I think I've talked about this before, but never given it its own dedicated writeup. There is something I utterly love about Yosuke, and it's the fact that he defies traditional views of intelligence. And then I questioned how, exactly, he does. Not only that, I thought about how it impacts how heβs perceived.
To start, what do I mean by defying traditional views? Well, think of the typical image of a genius we have. The main images of geniuses given to the world include primarily academics, whose research papers shake the world--even when this is not true. Furthermore, grades are widely hailed as measures of the intelligence and motivation of a student, even by students.
The first common reason why students explicitly wanted to be graded was that they sought to receive feedback. The pupils often argued that they needed grades in order to know βhow they didβ, in relation to written tests and examinations, or βwhere they stoodβ. Robert Paul Wolff (1969), a philosopher of education, distinguishes between three functions of grade. The studentsβ replies mirror what Wolff (1969) perceives of as the primary, and in his eyes, the only legitimate function of grading, namely criticism. βTo learn to submit oneself to the discipline of a standard, even it if is self-imposed [β¦]β (p. 461), is for him the very purpose of education, and grades assist this exercise if they are used to βcorrect mistakes and enforce excellenceβ (p. 459). However, the way that students talked about grades often went beyond such feedback and evoked a narrative of bettering oneself more generally. When I asked 11-yearold Lena why she thought grades existed, she replied: βSo that you know you have to get better? When you for example have a 4, you have to get better. So that, I think β¦ you know how you can change yourselfβ. This use of marks would, in Wolffβs theory, go past criticism and enact a second function, namely evaluation. Evaluation is the measuring against a pre-defined standard and crucially involves labelling performance as βgoodβ or βbadβ. Wolff (1969) argues that, educationally, nothing is gained by these denominations and that evaluation rather has its place in the professional world where the qualification of a candidate seeking admission to a profession must be judged on the basis of some performance (p. 462). Nevertheless, the narrative of betterment was strongly entrenched in my fieldsite, and affected how students thought about grades, as well as the repercussions that they instigate.
Japan, Yosuke's home country, particularly emphasizes the idea of effort, and believing ability to be secondary. However, in practice, this ends up still marrying the concepts of ability and effort together as in the German classroom above. The reason I say this is that a Japanese child who struggles in an academic field would likely not get much in the way of academic support due to believing it would be unfair to the other students, alongside a lack of acknowledgement of the person's struggle being outside their control (i.e. being physically or mentally disabled, or access to study resources).
The Japanese emphasis on effort has frequently been noted. Vogel has said that, in Japan, "competence is defined partly as talent or genius, but partly as the capacity for hard work and persistence" (1963, p. 156). A similar theme emerges in a sentence completion task administered by Lebra (1976). Given the sentence stem "That he has achieved successβ¦." approximately 72% of the respondents mentioned energy expenditure or effort, whereas only 1% mentioned ability.
More formal investigations of attributional processes in Japan have revealed a similar emphasis on effort. Hayami and Hasegawa (1979) asked Japanese junior high school students to indicate the importance of ability, luck, effort, and teacher in accounting for academic achievement. They found that effort was cited as the predominant explanation for achievement in mathematics, English, and Japanese. Effort and ability were both frequently cited to explain achievement in subjects outside the academic "core": music, physical education, and art. In a later study, Hayami (1981) asked a group of mothers, elementary and middle school teachers, and college students to rate the importance of 11 causal factors in explaining poor performance. Effort and student's method of studying received the highest mean rating for all three groups, and lack of ability was considered of little importance.
In a study investigating age differences in the use of cues about consistency, consensus, and distinctiveness, Hayami (1984) elicited attributions from children in third, fourth, and fifth grades, as well as from junior high and university students. Respondents were provided with hypothetical incidents in which a student received either a passing or a failing score on a mathematics test. Information was also provided concerning the average score obtained on the test by the hypothetical student's classmates, the student's score on two previous examinations, and whether the teacher giving the most recent test was the same or different from the one giving previous tests. Respondents were asked to select the most suitable cause among five choices: ability, effort, difficulty of test questions, teacher's teaching method, and luck. Results indicated a heavy emphasis on the role of effort at all ages and little on the role of ability, even on the incident most likely to foster an ability attribution (when the hypothetical student is shown as performing significantly higher than classmates on three successive examinations).
