Arthur
One of my fondest memories as a child was watching a TV show called Arthur. For those unfamiliar of the show, it talks about a fictional cartoon character and his family adventures of being a middle school kid. One of the biggest differences Arthur possess that make him stand out from hims friends is his glasses. Pondering through the show, I came to a conclusion that all smart people owned glasses. Examples could include, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Benjamin Franklin etc. Is there a connection between the intelligent and glasses?
In a research study conducted by The Centre for Eye Research Australia, they found a relationship between prescription glasses wearers and intelligence. In the study, a “group of 633 twins and 278 people from families with myopia (Short-sightedness) to answer a questionnaire on their personality traits. Subjects were evaluated on five key characteristics – extroversion, conscientiousness, agreeableness, open-mindedness and neuroticism.” Surprisingly enough, the prescription glasses wearers “could not be linked with introversion, conscientiousness or passiveness.” However, one thing that glasses wearers were linked with was intelligence and openness. The study was single blind placebo, and was purely observational.
Another study I found was German researchers at the University of Medical Center. The studied 4,658 people from the ages 35-74. The results showed that the more nearsighted the person was, the more improved education he had. Other documentations from this study include 24% of the subjects not having a second school education being nearsighted. Also 35% of the secondary school graduates were nearsighted and a whopping 53% were university grads.
Personally, I do not agree with the idea that glasses wearers are linked to characteristics of being open minded and intelligent. In modern society, glasses are considered extremely trendy. I cannot seem to understand how physical features we possess give us certain characteristics. The more I think about how the study was done, I feel that it could be due to chance or other variable that caused it. I highly doubt this can be a direct causation. What do you think?
Works Cited
http://www.divinecaroline.com/fashion/glasses-and-stereotypes-are-four-eyes-smarter
http://www.sightstation.com/publicity/articles/scientists-find-a-link-between-intelligence-and-prescription-glasses/2010/02/
This is a hilarious topic. I do not believe that intelligence is linked to wearing glasses. These studies seem to be observational, and not completely accurate. I’m sure there are many smart people who wear glasses, but there are just as many smart people who do not wear glasses? The same argument could be made about any trait and smartness. For example, people with blue eyes are smarter, people who are taller are smarter. Vision is simply a trait, and people with poor vision may have a gene mutation but that does not correlate to have a higher intelligence.
I agree with the point you made at the end of this study with regard questioning the studies done. There doesn’t seem to be much real evidence to suggest correlation equals causation in this case. If it were true, everyone would be running to buy glasses in the hopes that it might make them smarter. Interesting article however, and I definitely never knew that studies existed examining this kind of data.
Regarding the first study, it is great you recognized that no hard conclusions can be made from a study that was only observational. Maybe those who wore glasses were able to learn more since they could see the board more easily. The other big issue is how intelligence is defined. There are over ten different IQ tests that all measure for different “types” of intelligence.