Category: Intelligence

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).

Cognitive ability is higher in this personality type.

Laid back and unhurried people tend to have a higher IQ, psychological research finds.

Intelligent people become more laid back because they can do things quicker than others, so do not need to rush, the authors speculate.

High IQ people also have a tendency towards procrastination — perhaps because another benefit of higher intelligence is being able to start tasks later.

The study also found that higher IQs was linked to be cautious and being a perfectionist.

This may be because being a perfectionist takes longer and people with higher IQs have the patience to wait until the job is done right.

The conclusions come from a study of 722 people who were given personality and IQ tests.

The personality tests focused on conscientiousness, one of the five major traits of personality.

Different aspects of conscientiousness were examined, including being cautious, deliberate, orderly and having a tendency to procrastinate.

The results revealed a consistent link between being unhurried and having a higher IQ.

The study’s authors explain:

“The common feature of these three characteristics (procrastination, perfectionism and caution) is timing or hurriedness.

One possible interpretation of our results is that people with greater cognitive ability tend to be less hurried in their general approach to life’s activities.

This interpretation implies both positive aspects (e.g., the cautiousness involved in checking details, delaying acting, and continuing with tasks until their product is “perfect”) and negative ones (e.g., the tendency to procrastinate).”

The link between procrastination and higher IQ is down to greater abilities, the authors think:

“This suggests a slower internal pace among more intelligent people that more easily allows for interruptions or the incorporation of new information while completing a task.

This is not to imply that more intelligent people are physically slower in their tasks, as in fact they appear to be faster at most tasks.

Rather, we are suggesting that one way in which those demonstrating higher levels of cognitive ability may differ from those exhibiting lower levels of cognitive ability is a behavioral tendency to pace their work or other tasks at less than their maximum potential ability.”

The study was published in the Journal of Personality Research (Rikoon et al., 2016).

Certain personality traits and this interest are signs of high IQ.

Musical training is a fascinating sign of high IQ, a study finds.

People with musical training tend to have IQs up to 10-15 points higher than those who do not.

The reason is probably that an interest in learning music is linked to higher intelligence, as well as certain personality traits.

Children whose openness to experience is greater are more likely to be interested in music lessons.

Typically people who are open to experience tend to have more interest in beauty, new ideas and be more curious about the world.

Higher IQ is strongly linked to the personality trait of openness to experience.

People who are conscientious are also more likely to stick at their musical training, the study found.

However, the study does not support the so-called ‘Mozart effect’, the idea that listening to certain music can make you more intelligent.

Professor Glenn Schellenberg explained:

“The prevailing bias is that music training causes improvements in intelligence.

But you can’t infer causation simply because children with music training have higher IQs than children who haven’t had music training.”

The study included 167 12-year-olds and 118 young adults who were asked about their musical training and given IQ tests.

The results showed that having a higher IQ was linked to taking music lessons, but personality predicted who stuck with it.

Professor Schellenberg said:

“The differences in personality are at least as important as cognitive variables among adults, and even more important among children in predicting who is likely to take music lessons and for how long.

Much previous research may have overestimated the effects of music training and underestimated the role of pre-existing differences between children who do and do not take music lessons.

Children who take music lessons may have relatively high levels of curiosity, motivation, persistence, concentration, selective attention, self-discipline and organization.”

The study was published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology (Corrigall et al., 2013).

Emotional intelligence is linked to success in many areas of life.

People with high emotional intelligence are more successful at work and across many areas of life, research finds.

There are five signs of emotional intelligence, according to one model developed by Daniel Goleman:

1. Self-awareness: knowing your own strengths and weakness, as well as drives and values.
2. Self-regulation: being able to control disruptive emotions and adapt to new circumstances.
3. Social skill: capable of managing relationships with other people effectively.
4. Empathy: taking into account other people’s feelings when making decisions.
5. Motivation: a drive to succeed.

Those high in emotional intelligence are aware of their emotions and good at controlling and expressing them.

They can read emotions in others well and know how to manage them to achieve desired goals.

Higher emotional intelligence leads to better relationships with others, higher psychological well-being, greater self-compassion and a more positive perception by others.

The conclusion comes from a ‘meta-analysis’ — a type of study that collects together the results of other studies.

