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I get really defensive when my intelligence is on the line. I read this entire article with a combination of pretend aloofness and childlike fear of getting got

• nabla9 12y ago
  Being defensive is very crippling. It's hard to concentrate, you may feel angry, inpatient or suddenly tired and mind wanders away. Reading speed and comprehension slows down. On the other hand, being aware and honest of your emotions and how they affect your thinking is important critical thinking skill. When you can realize your defensive attitude you can usually overcome it with effort. If I remember correctly, high IQ people have less cognitive biases that affect formal reasoning, but high IQ don't reduce biases that distort the ability to question one’s own judgment. Ability to reflect own decisions is correlated with dispositions like "active open-mindedness."
• halfcat 12y ago
  The research of Dr. Carol Dweck is interesting here [1]. It says that students who were praised for "being smart" developed this ego/defensiveness problem and subsequently began to underperform. While students praised for working hard did not, and ended up outperforming the "smart" group. The amazing thing about the research, to me, is that this effect was very prominent and quick, and it happened based on only one sentence being told to the students on one occasion. It did not take years of parents telling their child, "you are so smart". It took one teacher telling the child once, "you did so well, you must have worked hard", for the effect to take place. [1] http://nymag.com/news/features/27840/ http://nymag.com/news/features/27840/