Category: Intelligence

This is how your musical taste reveals your IQ.

A preference for instrumental music indicates higher intelligence.

People who like ambient music, smooth jazz, film soundtracks, classical music and similar genres without vocals tend to have higher IQs.

While vocal music might be seen as the ‘opposite’ of instrumental music, liking vocal music has no link to IQ.

In other words, many people with high IQs also like vocal music, but so do many with less impressive levels of intelligence.

The conclusions come from a survey of 1,500 people.

All were given IQ tests and asked about their preferences for eighteen musical genres.

The results showed that…

“…net of age, race, sex, education, family income, religion, current and past marital status and number of children, more intelligent Americans are more likely to prefer instrumental music such as big band, classical and easy listening than less-intelligent Americans.”

A second similar survey of thousands of 16-year-olds and their musical preferences was carried out in the UK in the 1980s.

This also found a link between high intelligence and a preference for instrumental music.

One theory about why liking instrumental music is linked to high IQ is the cognitive complexity of the music.

However, the researchers found this couldn’t be true.

Opera, for example, is seen as complex, yet the people who like it are no more intelligent than those who don’t.

The study’s authors write:

“It would be difficult to make the case that big-band music is more cognitively complex than classical music.

On the other extreme, as suspected, preference for rap music is significantly negatively correlated with intelligence.

However, preference for gospel music is even more strongly negatively correlated with it.

It would be difficult to make the case that gospel is less cognitively complex than rap.”

Instead, the reason, according to Dr Satoshi Kanazawa, the study’s co-author, is that instrumental music is more novel.

Music that is novel — in other words, developed more recently in evolutionary terms — tends to be preferred by people with higher IQs.

The study was published in the Journal of Behavioral Decision Making (Kanazawa & Perina, 2011).

Crystallised intelligence is demonstrated by better language and reasoning skills.

Sitting down is not all bad: people who spend more time sitting score higher on tests of crystallised intelligence.

Crystallised intelligence is demonstrated by better language and reasoning skills.

It refers to the type of intelligence that comes from knowledge and experience that tends to come with age.

However, people who do more exercise boost their fluid intelligence.

Fluid intelligence refers to the speed at which the brain works.

It is like the raw power of an engine or the speed at which a computer can process information.

The conclusions come from a study that looked at how different levels of physical activity are linked to cognitive health.

Dr Agnieszka Burzynska, the study’s first author, said:

“We know that as we grow older, even if we do not have any cognitive impairments, people aged 60 and up already show some decreases in speed, executive functioning, and memory.

Those decreases are totally within a normal range, but this study was looking to understand how our behaviors and habits may correlate with cognitive outcomes in older age.”

For the study, 228 older people’s daily activity was measured.

People are often sat down each day for longer than they think said Dr Burzynska:

“If you ask, ‘How long did you sit today?’ people will perhaps say 2 to 3 hours when the reality is more like 6 to 8 hours.”

Cognitive tests revealed that people who sat more tended to do better on knowledge and reading tests.

Those that exercised more, though, did better on memory and problem-solving tests that require a ‘faster’ brain.

Light physical activities like housework cooking and laundry had little effect on people’s cognition — it was moderate-to-vigorous activities that worked.

Dr Burzynska said:

“There’s this big push within health and wellness that sitting is always bad for your body, that being a couch potato is not good, and although our earlier studies indicated that the brains of those who spend more time sitting may age faster, it seems that on the cognitive level, sitting time may also be meaningful.”

Sitting time may be beneficial as long as it is used to stimulate the brain: such as by reading, playing games or doing something educational or mentally invigorating.

Dr Burzynska said:

“I don’t think I would in any way suggest that we should engage in more sitting, but I think trying to be as physically active as possible and making sure that you get stimulated in your sedentary time — that it’s not just spent staring at the TV — that this combination might be the best way to take care of your brain.

I hope it sends some positive message for those of us who have had limited opportunities to exercise during the pandemic.”

Dr Burzynska added:

“When you exercise, enjoy your exercise. Maybe sometimes think, ‘Yeah I’m going to go sit now and enjoy a really good book’.”

