Category: Intelligence

The risk of mental illness is up to 4 times higher in those with a high IQ. Why?

Highly intelligent people are at increased risk of mental illness, according to research.

This is because the brains of intelligent people are hyperexcitable, the researchers think.

A higher IQ leads to a greater awareness of their surroundings and what is going on.

This causes the central nervous system to be more reactive, making intelligent people more ‘jumpy’.

Dr Nicole Tetreault, study co-author, said:

“A minor insult such as a clothing tag or an unnatural sound may trigger a low level, chronic stress response which then activates a hyper body response.

When the sympathetic nervous system becomes chronically activated, it finds itself in a continuous fight, flight, or freeze state that triggers a series of immune changes in both the body and the brain-altering behavior, mood, and functioning.”

The conclusions come from a survey of 3,715 members of MENSA, whose members all have high IQs (above 130).

They reported their own mood and anxiety disorders as well as other conditions such as ADHD, autism and any physiological problems.

This data was compared to the national averages for these conditions.

Ms Audrey Kinase Kolb, study’s co-author, said:

“If high intelligence was not a risk factor for these diseases and disorders, we would see a similar prevalence rate between the two groups.

However, in this study, the Mensa population had significantly higher rates across the board.

For example, just over 10% of the US has a diagnosed anxiety disorder, compared to 20% for Mensans.

For these conditions, having a high intelligence is related to having between 2 to 4 times the chance of having a diagnosis compared to the average American.”

Ms Ruth Karpinski, the study’s first author, said:

“While falling within the extreme right tail of the Bell Curve is generally touted as a ‘gift’ leading to exceptional outcomes, this is not always the case.

Those with high IQ possess unique intensities and overexcitabilities which can be at once both remarkable and disabling on many levels.”

The study was published in the journal Intelligence (Karpinski et al., 2017).

Both men and women are more attracted to a person with this quality.

Being funny is a sign of a higher IQ, research finds.

Funny people have higher levels of general and verbal intelligence.

Not only that, but being funny is also linked to having more dating success.

Both men and women are more attracted to a person who is funnier.

However, women are more discerning about humour and react to it more strongly.

Men, meanwhile, tend to be focused on producing jokes (often to impress women).

The study’s authors write:

“Humor is not just a reliable intelligence-indicator; it may be one of the most important traits for humans seeking mates.

Of course, mate attraction is not the only function of humor.

Humor can also be used in competing for status with same-sex rivals, reducing social tensions, and other adaptive functions.”

The study involved 400 young people who were given intelligence tests and asked about their dating history.

They were then handed New Yorker cartoons with the caption deleted and asked to come up with their own.

The results showed that, unsurprisingly, verbal intelligence was strongly related to being funny.

However, people found it hard to come up with anything really good, with most captions rated as not funny at all.

This shows how difficult jokes are — especially in the medium of New Yorker captions.

Other studies, though, have also found links between intelligence and humour.

In this study, men were especially focused on trying to write funny captions and theirs were rated more highly, the authors write:

“Men were funnier than women on average and produced a larger number of captions, consistent with the sexual signaling hypothesis in which men try (unconsciously) to signal their mate quality through their humor ability, and women are more responsive to and discriminating about humor.”

The study was published in the journal Intelligence (Greengross & Miller, 2011).

The behaviour is linked to more white matter, the brain’s ‘superhighway’.

People who take calculated risks are likely to be smarter than average, research finds.

People making quick decisions and taking chances have more white matter in their brains.

White matter is sometimes called the ‘superhighway’ of the brain: it transmits signals and regulates communication.

The researchers were surprised by the result as they expected the exact opposite: that smarter people would spend more time evaluating the situation before making a decision.

Dr Dagfinn Moe, study co-author, explained:

“We expected to find that young men who spend time considering what they are going to do in a given risk situation would have more highly developed neural networks in their brains than those who make quick decisions and take chances.

This has been well documented in a series of studies, but our project revealed the complete opposite.”

The research involved young men playing a driving game.

The results showed that high-risk takers did not hesitate as long during the game.

Dr Moe thinks that the ability to take risks is under-appreciated by society at large:

“Daring and risk-willingness activate and challenge the brain’s capacity and contribute towards learning, coping strategies and development.

They can stimulate behaviour in the direction of higher levels of risk-taking in people already predisposed to adapt to cope optimally in such situations.

We must stop regarding daring and risk-willingness simply as undesirable and uncontrolled behaviour patterns.”

Seeking out challenges helps to stimulate the brain, which may be why risk-takers have more white matter.

Dr Moe said:

“All the positive brain chemicals respond under such conditions, promoting growth factors that contribute to the development of the robust neural networks that form the basis of our physical and mental skills.

The point here is that if you’re going to take risks, you have to have the required skills.

And these have to be learned.

Sadly, many fail during this learning process — with tragic consequences.

So this is why we’re wording our findings with a Darwinian slant — it takes brains to take risks.”

The study was published in the journal PLOS ONE (Vorobyev et al., 2015).

Highly intelligent people are attracted to one type of comedy.

Liking dark humour is a sign of higher intelligence, research finds.

Surprisingly, though, people who like dark humour feel the least aggressive towards others.

In other words, it is not aggressive people who like sick jokes.

People who like dark humour tend to better educated and with higher verbal and nonverbal intelligence.

