Intelligence is negatively associated with the number of functional somatic symptoms, 2009, Kingma et al

[Peter T]

Thank you @Grigor for pointing out the quote

Although general intelligence is regarded as a trait that is stable from infancy into middle
age, it cannot be excluded that reverse causality, in which somatic symptoms contribute to lower intelligence scores, is playing a role.

It seems bizarre to suggest that a psychiatric condition and/or behaviour should have such a significant and systematic causal effect on such as intelligence that is generally seen as relatively fixed. Further though this admits of the possibility of a different direction in the causality it still confuses association with causality.

I would argue it is equally possible that neither the so called somatic symptoms nor the intelligence score variation have a causal effect on each other but both result from an underlying biomedical condition, which to me seems a much more common sense interpretation.

[Note - corrected some prepositions. I have a number of focal neurological symptoms including problems navigating and difficulty in selecting the correct preposition when writing. These very specific deficits could be explained by an underlying neurological condition, but would make no sense in the context of asserting a psychosomatic causation.]

 

[Jonathan Edwards]

I think it may be important to consider the totally artificial context of these findings. A random selection of people were asked if they had various symptoms and been to see a doctor about them. I think it very unsurprising that less intelligent people would report more episodes of the doctor not giving an explanation but the same number of episodes of at the doctor giving an explanation. More or less by definition less intelligent people are less well placed to judge for themselves the importance of symptoms so a good health care system should aim for more less intelligent people attending doctors with symptoms. Less intelligent people are also more likely to be fobbed off without a clear explanation or not to follow when an explanation is actually given.

The study has nothing too do with people have psychosomatic illness. It is purely about how often people report symptoms and how often doctors explain them.

The bottom line is as Strategist says, that making a 'diagnosis' of FSS is associated with low intelligence, or at least lack of understanding of basic 'psychosocial interaction', more appropriately known as human nature.

 

[TiredSam]

I don't wish to be immodest, but surely if intelligence is negatively associated with FSS that proves that my symptoms cannot be FSS?

And furthermore

Although general intelligence is regarded as a trait that is stable from infancy into middle
age, it cannot be excluded that reverse causality, in which somatic symptoms contribute to lower intelligence scores, is playing a role.

Seeing as one of our major symptoms is brainfog, haven't they got things the wrong way round in the case of ME?

They may as well write a paper on intelligence being negatively associated with being hit on the head with a hammer. "We found that patients who had received a substantial blow to the head tended on average to perform less well in employment interview situations. It cannot be excluded that reverse causality, in which whacks on the head contribute to lower intelligence scores, is playing a role". Splendid work chaps. Splendid.

 

[JemPD]

Wow. This is disturbing. It makes me think about those revolting studies that used to be used to try to say that black people weren't as intelligent as white people.

Also

it cannot be excluded that reverse causality.....

then what's your point you numpty? That fact negates any conclusion you have made.


Oh God how long to we have to put up with this drivel?

 

[shak8]

This theory smacks of class prejudice.

 

[Snow Leopard]

Less intelligent people are also more likely to be fobbed off without a clear explanation or not to follow when an explanation is actually given.

The study has nothing too do with people have psychosomatic illness. It is purely about how often people report symptoms and how often doctors explain them.

This is a rather alarming and saddening conclusion!

 

[Saz94]

Funny, I thought MUS was supposed to be more common in high achievers lol.

 

[Samuel]

The combined effect of thousands of papers like this being published every year is that of an intense propaganda campaign against a vulnerable group.

my blog's software glitched and did not send out the following to my email subscribers. i hope some readers find it useful as a resource and a source of ideas, or pass it along to those who will.

https://thekafkapandemic.blogspot.com/2020/02/crimes-against-humanity_3.html


ETA: To give this a little context, the ICC version of the law has this framework surrounding the acts:

> For the purpose of this Statute, "crime against humanity" means any of the following acts when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack

The post goes into the relevant detail. I wrote it over 16 years, so I greatly appreciate the engagement.

