Hoarding - what causes it?

I really don't care if you disagree strongly. You are going against biological facts. Plus it's just plain hubris. Humans are not all intelligent. We have limits. I agree, though, that your parenting philosophy is 100 percent correct, because the only thing we have power over is a child's environment, and the environment definitely plays a large role in IQ. Also, your definitely not harming anyone, probably the opposite, so I'm done now.

 

A nice theory but it isn't supported by the facts. The counter to your claim is that adopted children's IQ is closer to their biological parents' IQ than it is to their adoptive parents' IQ or to their non-related siblings' IQ, so the home environment is nearly irrelevant, as is school. As for the late pregnancy theory, there aren't enough surrogate mother studies to confirm or deny that. We do know children born to surrogate mothers struggle with depression more.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/a...ly-suffer-depression-carried-real-mother.html

 

At no point have I said that 'humans are all intelligent'. You made that up for some reason.

Humans are blank slates. They can be made dumb, or made smart.

 

Personally, I keep things that may be useful. Being a very crafty person, I can make use of almost anything. And so I tend to collect a lot of crap- way more than I actually have time to make use of.

Im not anywhere near a 'hoarder'. But I can sorta identify.

I have to will myself to throw potentially useful things away. I can do it, but its kinda like eating cauliflower or pulling off a band-aid. I do it against my nature.

 

You denied that human intelligence is is limited, hence...

 

If you insist that such studies are valuable .. how do you explain (to yourself) the other side of that coin? The results of studies in which the children of certain groups - who generally have a very low likelihood of gaining anything like a good education - when placed with families which value education, achieve far more academically than their peers? And conversely, when NE Asian kids are adopted by westerners, they often don't attain the same levels of academic success as their peers?

Children born to surrogate mothers are probably suffering more depression due to maternal detachment experienced late in pregnancy. The late stage fetus is VERY aware of maternal 'mood'. Incredibly so. Add to this the very real possibility that the parents overplay their hand - as some who've experienced infertility do - to the point of enabling the child. Or worse, that the surrogacy was a vanity exercise (you know, women who can't be bothered carrying a child themselves). That's going to send terrible messages to an already confused child.

 

I DO deny that there are limits. I did not say ANYTHING LIKE 'all humans are smart'.

 

I never said you said that. Human intelligence is limited, any humans intelligence or otherwise. Denying there are limits directly contradicts biological facts. There are limits to any processing system, biological or otherwise. "All" in my statement did not mean all as in "all humans" but all as in "all knowing". Easily misinterpreted.

 

I LOVE cauliflower

 

The human brain is not a machine. It is PLASTIC. Do you understand what that means?

And there are no limits to intelligence .. individually speaking. Anyone can be 'made' a genius, or 'made' as dumb as a rock - assuming no brain injuries etc.

 

Of course. There are still limits, plasticity notwithstanding. Anyone cannot be made a genius. There are biological limitations to a brains plasticity, even if we were to figure out how to biologically engineer smarter people. Biologically speaking some have a predisposition towards stupidity or otherwise, which can be hampered though a child's environment. Down syndrome is an example. No amount of environmental training can bring someone with that condition past a certain point without genetic engineering.

The human brain is a machine, supernatural or otherwise, still a machine, an insanely miraculous one no doubt but still a machine. What would you say the human brain is, if not a machine?

Wow 'ive gotten way off topic. If you still disagree I think we just have to agree to disagree.

 

I very clearly excluded birth defects and brain injury. Right at the start of this.

Meantime, you appear to be confused. I'm not claiming there are no upper limits to human intellect itself, I'm claiming there are no limits to the individual IQ. There are no 'biological' predispositions to stupidity. Or to genius. Both are the product of environment.

In an aside, I'm wondering if you understand that regarding IQ as biological, is actually a form of eugenics?

 

It's a mental disorder !

