The link to intelligence is especially strong in women.
People with this personality type have higher crystallised intelligence.
People with this personality type have higher crystallised intelligence.
Being open to experience is a sign of high intelligence, research reveals.
People who are open to experience are more interested in things that are complex, new and unconventional.
They are sensitive to their feelings, intellectually curious and seekers of variety.
Curiosity and an appreciation of beauty are particularly strong signs of crystallised intelligence, the study found.
Crystallised intelligence roughly equates to general knowledge: knowing many things about the world.
It is natural that people who are curious and interested in new things tend to pick up more general information.
The conclusions come from a study of around 500 people who were given tests of intelligence and personality.
Openness to experience is one of the five major aspects of personality.
Openness also has a number of facets of its own, the study authors explain:
“The Openness to Experience construct involves the tendency to fantasize (Fantasy), aesthetic sensitivity (Aesthetics), awareness of one’s emotions (Feelings), preference for novelty (Actions), intellectual curiosity (Ideas), and preference for non-traditional values (Values).”
The results revealed that more intelligent people were particularly appreciative of beauty: they had a strong aesthetic sense.
They were also likely to be intellectually curious and to have an interest in ideas for their own sake.
These two facets of openness were most strongly linked to higher crystallised intelligence.
The study was published in the Journal of Research in Personality (Ashton et al., 2000).
The reason people with a higher IQ also tend to be healthier could be down to their diet.
The reason people with a higher IQ also tend to be healthier could be down to their diet.
People with a higher IQ are more likely to be vegetarian, psychological research finds.
In fact, vegetarians could be up to 10% more intelligent than red meat eaters, according to some studies.
A higher IQ is also seen among those who describe themselves as vegetarian, but also eat chicken and fish.
The conclusion comes from a survey of 8,170 men and women whose IQ was tested when they were 10-years-old.
By age 30, 4.5% had become vegetarian, of these 2.5% were vegan and 33.6% said they were vegetarian, but still ate chicken and/or fish.
People with higher IQs at age 10, the analysis showed, were more likely to be vegetarians at age 30.
There was no difference between stricter vegetarians (ovo-lacto vegetarians) and those who ate some chicken and/or fish as well.
The findings could help to explain why more intelligent people are also healthier, since a vegetarian diet is better for the heart and for maintaining a healthy body mass.
Part of the link between IQ and vegetarianism was explained by social status and education.
In other words, people of higher social class are more likely to be intelligent and more likely to be vegetarian anyway.
Still, even when these two factors were accounted for statistically, the relationship between vegetarianism and IQ remained.
The study’s authors write:
“Might the nature of the vegetarians’ diet in this cohort have enhanced their apparently superior brain power?
Was this the mechanism that helped them to achieve the disproportionate number of higher degrees?
Benjamin Franklin and George Bernard Shaw, both ardent vegetarians, would have us believe so.
According to Shaw in an article published in The Star in 1890, “A mind of the calibre of mine cannot derive its nutriment from cows.”
The study was published in the British Medical Journal (Gale et al., 2007).
People with high intelligence tend to have this quality.
People with high intelligence tend to have this quality.
Being nice is a sign that your IQ is high, research reveals.
Highly intelligent people are better at cooperating and are more generous to others.
Smart people are almost three times as generous as those with lower cognitive abilities, the study found.
The reason may be that smarter people are more patient — a quality that is critical for cooperation.
More patience allows people to step back from the situation and exert self-control.
The study involved hundreds of people given a test of a type of intelligence call ‘cognitive reflection’.
This measures people’s ability to override a quick, obvious response that turns out to be wrong in order to get the right answer.
Here are two of the tests of cognitive reflection used in the study:
The answers are at the bottom of the article.
Clever people are more patient at searching out the real answer, it emerges.
Subsequently, people who did better in this test were also up to three times more generous in a game that tested people’s generosity.
The reason could be that people with intelligence have more patience, the study’s author, Dr Lohse writes:
“Subjects with higher cognitive abilities have been shown to be more patient and to be able to exert higher levels of self-control.
[…]Martinsson et al. (2014) demonstrate that subjects with higher self-control capabilities cooperate more.
Similarly, Fehr and Leibbrandt (2011) show that more patient subjects in the lab cooperate more in the field.”
The answers are 5 minutes to the first problem and 47 days to the second.
If you didn’t get this, remember the test is designed to make you think a little longer and harder.
The study was published in the Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (Lohse, 2016).
