Category: Intelligence

Two-thirds of children report eating this food weekly.

Young people who eat fast food do 20 percent worse on standard tests of math, science and reading, research finds.

Those who eat more fast food at around 10-years-old get worse test scores three years later, the study found.

Two-thirds of young people eat at least some fast food each week.

Dr Kelly Purtell, the study’s first author, said:

“There’s a lot of evidence that fast-food consumption is linked to childhood obesity, but the problems don’t end there.

Relying too much on fast food could hurt how well children do in the classroom.”

The conclusions come from a study of 11,740 adolescents in the US.

More than 50 percent of children reported eating fast food 1-3 times a week.

About 10 percent said they ate it every day and 10 percent ate it every other day.

Less than one-third never ate any fast food.

The researchers controlled for many other factors, including how much TV they watched, the socio-demographic natures of their schools and neighbourhoods and the other foods they ate.

Dr Purtell said:

“We went as far as we could to control for and take into account all the known factors that could be involved in how well children did on these tests.”

This study does not make it clear why fast food consumption is linked to a lower score on standard tests.

However, a lack of essential nutrients such as iron is linked to poorer cognitive development.

High-sugar and high-fat diets are also repeatedly shown to be bad for learning and memory processes.

Dr Purtell said:

“We’re not saying that parents should never feed their children fast food, but these results suggest fast-food consumption should be limited as much as possible.”

The study was published in the journal Clinical Pediatrics (Purtell & Gershoff, 2014).

Peak emotional intelligence (EQ) means that people are better at dealing with their emotions at this age.

It is not until their 60s that people reach their peak levels of emotional intelligence (EQ), research finds.

At this age, people are generally better at seeing the positive side of stressful situations and empathising with the less fortunate.

Professor Robert Levenson, study co-author, said:

“Increasingly, it appears that the meaning of late life centers on social relationships and caring for and being cared for by others.

Evolution seems to have tuned our nervous systems in ways that are optimal for these kinds of interpersonal and compassionate activities as we age.”

Emotional intelligence study

In one study people of different ages were shown video clips with different emotional content — some were sad and disgusting.

Those in their 60s did better than those in their 40s and 20s at focusing on the positive aspects of the clip — they were better at using what psychologists call ‘positive reappraisal’.

This suggests their emotional intelligence is higher.

Younger people, though, were better at distracting themselves from the clips.

In another study, psychologists tested how physiologically sensitive people of different ages were to the clips.

The results showed that older people reacted more strongly to sadness.

Dr Benjamin Seider, the study’s first author, said:

“In late life, individuals often adopt different perspectives and goals that focus more on close interpersonal relationships.

By doing so, they become increasingly sensitized to sadness because the shared experience of sadness leads to greater intimacy in interpersonal relationships.”

Age and emotional intelligence

Being sensitive to sadness is actually a good thing, Professor Levenson explained:

“Sadness can be a particularly meaningful and helpful emotion in late life, as we are inevitably confronted with and need to deal with the losses we experience in our own life and with the need to give comfort to others.”

The study’s authors conclude:

“…older adults may be better served by staying socially engaged and using positive reappraisal to deal with stressful challenging situations rather than disconnecting from situations that offer opportunities to enhance quality of life.”

The study was published in the journal Social, Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience (Seider et al., 2011).

Higher intelligence is associated with this personality type.

People whose personalities can accept vagueness and confusion tend to have a higher IQ, research finds.

Those who accept ambiguity tend to be open-minded, creative and relaxed about problems that do not have a definitive answer.

Given that the world is filled with grey areas, this allows those who can accept ambiguity to make better decisions.

Other personality traits linked to high IQ are taking risks, being conscientious and being competitive.

Conscientiousness is a sign of higher fluid intelligence, which is the speed at which the brain works.

People with higher IQs are also more likely to have ‘Type A’ personalities, which are characterised by a competitive nature.

The conclusions come from a study of 820 people in the UK who completed assessments of their personality and intelligence.

The personality traits are part of the High Potential Traits Inventory, which is, the authors write a:

“…measure of personality traits directly relevant to workplace behaviours, thoughts and perceptions of the self and others at work.”

Four personality factors were linked to intelligence.

Being able to cope with vagueness is a strong sign of high IQ, the authors write:

“This study found that multiple intelligence measures were predictive of higher tolerance of uncertainty.

Previous researchers have found that more intelligent
individuals are able to adequately adapt to and evaluate
changing work tasks, leading to greater accuracy in decision-making.”