Kariya (2001) criticized this overemphasis on βequality of opportunityβ (i.e., whether everyone is on the βsame starting lineβ),
arguing that it in fact increased the disparities between social classes in studentsβ willingness to study. The root of this problem lies in the erroneous understanding and interpretation by the government (such as Prime Ministerβs Commission on Japanβs Goals in the twenty-first Century) of the βequality of resultsβ and βequality of opportunity.β This has led to the exacerbation of βinequality of opportunity and results.β Furthermore, Kariya strongly opposed the Japanese governmentβs βself-responsible society constructionβ reform policy. Kariya argued that the government ignores the inequality between classes and has only promoted educational reform policies that emphasize βzest for livingβ (ηγγε (ikiru chikara), i.e., the ability to learn and think independently, since 1996) and βpersonality respectβ (since 1987), as well as attributing individualsβ actions to their self-responsibility. This criticism is centered on the argument that, even if these policies, which overlook the expansion of βinequality of opportunity and resultsβ but over-emphasize competition among individuals, can cause high-achieving students to be more willing to study, the overall effect may be for student willingness to study to become lower, thereby exacerbating social stratification.
Yosuke, meanwhile, is shown to not be very academically skilled. He never is seen anywhere near the top ten on the rankings in-game, and the animated adaptation goes so far as to imply he deeply struggles academically. And it's not like he doesn't try, either, we see him call for study sessions. He's making a genuine effort to do well in school, he's just not doing great. So, he just does not fit within the model at all. He makes an effort and still struggles.
Moreover, Yosuke is shown to be an energetic, extroverted, emotional kid who gets flustered very easily, such as the group date cafe where he is thrown off by Yu choosing him. He's fairly socially inept, and unlike the people above, this isn't due to unwillingness to interact with others, but to his over-talkativeness. Like him repeatedly poking Kanji over his bisexuality, which upsets Kanji, until Yukiko backs Kanji and Yosuke realizes he was making a mistake and stops. Or, speaking of Yukiko, him accidentally making an innuendo towards her, which she, also lacking in social skills, apparently managed to read the innuendo that he did not intend and slaps him over.
Point is, Yosuke does not fit the model of the lone genius. He more comes off as a class clown, being academically average-to-poor and having the social grace of a brick falling through a glass window.
Despite this, Yosuke is inarguably highly analytical. Before Naoto Shirogane comes in, he is responsible for a good majority of the investigative analysis and correct deductions in the team. Itβs him who figures out that only Persona users can enter the TV at will, and he also is the one to figure out the pattern of the murders on June 6.
The only part where he genuinely trips up is Kubo and later Namatame, entirely because his trauma and pain as a homicide survivor is flaring up and he is desperate to make sure he gets closure for his loss.
But, Yosukeβs wit is pretty rarely discussed among people, with his lack of social skills impacting him more. Heβs also negatively compared to the also-highly-intelligent Naotoβthe professional who also struggles socially. However, Naoto absolutely fits into the stereotypical mold of βgenius,β and is praised for it. Sheβs actually often fawned over as a result, such as by one woman whoβ¦ seems to be in college who fantasizes about Naoto saving her.
This obviously doesnβt happen to Yosuke for semi-obvious reasons. So, whatβs up with Yosuke?
Thereβs a concept in psychology called βMultiple Intelligences,β which is intentionally pretty abstract as itβs literally just categorizing what people are specializing in, and the creator purposefully makes the bounds fuzzy so as to not make it diagnostic but to use it as a tool to encourage the diverse specialties of schoolchildren. Here's the eight identified:
Linguistic - An ability to analyze information and create products involving oral and written language such as speeches, books, and memos.
Logical-Mathematical - An ability to develop equations and proofs, make calculations, and solve abstract problems.
Spatial An ability to recognize and manipulate large-scale and fine-grained spatial images.
Musical - An ability to produce, remember, and make meaning of different patterns of sound.
Naturalist - An ability to identify and distinguish among different types of plants, animals, and weather formations that are found in the natural world.
Bodily-Kinesthetic - An ability to use oneβs own body to create products or solve problems.
Interpersonal - An ability to recognize and understand other peopleβs moods, desires, motivations, and intentions.
Intrapersonal - An ability to recognize and understand oneβs own moods, desires, motivations, and intentions.
The geniuses portrayed above, like Einstein, are mainly of the logical-mathematical variety, while the detectives are closer to Yosukeβs linguistic variety, with their abilities being mainly relegated to deductions. Yosuke actually explicitly asks for help with math considering it's something he struggles in.