This behaviour is a sign of higher intelligence.
A child’s humble nature may reveal more about their adult self than you might think.
The study had 129 people given tests of personality and intelligence.
Answers to: Is IQ dropping around the world? Where does human intelligence come from? What are the signs of a high IQ brain?
Answers to: Is IQ dropping around the world? Where does human intelligence come from? What are the signs of a high IQ brain?
While it is obvious to us that some people are smarter than others, scientists are definitely not agreed on the root of one of our most precious abilities: intelligence.
Certainly, many aspects of intelligence are mysterious, and these six recent studies published in the members-only section of PsyBlog have asked questions including:
Perhaps the last of these questions should concern us the most; after all, without our intelligence what a paltry being is left?
To access these articles, you need to have a paid membership.
Once again, many thanks to everyone who supports PsyBlog in this way.
In the last 30 years or so, there is evidence that the so-called ‘Flynn effect’ has been reversing..
Around half the children in the study had little or no experience of reading for pleasure or did not pick up the habit until later on.
The research revealed the facets of the major personality traits that are signs of high intelligence.
Where does intelligence lie in the brain? Scientists definitely do not agree.
There is no specific area of the brain that ‘masterminds’ our intelligence, research finds.
High IQ brains have greater functional connectivity and higher synchronisation, but this has an unexpected real-world effect.
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The ‘refreshment’ is linked to a slower brain and making more mistakes.
The ‘refreshment’ is linked to a slower brain and making more mistakes.
Drinking higher quantities of alcohol and smoking cigarettes are both linked to a lower IQ, research finds.
People who smoke and drink have a worse memory and poorer problem-solving skills.
Similarly, higher rates of binge drinking are also linked to a lower IQ, a previous study found.
Smoking may be even more damaging to thinking skills than drinking.
High levels of smoking and drinking both lead to a slower brain and making more mistakes.
The reason may be that smoking and drinking damage the blood vessels supplying the brain.
The conclusions come from a study of 172 men, some of whom were alcoholics.
All completed tests of IQ, memory and thinking skills and were followed up over nine years.
The results showed that the more they drank and smoked, the lower their IQ.
Drinkers and smokers also had worse memories and poorer thinking skills.
Dr Jennifer Glass, the study’s first author, said:
“We can’t say that we’ve found a cause-and-effect relationship between smoking and decreased thinking ability, or neurocognitive proficiency.
But we hope our findings of an association will lead to further examination of this important issue.
Perhaps it will help give smokers one more reason to quit, and encourage quitting smoking among those who are also trying to control their drinking.”
Professor Robert Zucker, study co-author, said:
“The exact mechanism for smoking’s impact on the brain’s higher functions is still unclear, but may involve both neurochemical effects and damage to the blood vessels that supply the brain.
This is consistent with other findings that people with cardiovascular disease and lung disease tend to have reduced neurocognitive function.”
The study was published in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence (Glass et al., 2006).
People with efficient brains tend to have spare capacity.
People with efficient brains tend to have spare capacity.
Daydreaming is a sign of being more creative and having higher intelligence, research suggests.
Those who report more daydreaming have higher intellectual abilities and their brains work more efficiently.
People with efficient brains tend to have spare capacity, so it is natural for the mind to wander.
The conclusions come from a study in which over 100 people stared at a fixed point for five minutes while their brains were scanned.
The aim was to see how the areas of the brain worked together when they were given nothing in particular to do.
The results showed that those with more efficient brains were also smarter and more creative.
Dr Eric Schumacher, study co-author, said:
“People with efficient brains may have too much brain capacity to stop their minds from wandering.
People tend to think of mind wandering as something that is bad.
You try to pay attention and you can’t.
Our data are consistent with the idea that this isn’t always true.
Some people have more efficient brains.”
One sign of an efficient brain is being able to zone in and out of conversations without missing anything.
Dr Schumacher said:
“Our findings remind me of the absent-minded professor — someone who’s brilliant, but off in his or her own world, sometimes oblivious to their own surroundings.
Or school children who are too intellectually advanced for their classes.
While it may take five minutes for their friends to learn something new, they figure it out in a minute, then check out and start daydreaming.”
Ms Christine A. Godwin, the study’s first author, wants to examine exactly when mind wandering could be useful and when not:
“There are important individual differences to consider as well, such as a person’s motivation or intent to stay focused on a particular task.”
The study was published in the journal Neuropsychologia (Godwin et al., 2017).
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