Weisskopf discusses a variety of emotional traumata and character attitudes which may contribute to a lowering of intellectual functioning. These include a lack of parental reward for intellectual progress; a desire to punish the parents by intellectual dullness; a desire for self-punishment; a desire for masochistic gratification; a wish to maintain an infantile level of gratification; displacement of inhibitions from specific, threatening aspects of cognition to intellectual activity in general; inhibitions caused by real failure; reaction-formations against exhibitionism; a need to avoid self-evaluation; and a desire to be the recipient of love rather than of envy and aggression. Instead of focusing upon quantitative aspects of intelligence, she emphasizes the manifestations of character traits in intellectual functioning.