But it does go beyond thisβeven beyond Yosukeβs unique status, it extends to his treatment in general. All of the geniuses lionized in history tend to be sanitized to some extent by history, so as to not shake the idealization that is given of them, or the society around them. Let's take the example of Albert Einstein, who is now portrayed as a perfect, well-loved genius, and not the regular man he was. As a person, he was a civil rights activist, and fought antisemitism in order to protect himself and his community as a Jewish man. As a result, he was actually controversial in his day. (I think this is particularly relevant as Yosuke's voice actor, Yuri Lowenthal, is also a Jewish man who frequently uses his fame to argue for humanitarian causes.)
Associated with the myth of his creation at age seventy goes another myth: Einstein was loved by all humanity. How could anyone help loving that saintly image? Many did manage to. No one can ever be sure, of course, but it is possible that Einstein was as much hated as he was loved during his lifetime. He was hated as a Jew, a pacifist, a democrat and civil libertarian, a radical and in later years a socialist, to list some of the reasons. And this wasΒ· true not only during his years in Germany, where his life was threatened many times in the 1920's, and which he renounced forever when the Nazis assumed power in 1933; but also in the United States, where his efforts on behalf of Jewish and other anti-fascist refugees earned him the hatred of ' American chauvinists' from his earliest days in the United States. It is amusing- if you have a wry sense of humor - to compare the laudatory tributes to Einstein published after his death and ever since, with what those same sources (The New York Times, for example) had to say about him during the early 1950's, when Einstein stood like a bastion in defense of the Bill of Rights while so many other intellectuals were collapsing under the onslaught of McCarthyism and the anti-communist hysteria in the United States. Much influenced by Gandhi's example, Einstein advocated civil disobedience on many occasions. In June 1953, for example after Einstein advised a teacher not to cooperate with the House Un-American Activities Comnlittee, the New York Times chided: "To empty the unnatural and illegal forces of civil disobedience, as Professor Einstein advises, is, in this case, to replace one evil with another."
Yosuke, much like Einstein at the time, is also actively alive and in the face of his fellow townsfolk. In his case, Yosuke is actively friendly and simply clumsy in his interactions, being genuinely insensitive as he navigates social situations. His awkwardness is in your face.
Now, itβs been proven that social awkwardness does not diminish peopleβs perception of someoneβs intelligence overall, but instead enhances it. But, because Yosukeβs peers interact with him and watch him make actual social mistakes, they still donβt really want to be around him, and therefore donβt get as many chances to see him actually be capable.
Our findings show that negative first impressions of adults with ASD occurred only when audio and/or visual information was present, and not when the transcript of their speech content was evaluated (Study 1). This discrepancy suggests that social presentation style rather than the substantive content of social speech drove negative impression formation of individuals with ASD. Supporting this conclusion, a static image was sufficient for generating negative first impressions of those with ASD and including additional information, such as body movement or voice, did not worsen them further. In contrast, first impressions of TD controls improved with the addition of a visual information, suggesting that unlike the ASD group, visual cues helped rather than hurt the impressions they made on observers. We also determined that negative impressions extended beyond perceived social competence to judgments of likeability (reduced), attractiveness (reduced), and submissiveness (increased) (Study 1). However, negative impressions did not occur for all evaluated traits, with the two groups not differing on ratings of perceived intelligence or trustworthiness. The lack of group differences on these traits suggest that the social presentation differences in the ASD group may lead to more negative evaluations of traits associated with social appeal and approach behaviors (e.g., awkwardness, attractiveness, likability), than those associated with competence (intelligence) and character (trustworthiness).We also demonstrate that negative impressions remain stable across multiple thin-slice judgments. A series ofrandomly selected static images of college-aged individuals with ASD collected from a first-person perspective during social interaction were consistently rated as less approachable and more awkward than matched controls, with observers indicating a lower likelihood of being friends with members of the ASD group (Study 2). These ratings were stable across ten exposures of different randomly-selected images of each individual, suggesting that the negative impressions of the ASD group were not driven by poorer or non-representative image capture or by sequence effects, but rather by reliable differences in social presentation in ASD leading to consistent negative evaluation. This finding of negative evaluations of individuals with ASD is also emphasized by the consistency of results across all three studies, which include static and dynamic stimuli, as well as representations of different age groups.