The results showed that emotional intelligence predicted workplace performance over and above personality and IQ.

The authors write that other studies have found that emotional intelligence is…

…a predictor in important domains such as academic performance, job performance, negotiation, leadership, emotional labor, trust, work–family conflict, and stress…”

Daniel Goleman’s model is just one way of thinking about emotional intelligence.

The researchers found, though, that different models and measures all provided insights into people’s emotional intelligence.

Professor Neal Ashkanasy, who was not involved in the research, said:

“By analyzing the numerous studies of emotional intelligence that have been conducted over the last decade, the authors of this article provide an evidence-based account of emotional intelligence, where it works and where it doesn’t.

And, most importantly, which of the various versions of emotional intelligence work the best.

This will prove to be a valuable tool for academic researchers, as well as business consultants and managers.”

The study was published in the Journal of Organizational Behavior (O’Boyle et al., 2010).

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).

The personality trait that is linked to higher intelligence.

Being cooperative is a sign of high intelligence, recent research finds.

More intelligent people tend to be cautious with their trust at first, then build it up with experience.

People who are cooperative tend to be more helpful, believe in teamwork and be mutually supportive.

In addition, those who are cooperative tend to be better at seeing the big picture and learning from experience.

Higher intelligence allows people to process information more quickly.

All these factors are signs that someone’s IQ is high.

Professor Eugenio Proto, who led the study, said:

“People might naturally presume that people who are nice, conscientious and generous are automatically more cooperative.

But, through our research, we find overwhelming support for the idea that intelligence is the primary condition for a socially cohesive, cooperative society.

A good heart and good behaviour have an effect too but it’s transitory and small.

An additional benefit of higher intelligence in our experiment, and likely in real life, is the ability to process information faster, hence to accumulate more extensive experience, and to learn from it.

This scenario can be applied to the workplace, where it’s likely that intelligent people who see the bigger picture and work cooperatively, will ultimately be promoted and financially rewarded.”

The conclusions come from people playing a series of games that tested cooperation.

Each involved trading off risk against reward.

The results showed that people who were more agreeable and conscientious were also more cooperative.

However, the influence of these personality traits was dwarfed by that of IQ.

Those with lower IQs, the study found, tend not to use a consistent strategy and disregard the consequences of their actions.

The study’s authors explain:

“Higher intelligence resulted in significantly higher levels of cooperation and earnings.

The failure of individuals with lower intelligence to appropriately estimate the future consequences of current actions accounts for these difference in outcomes.

Personality also affects behavior, but in smaller measure, and with low persistence.”

The study was published in the Journal of Political Economy (Proto et al., 2018).

This trait is a distinct part of human intelligence.

Intelligent people are more likely to trust others, research finds.

This may be because more intelligent people are better judges of character.

The study, published in the journal PLOS ONE, analysed data from the ‘General Social Survey’, which asks a nationally representative sample of Americans about their attitudes and characteristics (Carl & Billari, 2014).

The researchers focused on the idea of generalised trust: not trust of close friends and family, but of other unknown members of society.

People were asked:

“Generally speaking, would you say that most people can be trusted or that you can’t be too careful in dealing with people?”

They found that people who were more trusting were also happier and had higher levels of physical health.

It also emerged that trust was not just a proxy for intelligence: in other words intelligence could not explain the links between either trust and health or trust and happiness.

The study’s lead author, Noah Carl of Oxford University, said:

“Intelligence is shown to be linked with trusting others, even after taking into account factors like marital status, education and income.

This finding supports what other researchers have argued, namely that being a good judge of character is a distinct part of human intelligence which evolved through natural selection.”

It’s smart to trust

The research chimes with a number of established findings about the link between trust at the individual and societal level.

Previous research has found that people who are more trusting are:

• More likely to start a business.
• More likely to do voluntary work.
• Happier with their lives.
• Have better physical health.

In addition, societies which have higher levels of generalised trust overall also have:

• Public institutions which are more efficient.
• Higher levels of social capital.
• Greater economic growth.

The study’s coauthor, Professor Francesco Billari, said:

“People who trust others seem to report better health and greater happiness.

The study of social trust therefore has wider implications in public health, governmental policy and private charity, and there are good reasons to think that governments, religious groups and other civic organizations should try to cultivate more trust in society.”

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