Category: Intelligence

People with higher IQ have this cheerful quality.

Feeling happy and satisfied is linked to having a higher IQ, research finds.

In fact, experiencing positive emotions, feeling lively and wide awake all predict higher intelligence.

The conclusions come from two studies of 440 people who completed tests of personality and well-being/happiness.

When given a task to do, people with higher intelligence were less stressed both before and afterwards, as well as being more engaged, researchers found.

People who were happier and more lively were also more likely to agree with statements like:

• Am quick to understand things.
• Have a rich vocabulary, and intellectual engagement.
• Like to solve complex problems.

Positive answers to these questions matched up with an actual fluid intelligence test they were given.

In other words, smart people were right about being smart, they didn’t just ‘feel’ smart.

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 study’s authors conclude:

“The results indicated that Intellect was generally associated with lower stress (low distress and worry and high task engagement) before and after intelligence tests.”

Even without being given a test to do, people with higher IQs felt happier and more energetic.

The reason that IQ and happiness are linked could be down to how much importance is placed on being smart in Western cultures.

The authors write:

“It is striking that Intellect was correlated with affect even in Study 1, in which there was no requirement to perform an intellectual task.

At least in Western cultures, intellect may be of sufficient importance to the self-schema that it influences general emotional functioning.”

The study was published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences (Zajenkowskia & Matthews, 2019).

Research demonstrates how to use your eyes and voice to project a higher IQ.

Maintaining eye contact while talking is one of the easiest ways to appear smarter, research finds.

Other common ways to appear smarter include speaking pleasantly, clearly and quickly.

The handy tip comes from a study in which people were recorded while trying to act smart discussing an assigned topic.

This condition was compared to people who were given no instruction about how to act.

Judges viewed the video and rated the person’s apparent intelligence.

Maintaining eye contact while speaking was rated as giving the smartest appearance.

Indeed, intelligence tests revealed that people who maintained eye contact were actually smarter.

Two other signs of high IQ were:

• maintaining eye contact while listening,
• and standing upright.

However, neither of these was linked to people’s measured intelligence.

Still, you could use them, as it creates the right impression.

Other ways to look more intelligent were:

• Speaking for longer.
• Having a self-assured expression.
• Being responsive.

People did not use these methods spontaneously, though.

The study’s authors conclude:

“Looking while speaking was a key behavior: It significantly correlated with IQ, was successfully manipulated by impression-managing targets, and contributed to higher perceived intelligence ratings.”

Along with more eye contact, other ways of appearing more intelligent are listed by the study’s authors:

“…pleasant speech style, clear or easy-to-understand communication, and faster speech rate all have been associated with higher perceived intelligence ratings.”

The study was published in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin (Murphy, 2007).

Verbal IQ refers to being able to use language to achieve goals.

People who are anxious have a higher verbal IQ, on average, research finds.

In particular, people with high IQs are more likely to ruminate.

Rumination is the term psychologists give to the turning over of depressing thoughts in the head.

Rumination is a common symptom of depression.

While worrying is not normally considered beneficial, it may be that people who worry tend to keep out of danger — so passing on their genes.

The benefit may be that intelligence allows people to better imagine what might go wrong.

As a result, anxiety and verbal intelligence may have evolved together.

Verbal IQ refers to being able to use language to achieve goals.

Higher levels and anxiety and IQ are also linked to superior abstract thinking, problem-solving and critical thinking.

The study involved 126 people given tests of anxiety, depression and IQ.

The results showed that people with higher verbal IQ ruminate more.

The study’s authors write:

“It is possible that more verbally intelligent individuals are able to consider past and future events in greater detail, leading to more intense rumination and worry.

Individuals with high non-verbal intelligence may be stronger at processing the non-verbal signals they interact with in the moment, leading to a decreased need to re-process past social encounters.”

The study took into account that anxious people often perform worse on tests — including intelligence tests.

The authors write:

“…symptoms of acute depression might decrease an individual’s ability to perform optimally on an intelligence test,
and that the individual may not have lower intelligence.”

Previous research has shown that people who are low in intelligence are also prone to worry — possibly because they achieve less in life.

Average intelligence show less of a link with anxiety.

The study was published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences (Penney et al., 2015).

People with high IQ are generally healthier, but they have one or two bad habits.

People with high IQs drink more alcohol, although they are unlikely to be heavy drinkers, research finds.

In other words, they drink more, on average, but spread it out, and are unlikely to be alcoholics.

The results fit with the fact that highly intelligent people are also more likely to use drugs.

It could be because the intelligent tend to be easily bored.

Study of IQ and alcoholism

The conclusions come from a large study of the links between IQ and health habits.

Higher IQs are generally linked to healthier habits.

People with higher IQs are likely to be fitter, as they do more exercise and strength training.

Higher intelligence was also linked to better oral hygiene, consuming fewer sugary drinks and reading the nutritional information on food labels.

The study included 5,347 American men and women.

They were first surveyed in their early 20s and followed up in middle-age.

The results provide an interesting picture of the way healthy and unhealthy habits are linked to intelligence.

The intelligent were found to be more likely to skip meals and snack in between.

Do smart people drink?

Drinking and smoking both have an unusual relationship because both high intelligence and low intelligence are linked to drinking more and smoking fewer cigarettes.

People of average intelligence tend to drink less or possibly be teetotal — however, they are likely to smoke more cigarettes.

The study’s authors conclude that they have…

“…found evidence of links between higher IQ and a number of more favourable health related habits (i.e. engaging in physical activity, nutritional literacy, and oral hygiene habits, as well as not smoking, binge dinking, or consuming sugary drinks),

[…]

These findings, support the notion that certain health behaviours may lie on a pathway that links intelligence in early life with various health outcomes in adulthood.”

The study was published in the journal Intelligence (Wraw et al., 2018).

This is how your musical taste reveals your IQ.

A preference for instrumental music indicates higher intelligence, research finds.

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).

This bright quality is linked to higher intelligence.

Feeling more happiness is a sign of a higher IQ, research finds.

Indeed, stable happiness is also a sign of higher IQ.

More intelligent people experience fewer drops in their happiness over the years.

People with higher IQs are just as happy at 31-years-old as they are at 51.

In contrast, the happiness of people with lower IQs is not just lower overall, but also goes up and down more over the years.

The conclusions come from a national survey of all 17,419 babies born in Britain during one week in 1958.

Those that stayed in the study were asked about their levels of happiness from ages 31 to 51.

The results are explained by Dr Satoshi Kanazawa, the study’s author:

“…childhood general intelligence emerged as the strongest predictor of the life-course variability of happiness.

More intelligent children on average tended to grow up to be more stable in their subjective well-being throughout adulthood.”

However, the reason that more intelligent people enjoy stable happiness was not clear from the study.

Dr Kanazawa writes:

“More intelligent individuals were significantly more stable in their happiness, and it was not entirely because: (1) they were more educated and wealthier (even though they were); (2) they were healthier (even though they were); (3) they were more stable in their marital status (even though they were); (4) they were happier (even though they were)…”

Satisfaction with life

Higher satisfaction with life is also a sign of high intelligence, a previous study has found.

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 study was published in the British Journal of Psychology (Kanazawa et al., 2014).

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).