Are Smart Women a Turnoff for Men?

In a study led by psychologist Lora Park and her associates, Paul Eastwick and Ariana Young at the State University of New York, it was concluded that men find female intelligence a turnoff.

Whilst on the surface men say they are not intimidated by female intelligence, their actions speak differently.

As reported by Jenna Pincott in Psychology Today, Kate Ratliff, a psychologist at the University of Florida, also led a recent study in which men in a dating relationship were asked to reflect on a time when their partner was successful in an intellectual or academic domain. The task led to a drop in men’s implicit self-esteem, as did news that their girlfriend outscored them on a social-intelligence test. “It’s more of a gut reaction of negativity, not a thought-out response,” Ratliff explains. “Without realizing it, men reframe ‘Wow, my partner is successful’ as ‘Wow, my partner is successful and I am unsuccessful.’”

This report actually has me thinking how often we come to such illogical conclusions on a daily basis.

Just recently I was involved in a social media conversation where one of South Africa’s young black artists was encouraging his following to invest in black-owned small business rather than in “capitalist white minority companies”. This comment was perceived as racist by another conversationalist in the thread. Upon the second read, I also saw how the comment could be construed as racist even though I had not experienced it as such the first time around.

Upon questioning the motive for excluding white small business, the artist made it clear that he wanted specifically to uplift the previously disadvantaged small black-owned business.

So if we return to the phenomenon of reframing, I then assume that the artist’s comment could have originally been interpreted as “If you are going to contribute to small black-owned business, you cannot contribute to small white owned business”, or it could have been reframed as, “White-owned capitalist minorities are bad, therefore rather invest in black-owned companies”, or it could even be reframed as, “black-owned small business is not capitalist, but white-owned small business is”.

There are most probably a good few additional ways to reframe the original call from the artist. The fact is that we all do this kind of reframing and without asking sufficient questions to clarify the original intent of the first communication, it is likely that conflict could arise. It turns out that this artist who is a self-proclaimed capitalist, did want to promote investment into small black-owned business, after all, he is black and owns a small business. Is this then a racist approach?

I have the same passion for small business as opposed to big business. I also have the same passion for female-owned business. This is most probably because I identify so strongly with both. But does that mean that I do not have a passion for small business run by men, or that I do not have a passion for big business run by females? And do I then have a sexist approach?

The fact is that life is seldom black and white (excuse the pun), and rather than having a gut reaction of either/or, we should be working toward a critical thought path of this and that. In this manner we are able to incorporate more holistic solutions to our decision-making, behaviours, planning and thinking. It certainly helps with the embracing of diversity and the everyday positive management of conflict.

At Staff Training we have a number of workshops that assist with ethical decision making, critical thinking and problem solving, with conflict management, emotional intelligence, and diversity, and all of these workshops include really useful tools that help us all to navigate issues and decision making. We hope to see you at one soon. The only question is then: Is this a useful article or is it marketing, or is it both?

© Debbie Engelbrecht

Debbie is the CEO of Staff Training, a soft skills training company offering more than 60 short courses including a suite of management and leadership options. Find out more here.