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All 21 posts   Subject: IQ Above 100 and Can't Get a Job? Wonderlic!   Please login to post   Thread expires   Down

 
    MargaretThatcher
(Hive Bee)
11-11-04 12:24
No 541012
User Picture 
      IQ Above 100 and Can't Get a Job? Wonderlic!     

http://www.anxietyculture.com/ratmaze.htm

Intelligence tests are often used by employers to weed out brainless job candidates, but an increasing number of UK companies use a test designed to identify candidates who are too smart. The idea behind the Wonderlic Personnel Test is that people can be too stupid or too bright for a job. If too bright, they might become bored and leave, or they might spread a mood of frustration and disenchantment throughout the workplace.


Employers who use the Wonderlic test take the threat of over-intelligent workers very seriously. For example, many US police force job applicants have been rejected for scoring too highly in the test (one applicant sued in federal court for unfair disqualification).


The extensive use of the Wonderlic test (it's the world's most widely used employee intelligence test) has a sinister implication. The corporate world seems fully aware that most jobs require relatively low intelligence. High intelligence is seen as a hindrance, because there's no way that intelligent people would tolerate 40 hours of tedious monotony every week. It follows that full employment - the holy grail of conservative politicians - would require low intelligence in most of the population. But the only guaranteed way to achieve this is mass lobotomy.


The majority of jobs being created seem to be low-paid and soul-destroying: telesales, security, office administration, etc. If large numbers of intelligent people are forced into tedious jobs, the frustration they feel must be managed and contained, otherwise their employers won't profit. After herding people into office buildings, how do you keep them productive, week after week, in activities which insult their intelligence?


To an extent, industry has always had this problem. Captains of industry have forever been on the lookout for ways to increase management control of worker productivity. Modern psychology, in particular, has been a happy hunting ground for company bosses wanting to maximise performance and discipline.


One branch of psychology has provided important advances in management control. In the early 1900s, behaviourism revolutionised psychology by focusing entirely on objectively measurable human responses to stimuli. Subjective mental states like happiness or boredom were dismissed as irrelevant to the scientific process. At the same time, a scientific management approach was taking hold in industry - for example, time and motion studies emphasised observable, measurable worker behaviour. The job of both the psychologist and the manager was to manipulate the human environment to produce the desired results.


Behaviourism treated people like rats in a maze, and it wasn't too long before Gestalt psychologists challenged this reductionist, mechanistic view. Scientific management was also criticised: studies conducted in the 1930s showed that worker productivity was not determined entirely by the workplace, but had as much to do with the feelings and perceptions of workers.


During the 1950s, behaviourism became popular again, largely due to the work of B.F. Skinner. After a lot of experimenting on rats and pigeons, Skinner made some important advances on classical Pavlovian conditioning (he developed the concept of "operant conditioning"). Skinner's advanced conditioning techniques found their way into industry by way of organisational behaviour modification and contingency management.


Modern office technology provides managers with the ultimate behaviourist tool: continuous remote monitoring of employee activity. There's nowhere to hide anymore. And we shouldn't be fooled by company PR about sensitivity to the feelings of employees. In spite of occasional management trends towards a warmer, more humanistic approach (consideration of the needs and goals of individuals, etc), behaviourism remains the favourite approach of those who like to be in control.


Another relevant area of psychology is cognitive dissonance, which sheds light on the peculiar psychological torture experienced by many office workers. Cognitive dissonance is a term for what happens when we think or act in ways which contradict our self-image. For example, some job roles require us to behave in an "out of character" way. This can be uncomfortable, embarrassing and stressful. We normally escape the discomfort of cognitive dissonance by distracting ourselves (get a coffee, read a newspaper, etc), but with no distractions available, we experience a kind of restless, self-loathing ennui.


Office jobs supply the two main ingredients of mental agony: cognitive dissonance and prolonged monotony. This diabolical combination is probably the biggest source of psychological suffering in Western civilisation, leading to vast amounts of stress. Dissonance is the mysterious factor which turns boredom into a major health hazard.


