In general, people tend to view their own level of book smarts as the optimal level. In high school a fellow student was a math genius who made into the U.S. math Olympiad at age ~14. He could do fractions in his head to multiple significant figures. In my mind I would come with justifications about how I was more rounded than him, and that he was too focused on math. Meanwhile, my brother always had much more trouble with math than I did. He would criticize me for being too nerdy, too into math, and "working too hard". Of course, to me it was fun and rewarding. I was good at it, so I did not view myself as "working too hard". In turn, the jocks at school made fun of my brother for being too nerdy. He would criticize them as being "dumb jocks". Meanwhile the jocks would make fun of the special ed kids for being so dumb.<p>Ability varies. Some people are innately good at math, some people are not. No one wants to have a value system where they are inevitably inferior. So people develop a value system in which their natural ability level is the ideal level.