Category: Intelligence

One common sign of high IQ is obvious in childhood.

Learning to read at an earlier stage is a sign of higher IQ, a study finds.

The better a person’s reading skills at age 7, the higher their intelligence in later life.

It may be that reading from an earlier age helps to improve IQ.

If this is true, then helping children to read sooner may boost their intelligence.

Dr Stuart J. Ritchie, the study’s first author, said:

“Since reading is an ability that can be improved, our findings have implications for reading instruction.

Early remediation of reading problems might aid not only the growth of literacy, but also more general cognitive abilities that are of critical importance across the lifespan.”

The conclusions come from a study of 1,890 twins whose IQ and reading levels were tested between the ages of 7 and 16.

Twins were included because the researchers wanted to rule out the effect of the environment and genes.

It emerged from the results that among each pair of twins, the one that began to read earlier had a higher IQ later on.

Dr Ritchie said:

“If, as our results imply, reading causally influences intelligence, the implications for educators are clear.

Children who don’t receive enough assistance in learning to read may also be missing out on the important, intelligence-boosting properties of literacy.”

Dyslexia

Dyslexia — a type of learning difficulty causing problems with reading and writing — is not a sign of low IQ.

Professor John D. E. Gabrieli, who has published research on dyslexia and IQ, said:

“We found that children who are poor readers have the same brain difficulty in processing the sounds of language whether they have a high or low IQ.

Reading difficulty is independent of other cognitive abilities.”

The study was published in the journal Child Development (Ritchie et al., 2015).

Intelligent people often value novel things and also tend to be offbeat and rebellious.

People with high IQs are more likely to consume mind-altering substances, research finds.

Whether it is alcohol, tobacco or psychoactive drugs like LSD, intelligence and drug-taking are linked.

More intelligent people are also more likely to have sampled a variety of different recreational drugs in the past.

The explanation could be that intelligent people are attracted to novelty or that they do not fear becoming addicted due to higher self-control.

Offbeat and rebellious

On top of this people with higher intelligence are more likely to be original, offbeat and rebellious, research finds.

More intelligent people have a distinct, individual style and avoid following the crowd.

Non-conformists may be more intelligent because they are less afraid to break society’s conventions.

The conclusions come from a small study that asked 46 people about their ‘need for uniqueness’ and tested their intelligence.

They were asked whether they agreed with statements like:

• “I do not always need to live by the rules and standards of society.”
• “I tend to express my opinions publicly, regardless of what others say.”
• “When a style of clothing I own becomes too commonplace, I usually quit wearing it.”

The results showed that people with higher IQs were more likely to endorse statements indicating a preference for uniqueness.

More intelligent people may be more resourceful, which explains their independence, the study’s authors write:

“…the more intelligent someone is, the less dependent this person is on the group to acquire resources.

This means that highly intelligent people can afford more non-conformist behavior because of their capacity to secure resources in isolation.

…as general intelligence increases the need to conform to group norms decreases.”

These findings fit with another study that has found that people with high IQs drink more alcohol, although they are unlikely to be heavy drinkers.

Another possibility is that more intelligent people are more likely to get bored.

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The findings for fluid intelligence — the brain’s raw speed — were different for men and women.

The brains of people with high IQ have very efficient wiring, research shows.

The brain’s ‘wiring’ or ‘white matter’ refers to the nerve fibres that transmit information between areas.

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

People with more efficient white matter, the study found, had greater general knowledge.

General knowledge — or as psychologists call it, crystallised intelligence — is one of two broad aspects of intelligence.

Dr Erhan Genç, the study’s first author, said:

“Although we can precisely measure the general knowledge of people and this wealth of knowledge is very important for an individual’s journey through life, we currently know little about the links between general knowledge and the characteristics of the brain.”

For the study, 324 were given brain scans and asked to answer a series of general knowledge questions.

The results showed that people with more efficient structural networks in their brain got more general knowledge questions correct.

Dr Genç said:

“We assume that individual units of knowledge are dispersed throughout the entire brain in the form of pieces of information.

Efficient networking of the brain is essential in order to put together the information stored in various areas of the brain and successfully recall knowledge content.”

The findings for fluid intelligence — the brain’s raw speed — were different for men and women.

Men, it emerged, who had bigger brains tended to have higher fluid intelligence.

Women with better functional connectivity, though, had higher intelligence.

Efficient brain networking is vital for intelligence, said Dr Genç:

“We assume that more efficient networking of the brain contributes to better integration of pieces of information and thus leads to better results in a general knowledge test.”

The study was published in the European Journal of Personality (Genç et al., 2019).

The drop comes about because of subtle social signals sent between people about their place in the hierarchy.

Being in a group can make some people lose around 15 percent of their IQ, research finds.

People who tried to solve problems in a group behaved as though they were significantly less smart than their IQ scores suggested.

The drop comes about because of subtle social signals sent between people about their place in the hierarchy.

In other words, some people start to feel inferior in a group and this affects their ability to think clearly.

Professor Read Montague, who led the research, explained how it worked:

“We started with individuals who were matched for their IQ.

Yet when we placed them in small groups, ranked their performance on cognitive tasks against their peers, and broadcast those rankings to them, we saw dramatic drops in the ability of some study subjects to solve problems.

The social feedback had a significant effect.”

In the real world, social signals can be sent in more subtle ways than announcing everyone’s performance.

It could be a social hierarchy known to everyone, how people speak or even their gender.

Women are particularly vulnerable to an IQ drop from being in a group, the researchers found.

Dr Kenneth Kishida, the study’s first author, said:

“Our study highlights the unexpected and dramatic consequences even subtle social signals in group settings may have on individual cognitive functioning.

And, through neuroimaging, we were able to document the very strong neural responses that those social cues can elicit.”