 

[rvallee]

Funny, I thought MUS was supposed to be more common in high achievers lol.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[Sean]

MUS World, where inconsistency is a feature, not a bug.

 

[Woolie]

Honestly! What qualified researcher would think its a good idea to take a group of poorly defined, most probably heterogeneous patients and measure a poorly defined, probably heterogeneous construct like "intelligence". And think that they can come up with any meaningful information?

The "intelligence" measure they use combined two working memory tasks (one verbal, one visuospatial) with a measure of vocabulary. Then they just summed them together! Obviously, the vocab measure is essentially a measure of education, and therefore will be linked to socioeconomic status (which they found).

If you think a failure in inhibitory control or poor coping skills or whatever may be causal for these illnesses, then measure those. FFS, even if your hypothesis is stupid, at least you had one! Don't just fish about with measures you can easily obtain and don't understand.

(as aside: They use the word "univariable", where I think they mean "univariate", but the data they give are confusing because they report beta coefficients (which are usually reserved for multivariate analyses).

Finally, if you get the same effects for unexplained and medically explained symptoms (that is, they found lower intelligence was associated with more of symptoms of both kinds), then what you have is strong support for reverse causation. Yet they still use the word "predicting" right up till the end of the paper. If only they'd done a bit of "predicting" themselves, and a lot less fishing, the results wouldn't be such a mess.

I think they were hoping the people with functional somatic symptoms would be stupider than those with explained symptoms, thus proving that dumb people can't manage or control their feelings, have no insight into their bodily sensations, et. etc. When it didn't turnout that way, hell, why change the conclusion? Just say that all somatic symptoms - explained or not - result from psychosomatic stress!

The good news is that its in an obscure journal and its quite old, so hopefully forgotten.

I note that the researchers are Dutch, and that the lead researcher is a "Professor of psychosomatic medicine". I've never heard of such a thing, but I guess in the Netherlands, it IS a thing.

 

[Hoopoe]

Thanks for the peer review Woolie.

I think they were hoping to find this

In contrast to our expectations, no evidence was found for a mediating role of psychological distress in the association of intelligence with FSS, even though distress was an important predictor of FSS.

 

[Woolie]

Thanks for the peer review Woolie.

I think they were hoping to find this:

In contrast to our expectations, no evidence was found for a mediating role of psychological distress in the association of intelligence with FSS, even though distress was an important predictor of FSS.

I saw that, but it doesn't make any sense to me. If you're dumb and upset then you get FSS, but if you're dumb and not upset you don't? What's having a low IQ got to do with it?

What a labyrinth of confused cause and effect!

Or else by intelligence, you really mean low SES, well then why not say that?

I'm really angry, because its not just very badly done, but its really insulting. Akin to studying whether black people have lower IQs than white people.

 

[Hoopoe]

I'm really angry, because its not just very badly done, but its really insulting. Akin to studying whether black people have lower IQs than white people.

How would the authors feel if there was a constant stream of shoddy research that asked questions such as:

Do researchers in the field of psychosomatic medicine have low IQ?
Do researchers in the field of psychosomatic medicine habitually use cocaine?
Do researchers in the field of psychosomatic medicine find it more difficult to empatize with patients?
Do researchers in the field of psychosomatic medicine engage in research fraud more than than others?
Do researchers in the field of psychosomatic medicine chose this field because others were too hard?
Do researchers in the field of psychosomatic medicine sympatize with eugenicists?
Do researchers in the field of psychosomatic medicine have racist views?
Do researchers in the field of psychosomatic medicine have difficulties thinking about cause and effect clearly?
Do researchers in the field of psychosomatic medicine suffer from low self esteem?
Do researchers in the field of psychosomatic medicine suffer from psychosis more often than others?
Do researchers in the field of psychosomatic medicine have more difficulties than others in establishing positive rapport with patients?
Do researchers in the field of psychosomatic medicine have delusions of grandeur?