People who are curious also had higher IQs the study found:

“Curiosity – marked by high openness, creativity, imagination, and cognitive complexity – was hypothesised to associate with higher levels of intelligence.

individuals high on curiosity exhibited higher levels of WM ability.”

The study was published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences (Furnham & Treglown, 2018).

This sign indicates stronger reasoning and better analytical and conceptual thinking.

Being a ‘night owl’ is a sign of high IQ, research finds.

Night owls prefer to stay up late at night and rise later in the morning.

This sleep pattern is linked to stronger reasoning and better analytical and conceptual thinking.

Despite higher intelligence, night owls tend to get slightly worse grades in school.

This may be because the school day starts too early for them.

Morning types who rise early, also known as ‘larks’, tend to do around 8% better in school.

Later in life, though, the higher intelligence of night owls tends to shine through.

Once in the world of work, night owls tend to do better because of their higher intelligence.

Higher inductive reasoning abilities, in particular, are linked to more prestigious jobs and higher incomes.

Around one-third of the population are night owls, with one-quarter preferring to rise early.

The remainder fall somewhere in between, being neither early risers nor late sleepers.

The conclusions come from a study of 887 adolescents in Spain.

All were given tests of intelligence and this was compared to their performance in school and sleep habits.

The results showed that night owls had higher IQs but did worse in school.

This could be partly explained by night owls being nonconformists, the authors write:

“Evening adolescents tend to act out in an independent and nonconforming manner and resist following traditional standards (perhaps early morning schedules), also they tend to be creative, something that probably is not promoted at school.”

Commenting on the study, Professor Jim Horne, of Loughborough University, said:

“Evening types tend to be the more extrovert creative types, the poets, artists and inventors, while the morning types are the deducers, as often seen with civil servants and accountants.

We have looked at morning and evening types and we found that personalities tended to be different.

Evening types were more social, more people-oriented.

They will probably be good at cryptic crosswords, while morning types go for the more logical ones.”

The study was published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences (Díaz-Morales & Escribano, 2013).

Smart people are not that much more wealthy, but people with high IQs do have higher incomes.

Being smart has almost no relationship to wealth, research reveals.

People with high IQs are no more wealthy than those who are considerably less smart, on average, a study has found.

Perversely, very clever people are actually at a slightly higher risk of financial problems.

Dr Jay Zagorsky, the study’s author, said:

“People don’t become rich just because they are smart.

Your IQ has really no relationship to your wealth.

And being very smart does not protect you from getting into financial difficulty.”

This may explain why there are so many rich people with low IQ and poor people who are highly intelligent.

High IQ = higher income

The slight wrinkle is that people with higher IQs do tend to have a higher income.

As Dr Zagorsky explains, though, that income is different from wealth:

“Financial success for most people means more than just income.

You need to build up wealth to help buffer life’s storms and to prepare for retirement.

You also shouldn’t have to worry about being close to or beyond your financial limits.”

Research on IQ and income and wealth

The conclusions come from 7,403 people in the US who were tracked for almost 40 years in a nationally representative survey.

It found that the income difference between someone of average intelligence and someone in the top 2 percent is only around $12,000 a year.

However, people of average intelligence had similar amounts of wealth as the more intelligent.

So, how come intelligent people earn more, but are not more wealthy?

This study can’t tell us, but it might be that high-IQ people are not saving as much.

Dr Zagorsky said:

“Just because you’re smart doesn’t mean you don’t get into trouble.

Among the smartest people, those with IQ scores above 125, even 6 percent of them have maxed out their credit cards and 11 percent occasionally miss payments.

Professors tend to be very smart people, but if you look at university parking lots, you don’t see a lot of Rolls Royces, Porsches or other very expensive cars.

Instead you see a lot of old, low-value vehicles.”

This might also suggest that professors — and other intelligent people — have different values and aspirations in life.

Dr Zagorsky concluded:

“Intelligence is not a factor for explaining wealth.

Those with low intelligence should not believe they are handicapped, and those with high intelligence should not believe they have an advantage.”

The study was published in the journal Intelligence (Zagorsky, 2007).

Smart people’s brains are not just bigger, they are also different. Here’s how.

People with bigger heads are, on average, more intelligent, research confirms.

Bigger heads contain bigger brains, which have more neurons (brain cells), which make people smarter.

However, the latest neuroscience research suggests there’s a twist.

When you ‘listen’ electrically to the brain running, the more intelligent ones make less ‘noise’.

