If you lock a bunch of high-IQ people in a room and tell them to get on with a simple task, what will they emerge with? Lower IQs, for one thing. A study done by Virginia Tech and a few other institutions, written up over the winter in a publication of the Royal Society, tried to replicate how people think under social pressure. Subjects with an average IQ of 126 were clustered into problem-solving groups and exposed to judgments about their work. A pecking order formed. The low performers showed high responses in the part of the brain that regulates fear. Most of the men became “high performers”, most of the women “low performers”, but no one blossomed. The scientists concluded that “individuals express diminished cognitive capacity in small groups, an effect that is exacerbated by perceived lower status”. In other words, they get dumber.
如果你将一群高智商的人锁在一个房间里，然后交给他们一个简单的任务，那么结果会怎样呢？智商降低是结果之一。弗吉尼亚理工学院(Virginia Tech)和其他几个机构在冬季撰写、最终发表在《皇家学会》(Royal Society)刊物上的一项研究，试图探索人们在社会压力下如何思考。平均智商为126的研究对象，被分成解决问题的若干组，他们的工作受到评委的评判。于是一种强弱顺序就形成了。表现较差者的大脑中控制担忧情绪的部位反应非常活跃。大多数男性成为表现较优者，大多数女性成为表现较差者，但没有真正表现出色的。于是科学家得出这样的结论：“在小集体里，个体的认知能力有所下降，而如果个体感觉地位下降，这种效应就更明显。”换句话说，他们变蠢了。