 

A lot of older members in my family had hoarding problems. Not as bad as what you see on TV shows e.g. nothing insalubrious, but tons and tons of cardboard boxes full of useless items. It's a mental issue. What I noticed is that `
1) They had an exaggerated emotional attachment to items. A broken lamp wasn't just a lamp, it was a memory from the past, a memory of a person, a memory of somewhere they lived, etc. If you tried to throw the lamp away, they would act as though you were trying to defile the memory or the person they associated it with.
2) They had an inability to accurately judge the value of an item. They had no criteria upon which to judge whether something should be thrown away. Questions like: Is it valuable? Does it have true sentimental value e.g. a photo? Is there space in the house for it? Would it look good in the house? Questions that you and I ask ourselves unconsciously - it never even came up in their head.
3) Stubbornness and lack of insight. They will lash out at you for trying to throw something away, they'll act as though you're the crazy person for wanting to throw junk away. This lack of awareness is what perpetuates their problem.

Mind you, all of these issues could VERY easily be fixed with CBT therapy. This isn't a serious mental issue. But these people were stubborn and didn't want to change - so they didn't.

 

No it ain't. It's just plain bad behaviour (poor impulse control). Usually learned in childhood.

 

Exactly!

The resistance to change (in the form of order and maintenance) is redirected into attachment to things. What they're actually attached to is the avoidance of order and maintenance. The things are simply convenient 'excuses'.

 

Sure IQ has been used in eugenics and may have been invented precisely for it as a measurement tool. Agreed there are multiple forms of intelligence. It's not a form of eugenics though.

Whether or not you are talking about IQ or intelligence; however intelligence is viewed, I still disagree. Biologically speaking plasticity and/or intelligence is heavily affected by biology, and yes it does provide a limit on an individuals intelligence, that cannot be surpassed through environmental training.

Point being it is clear that a human baby or a monkey cannot be taught the things an average adult human is taught, no matter how much you train them through childhood. They simply lack the capacity. The same scale occurs in humans, unfortunately, yes to a much lesser degree, but it still occurs. The brain structure is simply not there. Plasticity only goes so far.

As for the topic; hoarding, it is largely environmental factors. There is a biological factor, but likely is small and can be overwritten. One can be the quickest learner and still want to hoard everything. I'd agree with your earlier statement that it is largely about self control, but exclusive from the IQ measurement.

As to your claim that there are no limits to the individual IQ, I would agree. The scale is completely relative to the population plus it only tests one measurement of intelligence.

 

Academic success is not directly correlated to learning ability (IQ). It's largely correlated to motivation before learning ability, at least in my humble opinion. So there is your answer. Of course environment plays a part, but the problem is you are arguing that environment is the only thing that matters. There are multiple systems at play in your example, not just IQ. It's not as simple as you want it to be.

 

Same here. In fact, I like trash day (Tuesday morning) because I can throw stuff out, mostly food containers and bottles but mentally it’s very satisfying for me to throw crap out.

My house is spotless 24/7 though.

 

You'll have to show me these studies. Generally speaking, the difference between adopted and non-adopted siblings' IQ is small, between 3-4 points, or less than a third of a standard deviation. Only in extreme cases has there been a significant difference, and that was with substandard orphanages or parents, meaning the adopted child didn't benefit, the non-adopted child suffered.

Perhaps the most worrisome consequence of the heritability of IQ is what Herrnstein and Murray called reversion to the mean. And the mean isn't the mean of all humans, but the mean of the racial origins of the parents. The average IQ of the children of black parents earning over $100K a year is lower than the average IQ of the children of white parents earning less than $20K a year. Why this should be, I can't explain. High IQ parents should have high IQ children regardless of their race. One of the highest IQ people ever to be identified was the Indian child of two Indian professors, both of whom had high IQ's themselves. But the average IQ in India is only 82. Obviously this is just one instance in a vast world of one billion Indians, but it makes sense in an intuitive way that smart parents would have smart kids. But it's not necessarily so. So then there becomes the problem of explaining how different racial groups ended up with different IQ's in the first place.

Edit: I didn't find the study saying the NE Asian adoptees did worse than their Asian peers in school, but I did find one saying that they struggle more with "fitting in" and depression, so that might explain the difference in test scores and academic results.

 

haha yep...I love dump day. Love throwing crap out. I guess we are the opposite of the hoarders

 

It is not clear what you are asking. Are you asking why people like to keep their earnings and things they bought?