Two things which make you look more intelligent that you can do right now.
This sign is not normally linked to being smart.
This sign is not normally linked to being smart.
Happiness is a sign of high intelligence, research finds.
People who are more satisfied with their life and their job score higher on tests of general mental ability.
Satisfaction with life is one of the two major aspects of happiness, along with the feeling of positive emotions in the moment.
The results come from 33 studies on almost 50,000 people.
Along with finding a link between happiness and higher IQ, the study also found that higher IQ was linked to greater job satisfaction.
More intelligent people tend to earn more and have more complex jobs.
Complexity is likely to be more rewarding.
Naturally, then, when highly intelligent people are not challenged in their job, they are not as happy.
The study’s authors conclude:
“…smarter people may be happier both at work and in their everyday lives as a function of their higher attained job complexity and income.
We also found that, when holding complexity and income constant, GMA [general mental ability, or IQ] has a negative relationship with job satisfaction, which may be due to feelings of boredom and frustration at work experienced by high GMA individuals at “average” levels of complexity and income.”
The study was published in the Journal of Vocational Behavior (Gonzalez-Mulé et al., 2017).
High IQ brains have greater functional connectivity and higher synchronisation, but this has an unexpected real-world effect.
High IQ brains have greater functional connectivity and higher synchronisation, but this has an unexpected real-world effect.
Intelligent people take longer to solve difficult problems than those with lower IQs, a study finds.
The reason seems to be that people with higher IQs avoid jumping to conclusions, which means they are more likely to end up with the correct answer.
On simpler problems, though, people with high IQs do indeed answer more quickly.
The conclusions come from a study of 650 people who were given a series of logical problems to solve, which became steadily harder.
From a combination of brain scans and simulations of brain activity, the researchers found that the brains of smarter people took longer to solve difficult problems.
High IQ brains have greater functional connectivity and higher synchronisation.
It is these properties that allow the more intelligent brain to ‘hold out’ while complex information is being processed.
Dr Michael Schirner, the study’s first author, said:
“Synchronization, i.e., the formation of functional networks in the brain, alters the properties of working memory and thus the ability to ‘endure’ prolonged periods without a decision.
In more challenging tasks, you have to store previous progress in working memory while you explore other solution paths and then integrate these into each other.
This gathering of evidence for a particular solution may sometimes takes longer, but it also leads to better results.
We were able to use the model to show how excitation-inhibition balance at the global level of the whole brain network affects decision-making and working memory at the more granular level of individual neural groups.”
To reach their conclusions, the researchers used simulations of brain activity, personalised for each of the 650 people in the study.
Professor Petra Ritter, study co-author, explained:
“We can reproduce the activity of individual brains very efficiently.
We found out in the process that these in silico brains behave differently from one another—and in the same way as their biological counterparts. Our virtual avatars match the intellectual performance and reaction times of their biological analogues.”
The simulations revealed that the brains of people with lower IQs cannot wait until all the various areas of the brain have finished their processing steps before ‘jumping to conclusions’.
In contrast, greater synchrony in high IQ brains allowed time for all the brain regions to complete their processing and deliver up an answer that was more likely to be correct.
The study was published in the journal Nature Communications (Shirner et al., 2023).
Not only does hearing this statement lower IQ, it also makes people more aggressive, other studies have shown.
Not only does hearing this statement lower IQ, it also makes people more aggressive, other studies have shown.
Being socially rejected massively reduces a person’s effective IQ, research finds.
People told, “you will end up alone in life” experienced drops in analytical reasoning skills of 30 percent.
Their IQs also dropped around 25 percent.
Not only does rejection lower IQ, it also makes people more aggressive, other studies have shown.
The results suggest that intelligence may have evolved primarily to facilitate social relations.
For the study, people took a personality test and some were then told (falsely) that it indicated they would end up alone in life.
Afterwards they were given an IQ test.
The study’s authors explain the results:
“In all three studies, people exhibited significant cognitive decrements after they were told that they were likely to end up alone in life.
Thus, the prospect of social exclusion reduced people’s capacity for intelligent thought.
Moreover, the decrements in intelligent performance qualified as large effects every time.”
The researchers think that people’s IQ drops because they are in distress:
“…we can best explain the pattern of cognitive decrements by proposing that social exclusion constitutes a threatening, aversive event but that people strive to suppress their emotional distress, and the resulting drain on their executive function impairs their controlled processes.”
In other words, being told they would end up alone made it harder for them to concentrate, because they were trying to suppress negative emotions.