The study was published in the journal Psychology and Aging (Burzynska et al., 2020).

Certain common aspects of personality are often linked to higher levels of intelligence by psychologists.

Dutiful, competent and self-disciplined people have a higher IQ, research finds.

This means that higher IQ is linked to people who have a strong sense of responsibility, who are self-disciplined and confident in themselves and what they can do.

On top of these three factors, psychologists have found that both being open to experience and having stable emotions tends to indicate a higher IQ.

People who are open to experience are more interested in things that are complex, new and unconventional.

Emotional stability is linked to being better at dealing with stress and minor frustrations.

People who are emotionally stable usually find it easier to control their urges and are mostly unselfconscious.

Personality and IQ tests

The conclusions come from two studies: in the first many thousands of people in 86 different countries were given personality and IQ tests.

The results showed that people who were seen by others as more competent, dutiful and self-disciplined also had higher IQs.

All three are facets of the major personality trait of conscientiousness.

The general link between being conscientious and intelligence makes sense, the study’s authors write, since…

“…conscientiousness and cognitive ability are positive
correlates of several real life outcomes.

It was proved that both variables are especially important predictors of job performance, school achievements, and health-related behavior.

Interestingly, in most studies the effects of conscientiousness and intelligence on life outcomes appear to be independent.”

The second study included 201 university students in the UK who were given tests of personality and general knowledge questions, including:

• Who wrote Anna Karenina?
• Who discovered penicillin?
• Which Beatle was shot in New York?

(See the end of the article for the answers.)

The results showed that people got more answers correct if their personalities were more emotionally stable and they were more open to experience.

Openness to experience is particularly important for general knowledge because it makes people more curious and motivates them to learn new things.

(The answers are: Leo Tolstoy, Alexander Fleming and John Lennon, respectively.)

The studies were published in the journals Personality and Individual Differences and Learning and Individual Differences (Chamorro-Premuzic et al., 2006; Zajenkowski & Stolarski,, 2015).

The trait is not normally associated with intelligent people.

People who are generous by nature have a higher IQ, research finds.

Generous people are unselfish and sometimes deny themselves so that others can have more.

Although generosity is not something people usually associate with intelligence, psychological research clearly shows a link.

Intelligent people may be more generous partly because they can afford it.

People with higher IQs generally have greater resources, or can expect to recover what they have given away later on.

The conclusions come from a study in which 96 people played games that involved either donating to others or keeping things for themselves.

The results revealed that intelligent people were more generous to others.

In contrast, those who kept more for themselves tended to be less intelligent.

The study’s authors used the results of SAT tests, which can be converted into approximate IQ scores.

They write:

“We find that subjects who perform better on the Math portion of the SAT [Scholastic Aptitude Test] are more generous in both the dictator game and the SVO [Social Value Orientation] measure.

Our results involving SAT scores […] suggest that measures of cognitive ability, which are less sensitive to the intrinsic motivation of the subject, are positively related to generosity.”

The study was published in the Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization (Chen et al., 2013).

The link helps explain ‘the halo effect‘, the idea that the mind assumes that what is beautiful is good.

Attractive people are also likely to be more intelligent.

People who are physically attractive can have IQs up to 14 percent higher than the less attractive.

The results come from data on 17,419 children in the UK who have been followed since 1958.

Attractive male children have 13.6 more IQ points than their unattractive peers.

Meanwhile, female children have 11.4 more IQ points.

This is the difference between being of average and high intelligence.

People unconsciously assume that better looking people are more intelligent.

It is part of what psychologists call ‘the halo effect‘: the mind assumes that what is beautiful is good.

Hollywood stars demonstrate the halo effect perfectly.

Because they are often attractive and likeable we naturally assume they are also intelligent, friendly, display good judgement and so on.

As the study’s authors write:

“Individuals perceive physically attractive others to be more intelligent than physically unattractive others.

While most researchers dismiss this perception as a ‘bias’ or ‘stereotype’, we contend that individuals have this perception because beautiful people indeed are more intelligent.”

The authors warn that the finding should not be used as the basis for discrimination or prejudice:

“Our contention that beautiful people are more intelligent is purely scientific.