Our cult of Individualism makes us particularly prone to cognitive dissonance because of our need to see ourselves as stable, self-contained beings. We regard personal identity as something unchangeable and absolute - a view which ignores the whole of modern psychology. Consequently, we underestimate the role of social setting in influencing our behaviour.


If you spend a lot of time in the same social setting, it's eventually going to get to you. If you join the army with an expectation of remaining aloof from the military mentality, then you're in for a nasty shock. Anyone starting an office job, expecting to escape office politics, corporate-speak, employee pettiness and chronic boredom, is going to have a hard time coming to terms with their own behaviour in that environment.


Due to the nature of modern workplaces (authority hierarchies, politics, tangled communication, boredom), employees often do irrational things. For example: concealing what they're doing from their boss, acting evasively, making dubious excuses, telling lies, subtly redirecting blame, feeling intense resentment over trivial matters, reporting that everything is fine when it isn't, etc. Obviously this kind of behaviour doesn't fit the beliefs we have about ourselves as essentially good, decent, rational and professional.


How can you come to terms with your pathetic employee-persona if you see yourself as basically honest and dignified? The only way to deal with your "out of character" behaviour is to justify and rationalise it. But that means making excuses, which is even more undignified. The only real escape from this torture is to quit your job.


A smart person with a boring, pointless job (ie a fairly typical job) suffers the crippling cognitive dissonance of: "I am intelligent - most of my days are spent in meaningless stupidity". If there is no choice but to continue the job (due to money needs and a harsh labour market), more dissonance arises: "I am a free person - I cannot escape this situation".


Most companies promote the idea of freedom with endless corporate jargon about "choice" and "opportunity". This seems like a crude attempt to hide the fact that employees have no free choice. At most, they have an economic dilemma: continue the job or suffer the humiliation of welfare.


We're like rats in a behaviourist maze. Behaviourism describes the external control: the supply or withdrawal of money and social status. Cognitive dissonance describes the inner state of mind: confusion, discomfort and impotence. Together, they contain the potentially vast social discontent resulting from compulsory full employment.


Cognitive dissonance could be dispersed if we replaced the word "employee" with "slave". Then there'd be no confusion about our slave-identities. Most people would want to see slavery reduced rather than extended. Full "employment" would be recognised as full slavery. At that point there would probably be a social consensus to dismantle the behaviourist mechanisms that keep us enslaved.

Are you now, or have you ever been a Liberal? YES / NO
 
 
 
 
    dumbjanitor
(Hive Bee)
11-11-04 18:54
No 541059
      dead on!     

I love your posts thatcher, that is so dead on its not even funny. I love how all thses brain washed people have actually been tricked into thinking that anone else who isn't "working" (slave) is a worthless "bum" (free). I've thought alot about all this, everyone is like a trained dog. I think alot of bees would be suprised how much behaviourism has been amped up in schools. Your tuaght from the very begining that you have a "choice", you can do what your told and not make any mistakes, or your a "problem" that needs "reconditioning", through progams and such. I mean, what i'm saying is nothing new, everyone knows they are a slave. The thing that pisses me off is the elusion of choice. Everyone in america has the "freedom" and "choice" to be whatever they want, except if you live in a poor neighborhood, except if you have bad parents, except if you have health problems. Yeah everyone has a choice if they want to be slave of the year every year untill they graduate, AND THEN your the top slave with all the medals and certificates, and trophies. Its so sad. Thats why this site and others like it are enemy number one to the establishemnt. It actually gives freedom, real freedom. Freedom of the mind and if your a "criminal" financial feedom. Thats why there's the war on drugs becuase its an uncontrolled variable. Too many people slip by the cracks of survailence to have freedom.
 
 
 
 
    midway
(Hive Bee)
11-11-04 22:04
No 541091
      thats really dreadful.     

thats really dreadful. Ive often wondered how long it would take for the wealthy to begin to show seperate genetic traits from the impoverished slave race.....then again maybe im going to far with that one heheheh.crazyfrown
 
 
 
 
    StraightEdge
(Hive Addict)
11-12-04 02:05
No 541136
      If a candidate is smart enough, they will...     