There is an intimate link between intelligence and social relations, the authors write:
“Our results are more consistent with the view that
[…]
intelligence evolved as a means to support and facilitate social relations rather than to compensate for the absence of their advantages.Our findings could even be taken to suggest that people responded as if being excluded from social groups removed the need for intelligent thought.”
The study was published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (Baumeister et al., 2002).
It could be possible to increase your IQ.
It could be possible to increase your IQ.
Young adults who are fitter have a higher IQ and are more likely to go on to higher education, research finds.
Higher IQ is linked to a higher heart and lung capacity, not to muscular strength.
Heart and lung capacity was most strongly linked to verbal comprehension and logical thinking skills.
Professor Michael Nilsson, one of the study’s authors, said:
“Being fit means that you also have good heart and lung capacity and that your brain gets plenty of oxygen.
This may be one of the reasons why we can see a clear link with fitness, but not with muscular strength.
We are also seeing that there are growth factors that are important.”
The researchers found that the link is down to environmental factors, not genes.
In other words, it could be possible to increase your IQ by getting fitter.
Dr Maria Åberg, the study’s first author, said:
“We have also shown that those youngsters who improve their physical fitness between the ages of 15 and 18 increase their cognitive performance.
This being the case, physical education is a subject that has an important place in schools, and is an absolute must if we want to do well in maths and other theoretical subjects.”
The conclusions come from a study of 1.2 million Swedish men doing their military service, who were born between 1950 and 1976.
Another study have shown that two hours of extra physical activity per week can boost children’s performance in school (Käll et al., 2014).
Children doing more exercise doubled their chances of hitting national learning goals in that study.
The study was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (Aberg et al., 2009).
How to use clothes to appear more competent.
How to use clothes to appear more competent.
Wearing more clothing makes you look more competent, a study finds.
Something as simple as taking off a sweater is enough to make you look less competent, the researchers found.
The finding applies to both men and women, said Dr Kurt Gray, the study’s first author:
“An important thing about our study is that, unlike much previous research, ours applies to both sexes.
It also calls into question the nature of objectification because people without clothes are not seen as mindless objects, but they are instead attributed a different kind of mind.”
The effect occurs because seeing more flesh encourages us to think about a person’s body, rather than their mind.
Dr Gray said:
“We also show that this effect can happen even without the removal of clothes.
Simply focusing on someone’s attractiveness, in essence concentrating on their body rather than their mind, makes you see her or him as less of an agent [someone who acts and plans] more of an experiencer.”
Showing bare skin, though, does have some advantages, explained Dr Gray:
“A focus on the body, and the increased perception of sensitivity and emotion it elicits might be good for lovers in the bedroom.
Others appear to be less inclined to harm people with bare skin and more inclined to protect them.
In one experiment, for example, people viewing male subjects with their shirts off were less inclined to give those subjects uncomfortable electric shocks than when the men had their shirts on.”
The study’s authors write:
“Even more than robbing someone of agency, the increased experience that may accompany body perceptions may lead those who are characterized in terms of their bodies to be seen as more reactive and emotional, traits that may also serve to work against career advancement.”
The study was published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (Gray et al., 2011).
Over 900 children were tested at ages 1, 5, 10 and 16.
Over 900 children were tested at ages 1, 5, 10 and 16.
Mothers who are depressed lower their children’s IQ.
Up to one-quarter of new mothers experience postpartum depression, figures suggest.
Over 900 children were tested at ages 1, 5, 10 and 16 and found to have a lower IQ if their mother was depressed.
Around 50 percent of the mothers — who were living in Santiago, Chile — were depressed at some point during the research period.
Dr Patricia East, who led the study, said:
“We found that mothers who were highly depressed didn’t invest emotionally or in providing learning materials to support their child, such as toys and books, as much as mothers who were not depressed.
This, in turn, impacted the child’s IQ at ages 1, 5, 10 and 16.
The consistency and longevity of these results speak to the enduring effect that depression has on a mother’s parenting and her child’s development.”
Researchers followed the batch of children in Chile at five-year intervals for a total of 15 years.
Average verbal IQ scores for children with depressed mothers were 7.3 compared with 7.8 among those with non-depressed mothers.
Dr East said:
“Although seemingly small, differences in IQ from 7.78 to 7.30 are highly meaningful in terms of children’s verbal skills and vocabulary.
Our study results show the long term consequences that a child can experience due to chronic maternal depression.”
Around one in five mothers who were severely depressed when their child was born remained depressed for a long time.
Dr East said:
“For mothers in the study, there were many stressors in their lives.
Most of the mothers, while literate, had only nine years of education, were not employed outside the home and often lived with extended family in small, crowded homes–factors that likely contributed to their depression.
