Xref: utzoo sci.psychology:207 sci.math:3318 sci.philosophy.tech:607 Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!hoptoad!laura From: laura@hoptoad.uucp (Laura Creighton) Newsgroups: sci.psychology,sci.math,sci.philosophy.tech Subject: Re: Psychology of Mathematicians Message-ID: <4399@hoptoad.uucp> Date: 11 Apr 88 05:28:11 GMT References: Reply-To: laura@hoptoad.UUCP (Laura Creighton) Organization: Nebula Consultants in San Francisco Lines: 39 >What are the dominant characteristics of mathematician personalities? Question -- why do you care? Is this simple curiosity, or do you have some hidden agenda? >I am aware of work by the (US) President's Commission on Women in Mathematics >(chair: Prof Carol La Champagne) which identified a number of relevant factors. >[This work was in relation to relative self-selection of teenage boys to > identify with 'being good at mathematics']: > > Externalisation of failure (wrong - it's not my fault) > and internalisation of success ('I did it my way'); It may be that this is true for some people, but does it ever ring false for me. The really cool thing about studying mathematics in high school for me was that if I was wrong, it was *my* fault. (Or, of course, that the answer in the textbook was wrong. But it was fairly straightforward to *prove* that the book was wrong to anybody's satisfaction in that case.) This was in contrast to other studies where, if I got a lousy mark on an essay, I knew that I hadn't presented what the teacher wanted to hear, but still often believed that I was right, and that the teacher was wrong -- but there wasn't a thing I could do about it. Somewhere along the line you are going to have to address the fact that mathematics is so incredibly beautiful. Somehow or other, the fact that there are relatively few women in mathematics is considered a grave social problem, whereas the fact that certain people are very interested in art, whereas others are not is not seen as such a one. I get the distinct impression that the bulk of humanity, who understand that mathematics is incredibly useful, thing that this must be the reason that mathematicians like mathematics. Is there any room for math for math's sake in the minds of the sociologists? -- Talk is cheap because supply exceeds demand. Laura Creighton uunet!hoptoad!laura utzoo!hoptoad!laura sun!hoptoad!laura toad@toad.com