How COVID Affects Your IQ Long-Term (M)
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Category: Intelligence
2 Personality Traits That Indicate High IQ
These qualities are not usually associated with intelligence.
These qualities are not usually associated with intelligence.
Highly intelligent people are more likely to be trusting and generous, research finds.
Trusting people tend to believe that others are honest and will not harm them.
Intelligent people are able to override the perfectly natural worry that other people will betray them.
While being trusting is not something people usually associate with intelligence — this research clearly shows a link.
The reason for the link may be that human intelligence has evolved to be trusting as it helps society function.
For the study, 80 people played an economic game that tested how trusting they were.
They were also given a test of their ‘cognitive reflection’.
Cognitive reflection measures people’s ability to override a quick, obvious response that turns out to be wrong in order to get the right answer.
Here are two of the tests of cognitive reflection used in the study:
- If it takes 5 machines 5 minutes to make 5 widgets, how long will it take 100 machines to make 100 widgets?
- In a lake, there is a patch of lily pads. Every day, the patch doubles in size. If it takes 48 days for the patch to cover the entire lake, how long would it take for the patch to cover half of the lake?
The answers are at the bottom of the article.
More trusting
The research also showed that smarter people behaved in a more trusting way towards others.
The study’s authors write:
“It is not hard to imagine that the ability to trust is largely beneficial in a society where survival and prosperity crucially hinge upon the capacity to exchange with counterparts with various degrees of familiarity.
All such transaction […] require an important element of trust.”
In other words, society gets on better if people trust each other.
The study’s authors write:
“…trust has been shown to impact economic variables such as growth and financial development as well as entrepreneurship and trade.
In sum, trust is seen as the lubricant that facilitates exchange in society so its relevance cannot be overstated.”
The answers are…
The answers are 5 minutes to the first problem and 47 days to the second.
If you didn’t get this, remember the test is designed to make you think a little longer and harder.
The study was published in the Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (Corgnet et al., 2015).
The Confident Sign That Your IQ Is High
This bold and confident sign is linked to higher academic achievement.
This bold and confident sign is linked to higher academic achievement.
People who are very sure of their intellectual abilities are, in fact, smarter than others, research finds.
Intellectual arrogance was linked to achieving higher grades in the study.
People who are intellectually arrogant tend to agree with statements like, “I believe my own ideas are superior to others.”
People are seen as intellectually arrogant by others when they are extraverted and dominate the group, wanting to be the centre of attention.
Professor Wade C. Rowatt, study co-author, said:
“One possibility is that people who view themselves as intellectually arrogant know what they know and that translates to increases in academic performance.”
For the study, the work of 103 students was followed over a semester.
The results showed that those who felt they were superior to others performed better in their coursework.
However, people who were more humble about their abilities were liked better by their peers.
So, intellectual arrogance may come with a penalty to social relationships.
The study’s authors were surprised by the results: they had predicted that intellectual humility would be linked to better performance.
However, this was not the case.
Dr Benjamin R. Meagher, the study’s first author, still thinks humility is a vital trait:
“What I think is important about intellectual humility is its necessity for not only science, but for just learning generally — and that applies to the classroom, a work setting, wherever.
Learning something new requires first acknowledging your own ignorance and being willing to make your ignorance known to others.
People clearly differ in terms of their willingness to do something like that, but that willingness to learn, change one’s mind and value the opinion of others is really needed if people and groups are going to develop and grow.”
The study was published in the Journal of Research in Personality (Meagher et al., 2015).
A Surprising Sign Of High Intelligence (M)
The link to intelligence is especially strong in women.
A Major Personality Trait That Indicates High IQ
People with this personality type have higher crystallised intelligence.
People with this personality type have higher crystallised intelligence.
Being open to experience is a sign of high intelligence, research reveals.
People who are open to experience are more interested in things that are complex, new and unconventional.
They are sensitive to their feelings, intellectually curious and seekers of variety.
Curiosity and an appreciation of beauty are particularly strong signs of crystallised intelligence, the study found.
Crystallised intelligence roughly equates to general knowledge: knowing many things about the world.
It is natural that people who are curious and interested in new things tend to pick up more general information.
The conclusions come from a study of around 500 people who were given tests of intelligence and personality.
Openness to experience is one of the five major aspects of personality.