It’s like a larger, more powerful engine somehow running quieter.

Smart people’s brain are different

It turns out that on top of having larger brains, more intelligent people have fewer connections between neurons in the cerebral cortex, research finds.

The reason is that the brains of intelligent people are more efficient — this is known to psychologists as the ‘neural efficiency hypothesis of intelligence’.

The conclusion comes from a neuroimaging study that looked at the brain’s microstructure.

Analysis of the brains of 259 people measured the number of dendrites in their brains.

Dendrites are extensions of brain cells that reach out towards other brain cells, enabling them to communicate with each other.

IQ tests showed that people with fewer dendrites were more intelligent.

Smart people’s brain are more efficient

It is more than just size that matters, it is how efficiently your brain cells communicate.

With fewer dendritic connections there is less ‘noise’ in the brain and the signal is purer.

Fewer dendrites also consume less energy — hence, a more efficient brain.

Here is the author’s schematic depiction (from Genç et al., 2018):

Dr Erhan Genç, who led the study, said:

“The assumption has been that larger brains contain more neurons and, consequently, possess more computational power.

However, other studies had shown that — despite their comparatively high number of neurons — the brains of intelligent people demonstrated less neuronal activity during an IQ test than the brains of less intelligent individuals.

Intelligent brains possess lean, yet efficient neuronal connections.

Thus, they boast high mental performance at low neuronal activity.”

The study was published in the journal Nature Communications (Genç et al., 2018).

The results come from a genetic genetic analysis of over half-a-million people.

Enjoying good mental health is a sign of higher intelligence, a recent genetic analysis of over half-a-million people finds.

People who are intelligent are 30 percent less likely to suffer from depression.

The findings come from a study probing the connection between intelligence and genetics.

The researchers also found that smarter people are likely to live longer and are at a lower risk of cancer.

Indeed, higher intelligence and health go together.

More intelligent people even have faster reaction times.

The results come from a study utilising a genetic analysis of 630,555 people of all ages.

The results showed that cognitive ability was linked to 148 different locations along the genome.

Dr Gail Davies, the study’s first author, said:

“This study, the largest genetic study of cognitive function, has identified many genetic differences that contribute to the heritability of thinking skills.

The discovery of shared genetic effects on health outcomes and brain structure provides a foundation for exploring the mechanisms by which these differences influence thinking skills throughout a lifetime.”

One disadvantage of intelligence, though, is that people with high IQs are 30 percent more likely to be short-sighted.

Pinning down the connections between intelligence and genes has been difficult, explained Professor Ian Deary, who led the study:

“Less than a decade ago we were searching for genes related to intelligence with about 3,000 participants, and we found almost nothing.

Now with 100 times that number of participants, and with more than 200 scientists working together, we have discovered almost 150 genetic regions that are related to how clever people are.

One thing we know from these results is that good thinking skills are a part of good health overall.”

The study was published in the journal Nature Communications (Davies et al., 2018).

The brains of highly intelligent individuals are better at staying focused, the research suggests.

People with higher IQs have more stable interactions between regions of their brain, a study finds.

The finding contributes to the scientific debate on what makes some people more intelligent than others.

Some say that high IQ brains are more efficient, others that it is superior connections between brain regions that generate higher cognitive abilities.

This study suggests a more subtle answer: that it is stability in processing that produces the best neural results.

Higher intelligence is linked to states of high integration in the brain: when different areas are working well together.

It is as though the brains of people with higher intelligence are able to coordinate the different regions more efficiently.

Dr Kirsten Hilger, the study’s first author, said:

“The study of the temporal dynamics of human brain networks using fMRI is a relatively new field of research.

The temporally more stable network organisation in more intelligent individuals could be a protective mechanism of the brain against falling into maladaptive network states in which major networks disconnect and communication may be hampered.”

The study included 281 people who were given brain scans and IQ tests.

Researchers analysed the brain scans for how integrated they were over time.

The brain has a modular structure: one area is devoted to vision, another to the emotions, still another to making decisions and so on.

However, what this study found was that integration between the modules was linked to higher IQ.

The researchers found that this integration was most marked in regions of the brain that are important for attention.

Dr Hilger said:

“At present, we do not know whether the temporally more stable brain connections are a source or a consequence of higher intelligence.

However, our results suggest that processes of controlled attention – that is, the ability to stay focused and to concentrate on a task – may play an important role for general intelligence.”

The study was published in the journal Human Brain Mapping (Hilger et al., 2019).

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).