Nerds and Anti-Nerds:

John Nerst:

here’s a cluster of psychological traits that in my mind make up the nerd pattern:

• an interest in things and ideas over people
• a concern for correctness over social harmony
• a preference for routine and predictability
• obliviousness to and/or disregard for social norms and expectations
• sensitivity to inconsistency, vagueness and ambiguity
• difficulty appreciating the social implications of their actions
• subdued emotional expression
• a view of conversation as information sharing
• a tendency to take statements literally and assume honesty
• preference for codified knowledge and rationality over instinct, experience and intuition
• strong appreciation for trivia, games and building things
• lack of appreciation for appearance, food and exercise

We get the hypothetical anti-nerd personality by reversing this:

• an interest in people over things and ideas
• a concern for social harmony over correctness
• a preference for spontaneity and novelty
• sensitivity to social norms and expectations
• obliviousness to inconsistency, vagueness and ambiguity
• difficulty appreciating the logical implications of their ideas
• strong emotional expression
• a view of conversation as relationship building and -negotiation
• a tendency to take statements as indications of implicit intentions
• preference for instinct, experience and intuition over codified knowledge and rationality
• strong appreciation for appearance, food and exercise
• lack of appreciation for trivia, games and building things

This isn’t just a random bag of traits. Many of them naturally go together and to my eyes these are two coherent clusters. I have no problem matching the anti-nerd pattern to the real world: it describes most people working in media and the arts and to a lesser degree those in social services, education, sales, marketing, PR and politics.