Openness also has a number of facets of its own, the study authors explain:
“The Openness to Experience construct involves the tendency to fantasize (Fantasy), aesthetic sensitivity (Aesthetics), awareness of one’s emotions (Feelings), preference for novelty (Actions), intellectual curiosity (Ideas), and preference for non-traditional values (Values).”
The results revealed that more intelligent people were particularly appreciative of beauty: they had a strong aesthetic sense.
They were also likely to be intellectually curious and to have an interest in ideas for their own sake.
These two facets of openness were most strongly linked to higher crystallised intelligence.
The study was published in the Journal of Research in Personality (Ashton et al., 2000).
This Simple Diet Linked To Higher IQ
The reason people with a higher IQ also tend to be healthier could be down to their diet.
The reason people with a higher IQ also tend to be healthier could be down to their diet.
People with a higher IQ are more likely to be vegetarian, psychological research finds.
In fact, vegetarians could be up to 10% more intelligent than red meat eaters, according to some studies.
A higher IQ is also seen among those who describe themselves as vegetarian, but also eat chicken and fish.
The conclusion comes from a survey of 8,170 men and women whose IQ was tested when they were 10-years-old.
By age 30, 4.5% had become vegetarian, of these 2.5% were vegan and 33.6% said they were vegetarian, but still ate chicken and/or fish.
People with higher IQs at age 10, the analysis showed, were more likely to be vegetarians at age 30.
There was no difference between stricter vegetarians (ovo-lacto vegetarians) and those who ate some chicken and/or fish as well.
The findings could help to explain why more intelligent people are also healthier, since a vegetarian diet is better for the heart and for maintaining a healthy body mass.
Does money and class explain it?
Part of the link between IQ and vegetarianism was explained by social status and education.
In other words, people of higher social class are more likely to be intelligent and more likely to be vegetarian anyway.
Still, even when these two factors were accounted for statistically, the relationship between vegetarianism and IQ remained.
The study’s authors write:
“Might the nature of the vegetarians’ diet in this cohort have enhanced their apparently superior brain power?
Was this the mechanism that helped them to achieve the disproportionate number of higher degrees?
Benjamin Franklin and George Bernard Shaw, both ardent vegetarians, would have us believe so.
According to Shaw in an article published in The Star in 1890, “A mind of the calibre of mine cannot derive its nutriment from cows.”
The study was published in the British Medical Journal (Gale et al., 2007).
A Fascinating Sign Of High IQ
People with high intelligence tend to have this quality.
People with high intelligence tend to have this quality.
Being nice is a sign that your IQ is high, research reveals.
Highly intelligent people are better at cooperating and are more generous to others.
Smart people are almost three times as generous as those with lower cognitive abilities, the study found.
The reason may be that smarter people are more patient — a quality that is critical for cooperation.
More patience allows people to step back from the situation and exert self-control.
The study involved hundreds of people given a test of a type of intelligence call ‘cognitive reflection’.
This measures people’s ability to override a quick, obvious response that turns out to be wrong in order to get the right answer.
Here are two of the tests of cognitive reflection used in the study:
- If it takes 5 machines 5 minutes to make 5 widgets, how long will it take 100 machines to make 100 widgets?
- In a lake, there is a patch of lily pads. Every day, the patch doubles in size. If it takes 48 days for the patch to cover the entire lake, how long would it take for the patch to cover half of the lake?
The answers are at the bottom of the article.
Clever people are more patient at searching out the real answer, it emerges.
Subsequently, people who did better in this test were also up to three times more generous in a game that tested people’s generosity.
The reason could be that people with intelligence have more patience, the study’s author, Dr Lohse writes:
“Subjects with higher cognitive abilities have been shown to be more patient and to be able to exert higher levels of self-control.
[…]Martinsson et al. (2014) demonstrate that subjects with higher self-control capabilities cooperate more.
Similarly, Fehr and Leibbrandt (2011) show that more patient subjects in the lab cooperate more in the field.”
The answers are…
The answers are 5 minutes to the first problem and 47 days to the second.
If you didn’t get this, remember the test is designed to make you think a little longer and harder.
The study was published in the Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (Lohse, 2016).
This Sign Of High IQ Is A Unique And Rebellious Trait (M)
This behaviour is a sign of higher intelligence.
How Your Childhood Personality Predicts Your Future — High IQ Included (M)
A child’s humble nature may reveal more about their adult self than you might think.
The Personality Trait That Indicates High Intelligence (M)
The study had 129 people given tests of personality and intelligence.