Many mothers suffer from depression in the first six months after childbirth, but for some, depression lingers.”
Dr East said:
“For health care providers, the results show that early identification, intervention and treatment of maternal depression are key.
Providing resources to depressed moms will help them manage their symptoms in a productive way and ensure their children reach their full potential.”
The study was published in the journal Child Development (Wu et al., 2018).
The diet causes lower intelligence and 50 percent more laziness.
The diet causes lower intelligence and 50 percent more laziness.
High-fat foods can reduce intelligence in just 9 days, research finds.
Cognitive performance reduced by 20 percent in just over a week after eating a high-fat diet.
The study on rats fed them a diet equivalent to human junk food.
After nine days, not only was their cognitive performance affected, but their physical performance was reduced by 50 percent.
The short-term effects of a high-fat diet are startling, the researchers say.
A previous study has found a high-fat diet can reduce cognitive performance in humans as well.
Dr Andrew Murray, the study’s first author, said:
“We found that rats, when switched to a high-fat diet from their standard low-fat feed, showed a surprisingly quick reduction in their physical performance.
After just nine days, they were only able to run 50 per cent as far on a treadmill as those that remained on the low-fat feed.”
The conclusions come from a study of rats who were initially fed on a standard low-fat diet.
Half were then switched to a high-fat diet.
Dr Andrew Murray explained how these diets translate to what humans eat:
“With the standard feed, 7.5 per cent of the calories come from fat.
That’s a pretty low-fat diet, much like humans eating nothing but muesli.
The high-fat diet, in which 55 per cent of the calories came from fat, sounds high but it’s actually not extraordinarily high by human standards.
A junk food diet would come close to that.”
The results showed that after nine days the rats fed on a high-fat diet made 20 percent more errors when learning to navigate a maze.
They were also running 50 percent less far.
The researchers also found that the rats’ hearts were enlarged with the increased effort of pumping blood around their bodies.
Professor Kieran Clarke, study co-author, said:
“These are startling results.
It shows that high-fat feeding even over short periods of time can markedly affect gene expression, metabolism and physical performance.”
Professor Jeremy Pearson said:
“In little more than a week, a change in diet appears to have made the rats’ hearts much less efficient.
We look forward to the results of the equivalent studies in human volunteers, which should tell us more about the short-term effects of high-fat foods on our hearts.
We already know that to protect our heart health in the long-term, we should cut down on foods high in saturated fat.”
The study was published in The FASEB Journal (Murray et al., 2009).
Intelligence alone won’t get you there—discover the missing link to academic success.
Deficiency in this vitamin is very common.
Deficiency in this vitamin is very common.
Higher vitamin D levels during pregnancy are linked to higher IQ among children, research finds.
Unfortunately, vitamin D deficiency is common in the general population and especially among Black people.
Around 80 percent of Black pregnant women may be deficient in vitamin D.
Ms Melissa Melough, the study’s first author, explains:
“Melanin pigment protects the skin against sun damage, but by blocking UV rays, melanin also reduces vitamin D production in the skin.
Because of this, we weren’t surprised to see high rates of vitamin D deficiency among Black pregnant women in our study.
Even though many pregnant women take a prenatal vitamin, this may not correct an existing vitamin D deficiency.
I hope our work brings greater awareness to this problem, shows the long-lasting implications of prenatal vitamin D for the child and their neurocognitive development, and highlights that there are certain groups providers should be paying closer attention to.
Widespread testing of vitamin D levels is not generally recommended, but I think health care providers should be looking out for those who are at higher risk, including Black women.”
The study included over 1,500 women and their children, who were tracked over five years.
The results showed that children had higher IQs at 4-6 years old when their mothers had higher vitamin D levels during pregnancy.
Ms Melough said:
“Vitamin D deficiency is quite prevalent.
The good news is there is a relatively easy solution. It can be difficult to get adequate vitamin D through diet, and not everyone can make up for this gap through sun exposure, so a good solution is to take a supplement.”
The recommended daily intake for vitamin D is 600 IU.
The average intake in the US is just 200 IU, with the remainder required from exposure to the sun.
Unfortunately, most people do not get enough exposure to the sun, especially in the winter months.
Foods that contain high levels of vitamin D include cow’s milk, breakfast cereals, fatty fish and eggs.
Ms Melough said:
“I want people to know that it’s a common problem and can affect children’s development.
Vitamin D deficiency can occur even if you eat a healthy diet.
Sometimes it’s related to our lifestyles, skin pigmentation or other factors outside of our control.”
The study was published in The Journal of Nutrition (Melough et al., 2020).
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