Along with a lot of conclusions contradicted by data, spin, p-hacking and other fraudulent methods to obtain a desired result.

PS: even if the results were often negative, the effect of these questions being continuously asked creates the impression that the subjects of research are very problematic people.

I think we know the answer. They would find this incredibly toxic, and also find us patients who raise some of these questions toxic. Yet this is their own behaviour reflected back to them. One difference is that they are more subtle than I was with my examples, and have had a long time to create constructs and language that supports their prejudices while appearing relatively benign on the surface. Yet in the end their ideas lead to deprivation, harm and even death.

 

[Hoopoe]

The term epistemiological violence seems relevant

This article discusses the meaning of epistemological violence in the empirical social sciences. It is argued that the concept is closer to personal than to structural violence in that it has a subject, an object, and an action, even if the violence is indirect and nonphysical: the subject of violence is the researcher, the object is the Other , and the action is the interpretation of data that is presented as knowledge. Using a hypothetical example, the problem of interpretation in empirical research on the Other is discussed. Epistemological violence refers to the interpretation of social‐scientific data on the Other and is produced when empirical data are interpreted as showing the inferiority of or problematizes the Other , even when data allow for equally viable alternative interpretations. Interpretations of inferiority or problematizations are understood as actions that have a negative impact on the Other . Because the interpretations of data emerge from an academic context and thus are presented as knowledge, they are defined as epistemologically violent actions. Problems, consequences, and practices surrounding this concept are discussed.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1751-9004.2010.00265.x

 

[Invisible Woman]

How would the authors feel if there was a constant stream of shoddy research that asked questions such as:

Sorry @strategist you missed out a couple of important questions on the list -

Do researchers in the field of psychosomatic medicine tend to have a history of repressed childhood trauma?

Do researchers in the field of psychosomatic medicine have negative feelings about carrying their own shopping bags?

 

[Hoopoe]

I saw that, but it doesn't make any sense to me. If you're dumb and upset then you get FSS, but if you're dumb and not upset you don't? What's having a low IQ got to do with it?

Not sure I understand the thinking but the assumed mechanism could be that low intelligence makes it harder for people who are in distress to resolve that distress, and unresolved emotional conflicts, as they believe, can be converted into bodily symptoms. The patients are of course too stupid to see how their emotions are causing bodily symptoms, and so they see a doctor and demand a diagnosis which is impossible because there is no organic basis to the symptoms. That could be their logic.

 

[Peter T]

Not sure I understand the thinking but the assumed mechanism could be that low intelligence makes it harder for people who are in distress to resolve that distress, and unresolved emotional conflicts, as they believe, can be converted into bodily symptoms. The patients are of course too stupid to see how their emotions are causing bodily symptoms, and so they see a doctor and demand a diagnosis which is impossible because there is no organic basis to the symptoms. That could be their logic.

This is reminiscent of the WWI idea that ordinary soldiers who were less intelligent manifested their anxiety somatically, such as hysterical paralysis, whereas the more articulate more intelligent officers manifested theirs as a stammer.

Somatic symptoms as an indicator of class.

 

[Invisible Woman]

Not sure I understand the thinking but the assumed mechanism could be that low intelligence makes it harder for people who are in distress to resolve that distress, and unresolved emotional conflicts, as they believe, can be converted into bodily symptoms. The patients are of course too stupid to see how their emotions are causing bodily symptoms, and so they see a doctor and demand a diagnosis which is impossible because there is no organic basis to the symptoms. That could be their logic.

That could well be their logic but it could just as easily work the other way (I'm not saying it does mind).

People with lower intelligence might not live in their heads so much and therefore be less likely to get wound up about things?

 

[rvallee]

Do researchers in the field of psychosomatic medicine find it more difficult to empatize with patients?

Oh. Oh. OH! I know the answer to that one! Pick me, pick me!