Do you feel your high level of math and analytical skills come at some personal cost in terms of your ability to understand, interact and relate to other people socially in a positive and effective way, or are you a person who is able to mesh smoothly and productively with the everyday world and it’s demanding complex of personal interactions and relationships?
In other words is the stereotype of those people with advanced mathematical and analytical skills as tending to be socially and inter-personally inept, valid or invalid?
The stereotype describes me very well. (I am a graduate student in physics). I am completely overwhelmed in social situations (especially gatherings with more than 2 other people) and even in one-on-one situations I think I do a terrible job of interacting. However, I can discuss technical subjects with colleagues without undue difficulty.
Assuming this stereotype has some basis in fact, I would be curious to hear speculation as to why social ineptness correlates with strong analytical/mathematical abilities. I don’t think doing math causes social ineptitude.
Doing math doesn’t cause social ineptitude (except to the extent that if I ever again have to work a word problem involving Susy, Jimmy, and apples, I am going to get very socially inept and stick an apple somewhere such that Susy and Jimmy will have to get married and tell everyone that the first apple is often premature).
I think that the traits that make some of us good at - yea, even enthusiastic for - mathematics and other analytical pursuits are traits that simply don’t make for good interpersonal interaction. At any rate, that’s how it works for me. I really get into the endless refinement of problems and projects. Human interaction just doesn’t lend itself to that. People expect answers now. It’s what I hate about my job. I can deal with the nitpicky troubleshooting crap, as long as people just leave me alone. I can tell myself it’s analysis. Unfortunately, someone decided that the problem-solving thing makes me a great support resource, so I get a lot of calls on behalf of end users who think the system ought to be shredding reports faster or something unimportant like that. I don’t like handholding under the best of circumstances, and if there is a Hell waiting for me, I know it will consist of me taking endless phone calls from people who must know why the system is slow and what am I personally going to do to make it fixed right now?!
It’s certainly not the case for all of us. I like to think that I have pretty decent social skills, and there are probably a few folks on this board who would back me up. They didn’t come naturally to me, mind you; I definitely had to practice and make mistakes along the way.
What ultrafilter said. However, there are varying degrees of social aptness among the technical people I know. For example, I worked for a large engineering company in the 90’s. We probably had 80 civil engineers in that one office. Thinking back on it, it seems to fit a standard probability - the majority of engineers fit into the “average social skills” category, while you had the small percentages on either end which either excelled at it or were standard “hide in your office with your calculator” geeky.
It seems to me that there is more than one kind of mind which can be trained in advanced mathematics/physics/engineering. There are those who must work harder at it. I did notice that the folks who understood more easily also fell into the upper “geeky” end of the spectrum, and vice versa; the guy who was sent out to the golf course to talk about projects with clients was not the most technically proficient, although he was easily the most charming.
Just an observation on my part, but I’m engaged to a math major. She wants to work for NASA or the natl. labs doing theoretical math for aeronotical type stuff. She is very social, out going, and friendly. She has a good self image, but is often too worried about what other people think of her. She does have a lot of friends, and everyone I know and at work (we work at the same place) speak very highly of her. In any case I love her to peices and wouldn’t have her any other way.
Do you feel your high level of math and analytical skills come at some personal cost in terms of your ability to understand, interact and relate to other people socially in a positive and effective way, or are you a person who is able to mesh smoothly and productively with the everyday world and it’s demanding complex of personal interactions and relationships?
Interesting question. But I don’t think it’s having math/analytical skills that result in a lack of social skills. There may very well be some correlation, but, at least for me, the “lurking variable” was an introverted personality. Doing math does not require a lot of interaction with other people, so it fits in well for an introvert. Over time, I’ve acquired greater confidence from interacting with people and the social skills have improved. For instance, I don’t fear speaking in front of large groups and welcome the chance to do so. But I’ll never be described as gregarious. And going to a party of mostly strangers is something I would avoid if at all possible.