If a candidate is smart enough, they will learn to fake their answers on the test to make it look as though they are of average intelligence.
 
 
 
 
    dumbjanitor
(Hive Bee)
11-12-04 06:15
No 541168
      employee call tests     

has anyone ever had to take a slave wage job phone quiz before they were guarunteed employment? the questions they ask are so funny, "have you ever taken lsd?", "have you ever taken speedballs?", "have you ever thought of stealing somthing from your past jobs?", "have you ever thought about cuase bodily injury to a co-worker?". My girlfreind actually failed one of these tests simply becuase they ask so many questions, your bound to accidentally hit the wrong button, showing your incompetence.
 
 
 
 
    kingsofsleep
(Hive Addict)
11-12-04 06:38
No 541174
User Picture 
      common sense     

Just answer the way your mom would want you to.

Fuck, your girlfriend said yes she had taken drugs or something along those lines?

Uhh...not smart.

Cui peccare licet peccat minus - One who is allowed to sin, sins less. (Ovid)
 
 
 
 
    Organikum
(Wonderful Personality)
11-12-04 13:04
No 541223
      These tests would be a good thing if there...     

These tests would be a good thing if there wasnt the problem that for many persons seeking a job its a question of taking almost any job to avoid poverty.
But is there any reason to prefer somebody because of intelligence?
Have more intelligent persons a RIGHT to be preferred over those less blessed?
Actually no I would say.

An evil point behind is that these tests take down those who are a little bit to intelligent. Really bright ones inform themselves on the different available tests and get the systematics used. Then every test is to beat.
Since quite some time IQ tests also try to test for social competence, this shouldnt be forgotten, and its just a question how this is rated in regards to the technical IQ.
But as told before, its actually ok to search for the person fittest for a certain job, not for the most "intelligent" person. In a world with enough jobs available or more preferable in a world where "unemployed" doesnt automatically say "poor", this way of testing is a better one.

The part of the article referring to highly controlled office work as unnatural, stupid and minddestroying is right on the point of course.
But replacing "employee" with "slave" would be absolutely wrong. The owner of a slave in high cultures has had far higher responsibility towards the slave than a boss of an employee would ever accept to take over (a few exceptions exist though). Think of a horse for which you dont have to provide food, stable and medicines but which does this for itself and shows up every morning to plough your field, but only when you need it. And you just pay the horse little and only when it shows up. And there are many other horses who are willing to take over the job as there are more horses than fields to plough. Wouldnt this be perfect? (provided we would live in a world where fields are still ploughed by horses of course, but its just a fine picture...)

Anarchie ist Ordnung ohne Herrschaft
 
 
 
 
    hypo
(Balanced Ego)
11-12-04 13:20
No 541226
      hmmm...     

what we learn from this:
if the employment office sends you to a job interview and you don't
want it, you have to score as high as possible on the intelligence test
and as low as possible on the social competence test.
good to know!
hey, maybe intelligence will soon be treated as inability to work - i'm
sure highschool grades would drastically improve.

HΨ=EΨ
 
 
 
 
    ppiglet
(Stranger)
11-12-04 14:43
No 541237
      Keep it to yourself     

Usually bringing up the fact that you have an IQ closer to 200 than to 100 has yielded negative reactions. Usually frowning and annoying questions like "Really? What's it like?". I once got even called to a job interview because and later the guy told me that the only reason he called me because he wanted to see a "genius". Never bring up your intelligence. Never ever in a million years.

Oh, shit. Seems I just did. Guess I'm not that smart after all frown
 
 
 
 
    Osmium
(Stoni's sexual toy)
11-12-04 15:15
No 541241
User Picture 
      For years the US army used IQ and other ...     

For years the US army used IQ and other ability tests to assign soldiers to certain jobs. It apparently worked pretty well, until they found out that the testing and job assignment process was flawed and had several built-in errors. For many years they had assigned the wrong people to many different jobs. When they looked at how effective those wrongly assigned people were in those jobs they shouldn't have been given they found out that they did pretty well. That's because people can adapt. I have worked in all kinds of different jobs, with people who had academic degrees and others who didn't even finish school. Unless you're a complete jerk (or the other person a complete moron) you can get along or even become friends with pretty much everyone. And unless some stuff is completely over your head everyone can solve problems, especially if they are kind of recurring.