The study also found that people who prefer more twisted jokes are also likely to be higher in emotional stability,

Dark humour, the study’s authors write, is

“…a kind of humour that treats sinister subjects like death, disease, deformity, handicap or warfare with bitter amusement and presents such tragic, distressing or morbid topics in humorous terms.

Black humour, often called grotesque, morbid, gallows or sick humour, is used to express the absurdity, insensitivity, paradox and cruelty of the modern world.

Characters or situations are usually exaggerated far beyond the limits of normal satire or irony, potentially requiring increased cognitive efforts to get the joke.”

For the study, people were asked to rate cartoons by a German humorist called Uli Stein.

For example, one cartoon has a confused man holding a telephone with the voice on the other end of the line saying:

“Here is the answering machine of the self-help association for Alzheimer patients.

If you still remember your topic, please speak after the tone.”

The study’s results revealed that people with higher intelligence were more likely to appreciate jokes like this.

Dark humour, it seems, is more difficult to enjoy without higher intelligence.

“These results support the hypothesis that humour processing involves cognitive as well as affective components and suggest that these variables influence the execution of frame-shifting and conceptual blending in the course of humour processing.”

The study was published in the journal Cognitive Processing (Willinger et al., 2017).

“Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.” — Ernest Hemingway

People with higher IQs are more likely to be happy, research finds.

The finding goes against both Hemingway and the popular idea that being intelligent is somehow predisposes people to unhappiness.

Dr Angela Hassiotis, who led the study, said:

“We found that IQ is associated with self-reported happiness, as levels of happiness were lowest in the lower IQ groups and highest in the higher IQ groups.

This is particularly relevant when considering the current political debates on happiness.”

For the study, data from almost 7,000 people was analysed.

The results showed that people with the lowest IQ (70 – 99) were the least happy in comparison to those with the highest IQs (120 – 129).

It wasn’t just about IQ, though, as Dr Hassiotis explained:

“When looking at the data we saw that people with a lower IQ were less likely to be happier because of higher levels of socio-economic disadvantage such as lower income.

They are also less likely to be happy because they need more help with skills of daily living, have poorer health and report more symptoms of psychological distress.”

Interventions should focus on increasing IQ levels at a young age, said Dr Hassiotis:

“There is also some evidence that long term intensive strategies directed at young children from socially deprived backgrounds can have a positive impact not only on IQ but also on wellbeing and life opportunities.

Such interventions are likely to be costly but the initial costs may be offset by future benefits such as a reduced reliance on state benefits and better mental and physical health.”

The study was published in the journal Psychological Medicine (Ali et al., 2012).

How long can you wait for your reward?

Having stronger self-control is a sign of higher intelligence, research finds.

Faced with temptation, more intelligent people stay cooler.

In the study, those with higher intelligence waited longer for a larger reward.

For the study, 103 people were given a series of tests that involved choosing between small financial rewards today or larger ones later on.

For example, let’s say I offer you $5 right now, or $10 in a month’s time.

Choosing the larger reward later on makes sense, but immediate returns are tempting.

Psychologists call this ‘delay discounting’: the longer people have to wait for a reward, the more they discount its value.

In other words, “a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush”.

The results showed that people with higher intelligence could wait longer for their reward, so demonstrating higher self-control.

Brain scans revealed that people with higher IQ had greater activation in an area called the anterior prefrontal cortex.

This area of the brain allows people to manage complex problems and deal with competing goals.

Dr Noah Shamosh, the study’s first author, said:

“It has been known for some time that intelligence and self-control are related, but we didn’t know why.

Our study implicates the function of a specific brain structure, the anterior prefrontal cortex, which is one of the last brain structures to fully mature.”

The study was published in the journal Psychological Science (Shamosh et al., 2008).

What is considered a high IQ and why does it matter?

What is considered a high IQ?

Well, IQ stands for ‘intelligence quotient’ and an IQ test is thought to measure intelligence.

An IQ test — which largely measures someone’s innate intellectual ability — gives an indication of a person’s potential.

People with high IQs have all kinds of advantages in life: they have better educations, better jobs, earn more and even live longer.

The test is set up in such a way that an average score is 100 and it provides a comparison against other people of your age.

What is considered a high IQ?

A score over 130 signals high IQ, with 132 being the cut-off for MENSA, the high IQ society.

Scoring over 130 puts someone in the top 2 percent, meaning that 98 percent score lower.

Over this figure is what is considered a high IQ.

The majority (68 percent) of people score between 85 and 115.

A score of over 145 puts a person in the top 0.2 percent of the population.

Over this figure is what is considered a very high IQ.

IQ scores test people’s ability to recognise patterns, to use logic to solve problems and to make quick connections between ideas.

There is no theoretical upper limit to an IQ score.

Estimates put the IQs of famous physicists Albert Einstein and Steven Hawking at around 160, although their actual scores or whether they ever took a test are not known.

Advantages of high IQ

High IQ is far from a guarantee of success and may even be a barrier to a normal life.

Evidence from various studies suggests that, in terms of attractiveness, leadership and other areas, a high-ish IQ of, say 120 is beneficial but a higher IQ can create problems.

There is some evidence that having a high IQ is linked to mental illness, although some studies have linked high IQ to better mental health.

The way IQ is conceived, it is supposed to be the same throughout life.

However, IQ can be affected by health, nutrition, access to education, environment and culture.

In other words, living well, being curious, exercising and learning can all help people reach their true potential.

People’s cognitive abilities naturally decline with age, and living healthily and keeping the mind active helps to maintain IQ levels.