydrogen, thorium reactors, cost benefit analysis, e.t.c.
If a person has an understanding of these specialized words then one can judge them to be smart (they might not be though) if a person doesn't understand then you use simpler language (and in the process get frustrated).
Callum Vlex
What I do seek out is engaging conversation, and I think most intelligent people do, they'll look further into a topic to try and find out more interesting scenarios or conclusions. Because intelligent people want their conversations to be interesting for them they generally make the conversation more interesting for the other person.
If you want something (and have a kind heart) you will give it.
so simply put, "like attracts like" but due to the higher rate of interesting conversations to be had with more intelligent people they will generally coverge into a group, but due to the fact that it is just a higher rate, you will obviously find individual that don't match this generalisation.
But what would I know I'm Just a kid.
Juan Ignacio Gonzalez Caralt
Now going a bit further I would say that a rewarding experience may be achieved:
- when their levels of education + experience are similar
- when their interest + knowledge in a particular subject matter is high
I would also say that mutual affection and level of honesty are included in the equation, but I don't know.
Christophe Cop 500+
The idea of 'like attracts like' and the urge to find comparable peers is a strong human motivator.
Smart people seek smart people
Rich people seek rich people
same goes for beauty, art, sports, interests, status,...
How do we recognize people who are like us? Probably our stereotyping skills are a first good thing to look at as an explanation... mutual acceptance during/after meeting some-one would be a logical next step.
But maybe we can put it to the test?
- try and bring a group of people together
- do a matching of their profiles to predict in what cluster of people they would end up.
- if only the intelligent end up clustered together, and no other personality traits are explanatory for forming of groups, you have strong support of your theory. If intelligence is a worse predictor than other traits, one needs to assume the more general hypothesis of 'like seeks like'.
Aaron Winkler
:)
Rainer Hoffmann
Michael Bushong
The actual intelligence measurement seems to be an unconscious dance we do with each other, each taking a turn ramping up the conversation until the highest level both parties are comfortable with is reached. Now I don't have any qualms whatsoever about talking with people with less "smarts" in my field. In fact they sometimes have insights that I completely overlooked, just as a jeep can go places a Ferrari wouldn't dare tread. But sometimes it's nice speeding down the road with another Ferrari and giving your engine a good workout.
Alyson Irvin
Of course sometimes people are lost in thought, so I mean that when they are engaged with someone else you will notice those things.
In conversation, a dead give away is flexibility. More average minds have trouble speculating and tend to be more inflexible in their thinking. Curiosity is also a dead give away. More intelligent people are more keen to understand your point, even if they then disagree, than the more average mind. They ask more questions, generally. Vocabulary, the use of jargon or labels, etc., I do not find useful in determining someones actual intelligence, although, too heavy a reliance upon these things is generally a give away to me that I am dealing with a very educated average mind.
Oscar Garcia
Gisela McKay 30+
When you look around you at the people you have deliberately selected as friends, do they irritate you with pointless chatter? Yeah, I didn't think so. I have a couple of friends who, frankly, I think talk too much (for my taste) but at least the content is interesting.
I get the whole Zen "you must learn to transcend your circumstances" thing (which really conflicts with the whole "be in the moment" thing, doesn't it?), but if I have to find my "happy place" to spend time with you, it just becomes much easier not to spend time with you, doesn't it? I'm also pretty sure most people don't want to be transcended.
Renzo Bruni
Gisela McKay 30+
For me, finding what I need in moments of "too many words, not enough content" involves tuning the person out. ;-)
I'm sort of being facetious, but mostly not. There's a reason why I run my own business.
Aaron Winkler
As has been said, "Smart" comes in many varieties. This needs to be stressed. If the definition of "smart" is to be: "someone selected by a committee to attend a certain function or institution" then we must be clear that this is exactly what we mean. There is nothing wrong with this definition. Perhaps we can add to it additional points like "well-educated," "history of accomplishment," etc.