It is not a prescription for how to treat or judge others.”

Tall and intelligent

A second sign of higher intelligence is being taller.

The reason is that the genes that are correlated with height are also correlated with intelligence.

The conclusion comes from a study of the DNA of 6,815 people.

Of course, there are still people who are short and intelligent, plus those who are tall and dim.

But, on average, there is a small association between being taller and having higher intelligence.

The studies were both published in the journal Intelligence (Kanazawa, 2011; Kanazawa & Kovar, 2004).

The type of music that signals a high IQ..

People who like instrumental music tend to have higher IQs, research finds.

Instrumental music includes everything that does not have lyrics, such as ambient, classical, smooth jazz, big band and some film soundtracks.

Almost everyone, whatever their IQ, though, likes vocal music.

A preference for vocal music does not provide a signal about intelligence.

The reason that higher IQ is linked to the preference for instrumental music has nothing to do with the cognitive complexity of the music.

Opera, for example, is often seen as complex, but it says nothing about people’s intelligence.

The study’s authors write:

“It would be difficult to make the case that big-band music is more cognitively complex than classical music.

On the other extreme, as suspected, preference for rap music is significantly negatively correlated with intelligence.

However, preference for gospel music is even more strongly negatively correlated with it.

It would be difficult to make the case that gospel is less cognitively complex than rap.”

The conclusions come from two surveys of thousands of people who were asked about their musical preferences and given IQ tests.

Both found a link between higher intelligence and preference for instrumental music.

The results showed that…

“…net of age, race, sex, education, family income, religion, current and past marital status and number of children, more intelligent Americans are more likely to prefer instrumental music such as big band, classical and easy listening than less-intelligent Americans.”

An evolutionary explanation

The explanation for this link between IQ and musical preferences may go back into our evolutionary past.

Dr Satoshi Kanazawa, the study’s co-author, thinks that instrumental musical is more ‘evolutionary novel’ and therefore linked to a higher IQ.

This explanation is highly debatable (see Dutton, 2013), but the link is still fascinating.

The study was published in the Journal of Behavioral Decision Making (Kanazawa & Perina, 2011).

The trait is associated with lower full-scale intelligence and lower verbal IQ.

Neurotic people score lower on intelligence tests, but it may not be a true reflection of neurotic people’s IQ.

The link could be down to the neurotic being nervous while taking tests, some psychologists think.

The links have been found between higher neuroticism and lower full-scale intelligence and lower verbal IQ.

Neuroticism is a personality trait that is strongly linked to anxiety, sadness, irritability and self-consciousness.

The study’s authors explain the personality trait of neuroticism:

“Neuroticism reflects a tendency to experience negative emotions, like anxiety and depression.

The six sub-facets of Neuroticism, according to Costa and McCrae (1992) are Anxiety, Anger-hostility, Depression, Self-consciousness, Impulsiveness and Vulnerability.

High scorers tend to be sensitive, emotional, worrying, moody, frequently depressed, often sleep badly and may suffer from various psychosomatic disorders.

[…]

Low scorers tend to be secure, hardy and generally relaxed even under stressful conditions.”

The conclusions come from two studies.

In the first, 646 Dutch twins were given personality and IQ tests.

The researchers found the link between higher neuroticism and lower IQ, concluding that the link was mostly explained by genetics.

The second, though, gave 213 people IQ tests and divided them into two groups based on their anxiety.

The authors explain that neurotic people got more nervous when taking the test:

“…high Neurotics are more stressed under testing conditions than low Neurotics, and that they are even more stressed when they receive information which induces further anxiety.”

The researchers were then able to statistically remove the effects of anxiety on test-takers.

Then, neurotic people did just as well on the IQ test as non-neurotic people.

The authors conclude:

“Neurotics become more anxious under testing conditions, and this anxiety affects their performance on the IQ tests.

It is therefore proposed that Neuroticism is not related to intelligence per se, but to intelligence test performance, which has been proposed in the past (Eysenck, 1971).

This suggestion implies that IQ tests may underestimate the true intelligence of Neurotic individuals.”

The studies were published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences (Bartels et al., 2012; Moutafi et al., 2006).