So, why am I bringing this up? I would like to point out that Naoto suffers a similar situation. Naoto actually fits within the mold, even having her awkwardness pointed out by Yosuke in Rank 1. She is someone who is very good at deduction and is implied during the group study to be skilled at math, though she has not learned anything above her level. Itβs been pointed out that hard boiled sleuths in fiction fit within this mold as well, such as Sherlock Holmes.
An earlier but noteworthy attempt to fathom the core of the genius can also be found in the works of the British scholar Isaac DβIsraeli (the father of the later British Prime Minister) whose influence certainly extended into the Victorian era. In the subchapters to The Literary Character, or The History of Men of Genius, DβIsraeli presents a general catalogue of central features: βThe predisposition of genius. [β¦] Its melancholy. β Its reveries. β Its love of solitude. [β¦] β With some, curiosity as intense a faculty as invention. [β¦] β Men of genius excel only in a single artβ (DβIsraeli 1859: 24, 31, 244). DβIsraeliβs ideas of the βnaturalβ genius, its moods, solitude, inquisitiveness and specialised interests have been linked to this type throughout the Victorian era until the turn of the century and shaped it in the long run. According to KΓΆhne, its image around 1900 can be summarised as follows:
"A genius is brilliant, shows great ambition or even obsession regarding his work and fields of interest, but he is aloof, taciturn and awkward in his behaviour towards other people" (cf. KΓΆhne 2014: 490-491). It is conspicuous that there is a stark contrast between the workrelated attributes and those that refer to an individualβs social skills. While the former character traits can turn you into someone who is admired, the latter can turn you into a social outcast who evokes pity at the most.
This does in fact fit her description, as I've asserted. She's someone who's very blunt, as she doesn't understand how people's emotions come into play.
She also is someone who has managed to solve over 24 cases, despite being sixteen years of age.
This implies she managed to do this in an incredibly short amount of time, which would very much fit her into a Sherlock Holmes-esque mold. This would lead to her being admired for being a real life Holmes, in a sense. Which we have seen above.
I also want to point out the people that pedestalize her again. For the most part, they donβt usually interact with her, like her admirer in Rank 3 simply giving her a letter, and the woman at Samegawa fantasizing about her. But Naoto is actually not given much better treatment despite fitting within the genius image. She bluntly rebuffs two girls who are being romantically aggressive towards her (the names imply theyβre not just interacting with her out of kindnessβ¦), and they proceed to get annoyed when she rejects them. Even if she was blunter than a baseball bat, getting up in her face was a bit much, and shows how annoyed they were with her for not living up to their fantasies.
This is another way of showing that these people, such as Naoto and Yosuke, are only really celebrated when theyβre pushed out of the way. In a sense, simply beyond a wall, and non-interactable, even if they do fit the genius model that people impose upon them. Because when they do interact with people, they tend to blunder by not being blunt enough and not knowing they were supposed to say something differently. Naoto even admits to hearing from Yosuke that she struggles with understanding peopleβs emotions. I notice that this ostracization happens fairly often to most awkward kids like Yosuke and Naoto, because the people around them tend to think less of them as people thanks to them not conforming to a dreamlike norm. While Naoto is a great depiction of how the mold binds people who fit within, Yosuke is a great example of how it effects those who don't fit. Both for the negative. And I like how Yosuke in particular is portrayed as a friendly and loud individual while still being intelligent, especially since comedic relief is rarely portrayed as such.
But, what can we do about the damage this mold causes? Well, kids like Yosuke and Naoto (who I want to point out are usually disabled in some way, and I vehemently believe these two are no exception) sometimes band together. We see Yosuke and Naoto develop a friendship across the course of the game, with the latter mentioned in the formerβs social link. But, this is not across the board, as their awkwardness may drive off other people who also are awkward. Yosuke and Yukiko, as shown above, also had unintentional friction as a result. As a result, intracommunity friendships are not enough. Because if we leave it to that, people like them will be left behind and overlooked by their peers. Teachers have been attempting to help kids like Yosuke and Naoto, with teaching them social skills, but this puts the onus on solely the awkward kid to "fix themself," and not the kids around them to give them room to breathe when they are floundering. We need to teach people to be more patient with those who deviate from the norm, especially since they are not harming anyone just by being awkward. Not everyone navigates the world in the same way. I also think it can be alleviated by remembering that these people are human and not treating them as near-divine beings. That happens with Rise and her status as an idol, and look where that gets herβdealing with a lot of crap she doesnβt deserve. We need to understand that thereβs no one human experience.