But if this is what you are looking for when you seek out other "smart" people, you should be aware that professional con-men often seek out self-designated "smart" people when looking for a target. This is because people who know they are "smart" in one area (like business operations or particle physics) are convinced that they must therefore be smart in other areas. This false confidence makes them easy prey to "confidence" men, who simply ply their pride and take their money. As is said, pride goes before a fall.
Also, on a more personal note, perhaps the most impressive individual I have ever met would not fit into any category of "smart" people. We became friends when I had a summer job at a fast food restaurant. without any formal education or access to philosophy or history this friend would say the most profound and beautiful things. He was small and African-Anerican, yet had an enormous caucasian wife who he loved. both their family were against it. He said, "I just don't understand why they care what color her skin is." After a theft at work he said, "Why would you steal from someone else? You'd hate it if they stole from you." And he meant it. And he lived accordingly. Staggering stuff.
So, Gisele, while you may find exciting people with "sparkle" in their eyes and effective co-workers with a history of accomplishment, you should also be on the lookout for good "friends". Which, I admit, is just as vague a term as "smart."
:)
Gisela McKay 30+
As for friends, mine tend to be culturally varied, but philosophically similar - you can select your friends far easier than you can limit the people you interact with on a day-to-day basis. The philosophical similarity is more stylistic than say creating an echo chamber (because where would be the fun in that?), but if you are going to make an argument I disagree with, you'd better have some damned good reasons because I'm not all that good about biting my tongue for more than a few minutes.
As my best friends will tell you, if I am this crotchety now, I am going to be one hell of a scary old lady. ;-)
quinn Nguyen
Shokrullah Amiri 10+
Gisela McKay 30+
I have observed an ability to not allow themselves to be defined by a failure and no need to hide what didn't work for them in a specific situation. It may be because they've learned early that certain situations require brute force, while others can be finessed, and others solutions are a combination of the two.
But "does this person speak freely of things that have failed" is probably a good clue.
Autumn Frisco 10+
Leila Oicles
I feel the issue here is not about finding someone who lets say matches your intellligence, but in finding a common connection. The issue of levels, or dropping back to a level another can cope with etc, well that is a percetion thing too wouldn't you say? How do you know another wasn't dropping back something for you because you dont seem to "get it" so to speak. Two intelligent people where one has deeper knowledge of mathematics, and the other a deeper knowledge of law and ethics may not have a very deep conversation on either subject for they fail to connect, but that doesn't mean neither is any less intelligent than the other.
I feel it is a matter of perception and connection.
Fritzie Reisner 100+
Brijesh A Shah
Seth Powell 10+
One thing I have not seen mentioned on here but that I have also experienced is the - intelligent laugh. A bit of knowing, a drop of cruelty, a dash of incredulity, with equal parts of joy and malice. As a corollary, I believe that intelligent people also share a heightened sense of irony which serves as an alternative sense of humor that they can use in conversation to identify one another.
SEP
Joe Delsen 20+
Gisela McKay 30+
I do think that there is a difference between "smart" and "wise" - where wisdom would have a measure of foresight and (in a perfect world) a broader vision that ones own personal bottom line.
Joe Delsen 20+
Alan Greenspan was probably the smartest person in that chamber but stating the obvious was not the smartest way to deal with the apparent problem (financial crisis)?
It looks very interesting also today that the dynamics and levels of our conversations resonate with degrees of relevance as our problems progress from apparent crises to real crises.
I venture into simplifying my problems and possibly our problems (when I can) and juggle only simple ideas that my mind can only comprehend - the power of our hearts and minds, the principles of love, hope, trust, freedom, justice and truth and perhaps the credibility of wisdom that we can agree on today and make us really smart to value long-term solutions, happy sacrifices and the power of clear vision of a just and peaceful world.
Thomas Jones 100+
You make a good point. I make distinctions between "smart," "intelligent," and "wise."
Some of the smartest people I know would "fail" an IQ test.
And some of the most intelligent people I know do very "unsmart" things from time to time (some more than others!)
Wisdom? Well, that's for another conversation.
Bob Van Oosterhout 20+
That said, I agree with Thomas that kindness trumps intelligence. I would much rather have a conversations with a kind person who was less intelligent than a highly intelligent person who is unkind.
Henry Chang