Professor Montague concluded:

“You may joke about how committee meetings make you feel brain dead, but our findings suggest that they may make you act brain dead as well.”

The study was published in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B (Kishida et al., 2012).

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).

In most Western countries, the top 1 percent of earners make 20 percent of the national income — but are they smarter?

The top 1 percent of earners are a little less intelligent than those earning slightly less than them, research finds.

The finding is an interesting twist on the usual fact that smarter people earn more — which they do at ‘normal’ wage levels.

This study finds, though, that the association plateaus at around one standard deviation above the average.

In other words, when you are in the top 16 percent of people for IQ, you are smart enough to be in the top 1 percent of earners.

Indeed, you probably do not need to be that smart.

Extremely high IQ

The results may come as a surprise as people automatically associate wealth and power with greater ability.

Rich people are paid more for a reason (or so they tell us): because they are smart.

To explore this issue, the researchers used data from 59,000 Swedish army conscripts.

The key was to capture people with very high incomes, explained Dr Marc Keuschnigg, the study’s first author:

“This data trove permits us to test, for the first time, whether extremely high wages are indicative of extreme intelligence.

To do so, we needed reliable income data that covers the entire wage spectrum.

Survey data typically miss top incomes, but the registers offer full income data on all citizens.”

Power and influence

What the results revealed is that for most people, salaries do reflect cognitive abilities.

At ‘normal’ wage levels, smarter people get paid more, on average.

The relationship only broke down at higher levels — in this case, it was an annual wage of €60,000.

Above this level, people paid more were no smarter, indeed they were less smart than those earning a little less than them.

Top earners claim that their wages are justified by their greater talent.

This study begs to differ — at least in so far as intelligence is a useful trait in the highest earning jobs.

Wealth vs income

Compare this study with another finding that being smart has almost no relationship to wealth.

(Remember that wealth is different to income: people can be wealthy through inheritance without ever having had a job.)

That study found that people with high IQs are no more wealthy than those who are considerably less smart, on average.

This paints an even more pessimistic picture about the relationship between IQ and money.

Critics of IQ tests may see this as damning the test; those with more faith in the test might see it as damning any society espousing meritocratic values.

The study was published in the journal European Sociological Review (Keuschnigg et al., 2023).

When the ‘very brightest’ people tend to go to bed.

People with higher IQs tend to prefer going to bed later at night and getting up later in the morning.

The conclusions come from a study of adolescent bedtimes and their adult IQ.

Researchers found that on a weekday the ‘very bright’ adolescents went to bed at 12:29 am and got up at 7:52 am, on average.

In contrast, the ‘very dull’ went to bed at an average of 11:41 pm and woke up at 7:20 am, on average.

At the weekend, when people have more latitude to follow their own rhythms, the differences were even more obvious.

The study’s authors explain the average times:

‘‘Very dull” individuals on average go to bed at 00:35; ‘‘dull” individuals go to bed at 01:03; ‘‘normal” individuals  go to bed at 01:13; ‘‘bright” individuals go to bed at 01:25; and ‘‘very bright” individuals go to bed at 01:44.”

Bear in mind that all these times are for adolescents, who tend to sleep for longer than adults.

For adults, the equivalent times would probably by earlier as adults tend to have less freedom and they sleep for shorter periods.

Adults who naturally go to bed after 11pm and rise after 8pm would be considered night owls.

The study’s authors explain the link by referencing our evolutionary past.

Tens of thousands of years ago it would have been natural to go to bed earlier and get up earlier.

Going to bed late, though, would have been ‘evolutionary novel’.

In other words, as people have evolved and become more intelligent, they have also tended to stay up later.

Nocturnal activities are a relatively modern invention in evolutionary terms.

Whether or not this explanation is true is highly debatable (see Dutton, 2013), but the link between IQ and sleeping later exists nevertheless.

The study was published in the journal Personality and Individual Difference (Kanazawa & Perina, 2009).

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.

Learn more about IQ…

→ Find out more about the mysteries of intelligence.

→ Discover 22 signs of intelligence.

→ This is the biggest myth about IQ.

→ IQ Is A Myth: Intelligence has at least three components.

→ The frightening changes in human IQ in the last few decades.

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How high intelligence could have a mental cost for some.

Disorders of mood could be the price some people pay for high intelligence, research finds.

Psychologists have found that higher childhood IQ is linked to features of bipolar disorder in young adulthood.

The research adds fuel to the debate over the connection between intelligence, creativity and mental health issues.

For the research 1,881 people were followed from age 8 until they were 22 or 23-years-old.

Their IQ was measured along with any characteristics of mood disorders.

The results showed that having ten more IQ points  at age 8 was linked to being in the top ten per cent for having manic personality traits in their early twenties.

Professor Daniel Smith, one of the study’s authors said:

“A possible link between bipolar disorder and intelligence and creativity has been discussed for many years and many studies have suggested a link.

In this large study, we found that better performance on IQ tests at age eight predicted bipolar features in young adulthood.

We are not saying that high childhood IQ is a clear-cut risk factor for bipolar disorder but rather that there is likely to be a shared biology between intelligence and bipolar disorder which needs to be understood more fully.

Many other factors – including family history of mental illness, childhood adversity, stressful life events and drug misuse – are known to increase an individual’s risk of developing bipolar disorder.

Our finding has implications for understanding of how liability to bipolar disorder may have been selected through generations.

One possibility is that serious disorders of mood such as bipolar disorder are the price that human beings have had to pay for more adaptive traits such as intelligence, creativity and verbal proficiency.

This work will inform future genetic studies at the interface of intelligence, creativity and bipolar disorder, and will help with efforts to improve approaches to the earlier detection of bipolar disorder in adolescents and young adults.”

The study was published in the British Journal of Psychiatry (Smith et al., 2015).