BUSH/CHENEY 2004! After all, it ain't my country!
www.american-buddha.com/addict.war.1.htm
 
 
 
 
    geezmeister
(Of Counsel)
11-12-04 15:21
No 541246
      allright---     

Whoever is playing Osmium needs to quit posting stuff like the last one and attributing it to him. We want our curmudgeon back!

mostly harmless
 
 
 
 
    Osmium
(Stoni's sexual toy)
11-12-04 15:24
No 541249
User Picture 
      Shut up you complacent fuck!     

Shut up you complacent fuck!

BUSH/CHENEY 2004! After all, it ain't my country!
www.american-buddha.com/addict.war.1.htm
 
 
 
 
    geezmeister
(Of Counsel)
11-12-04 18:55
No 541267
      Oops!     

Oops! Same curmudgeon.

Different day. laugh

mostly harmless
 
 
 
 
    fnord
(Hive Bee)
11-12-04 20:30
No 541273
User Picture 
      dont work     

the wheels of capitalism will be oiled with the blood of the workers.

arbiet mach frae(probley fucked up the spelling but its the nazi saying from the "work camps" it means labor liberates

fumehoods are for pussys
 
 
 
 
    abolt
(Comandante A)
11-12-04 23:45
No 541298
User Picture 
      I have worked in all kinds of different jobs,...     

I have worked in all kinds of different jobs,

Hey Os..........how do they manage pack all those french fries into the little containers?

PROTEST THE INAUGARATION!
http://www.answerla.org/contact/index.htm
 
 
 
 
    dumbjanitor
(Hive Bee)
11-13-04 19:50
No 541414
      french fries     

this is totally un-related but when I was sixteen I worked at a fast food resturant, and had the lovley pleasure of being the "fryer". Well besides tons of achne I got at the time resulting from it, one day i dropped the tongs used to grab the crap, into the tub of hot greese splashing the boiling fat all over my face. I looked like two-face from batman comics, and i swear putting liquid vitamine e on the burns every day made all of the scars go compleatly away. The burns were horribal, I felt like i was touched by god or something. You wouldn't be able to tell a thing now.
 
 
 
 
    Osmium
(Stoni's sexual toy)
11-13-04 19:58
No 541416
User Picture 
      I never worked in the fast food sector.     

I never worked in the fast food sector.

BUSH/CHENEY 2004! After all, it ain't my country!
www.american-buddha.com/addict.war.1.htm
 
 
 
 
    midway
(Hive Bee)
11-13-04 21:38
No 541424
      osmium..thats true true, sometimes ...     

osmium..thats true true, sometimes 'intelligent' people use their brains for non mathematical knowledge. After all, everything taught in a university is at base mathematical, and as such a human construct.
Ever meet someone really magnetic? he knows what to say at the right time all the time? thats no accident. If you havent then we have organized education that bases learning on short term data storage sectors of the brain to thank for that then dont weblush.
                       -genius-

i figure if i throw enough bizarre, insanely complex and possibly frighteningly truthful concepts into one sentence, someone will pay attention and love me.....pleeeeas? if not ill just die. ill just die!
 
 
 
 
    moo
(Hive Addict)
11-13-04 23:13
No 541439
      After all, everything taught in a university...     

After all, everything taught in a university is at base mathematical

What? shocked I really hope you mean logical and not mathematical. Think of arts.

fear fear hate hate
 
 
 
 
    Saddam_Hussein
(Hive Bee)
11-13-04 23:49
No 541443
User Picture 
      Hijacking the system     

Think of arts



President of the Iraqi Chemical Weapons of Mass Destruction Development Society
 
 
 
 
    moo
(Hive Addict)
11-14-04 00:08
No 541447
      That's one of my personal favourites by the...     

That piece is one of my personal favourites by the way.

fear fear hate hate
 
 

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