Intelligent People Do not Make Better Ethical Decisions

[Darryl_P]

I don't know. I guess the author of that webpage must have made it up. I suppose I should have used a different link like

wikipedia

or

valdosta

Hi Darryl_P,

I would like to point out to you that except, perhaps, for the bottom three levels, Maslow's theory is not very contemporary, or useful, in psychology and was, ever, only reprentative of one movement within psychology at the time.

[Darryl_P]

Hi MidGe,

Are you saying it doesn't match your own observations of people's drives? If so, what kinds of counterexamples have you seen? It matches mine quite well, so I'm a believer in the overall theory. I could change my mind, though, if I see some counterexamples.

[hmkpoker]

[ QUOTE ]
Without the proper emotional and mental maturity, ethical decisions will be poor at best.

[/ QUOTE ]

Agreed; a person with a family, lots of life experience both good and bad, who is optimistic and happy and possibly "spiritual" will make better ethical decisions than someone who is good at solving brain teasers.

I would argue that an intelligent person is more likely to fit the first category than a stupid person, but the correlation would be small if anything, and I have nothing to base it on.

Hi Daryl_p,

thanks for the courtesy of replying and raising the issue that you raise. It is interesting.

In my case, since you ask, my observation, of myself and others, makes it a much murkier field that Maslow simplistic categorising does, however useful it may have, and still may be.

Lets put is that way, I find smplistic categorisation of people (Gurdjieff types, Myers-Briggs, astrology, Maslow, etc.) simplistic and, at the end, neither accurate nor a valid model of what I see (it is much more complex).

[Darryl_P]

You're welcome, but I don't think it's necessary to thank me for a reply. I'm not Sklansky you know, just a mere mortal [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

OK I can accept that, but I don't think the model suggests that people are not varied and complex. Of course it can't be all that earth-shattering either or else more people would have heard about it.

[hmkpoker]

[ QUOTE ]
In my case, since you ask, my observation, of myself and others, makes it a much murkier field that Maslow simplistic categorising does, however useful it may have, and still may be.

Lets put is that way, I find smplistic categorisation of people (Gurdjieff types, Myers-Briggs, astrology, Maslow, etc.) simplistic and, at the end, neither accurate nor a valid model of what I see (it is much more complex).

[/ QUOTE ]

I got my BA in psychology recently...although I'm pretty far from being able to accurately represent the psychological community, I can say with assurance that any psychologist worth his salt recognizes these theoretical models as just that...theory.

What it helps us do, however, is examine basic traits alongside other things. For example, we might examine those who have high extroversion in a Meyers-Briggs test along a certain trait in childhood. If there's a correlation, then we have a hypothesis and something to experiment with, and eventually find a meaningful connection that could prove useful later.

Basically, it's a way to give researchers ideas.