Engineers are known to be one of the worst when it comes to skills of social competence. But a study in 2013 revealed that we could do far worse with our interpersonal relationships, as it said that engineers are basically cold and dead inside.
Psychology researchers in Sweden, led by trick-cyclist Chato Rasoal, discovered this unflattering trait of engineers after asking 200 students from six different study programs.
They used a “well-established questionnaire” which they say have revealed about the students’ degree of imagination, their ability to assume the perspective of others, and if the students surveyed care about people around them.
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It was apparent that the respondents who were engineering students cared nothing for other human beings’ feelings and had few of their own. The survey made engineers appear to be cold-hearted and uncaring.
In contrast, students of medicine were warm and bursting with empathy and love.
Some would argue about the ratio of women in engineering as compared to that in medicine, and the researchers have taken that into account.
Unfortunately, engineers still came out flinty and unfeeling compared to their fellow men (mostly fellow men).
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The researchers have further broken down the sample population of engineering students into “applied physics” and “computer engineering”. It was found that the latter was much more like the medical students who were the caring type.
Having done that, they have concluded that it is only the physics-based classical engineers which are unable to care or love.
If by any case that is ever true, no engineer from the civil, mechanical, chemical, electrical, aerospace, and similar engineering fields will be bothered by this survey.
Source: The Register UK
