How to think about your own intelligence.
The diet causes lower intelligence and 50% more laziness.
The diet causes lower intelligence and 50% more laziness.
High-fat foods can reduce intelligence in just 9 days, research finds.
Cognitive performance reduced by 20 percent in just over a week after eating a high-fat diet.
The study on rats fed them a diet equivalent to human junk food.
After nine days, not only was their cognitive performance affected, but their physical performance was reduced by 50 percent.
The short-term effects of a high-fat diet are startling, the researchers say.
A previous study has found a high-fat diet can reduce cognitive performance in humans as well.
Dr Andrew Murray, the study’s first author, said:
“We found that rats, when switched to a high-fat diet from their standard low-fat feed, showed a surprisingly quick reduction in their physical performance.
After just nine days, they were only able to run 50 per cent as far on a treadmill as those that remained on the low-fat feed.”
The conclusions come from a study of rats who were initially fed on a standard low-fat diet.
Half were then switched to a high-fat diet.
Dr Andrew Murray explained how these diets translate to what humans eat:
“With the standard feed, 7.5 per cent of the calories come from fat.
That’s a pretty low-fat diet, much like humans eating nothing but muesli.
The high-fat diet, in which 55 per cent of the calories came from fat, sounds high but it’s actually not extraordinarily high by human standards.
A junk food diet would come close to that.”
The results showed that after nine days the rats fed on a high-fat diet made 20 percent more errors when learning to navigate a maze.
They were also running 50 percent less far.
The researchers also found that the rats’ hearts were enlarged with the increased effort of pumping blood around their bodies.
Professor Kieran Clarke, study co-author, said:
“These are startling results.
It shows that high-fat feeding even over short periods of time can markedly affect gene expression, metabolism and physical performance.”
Professor Jeremy Pearson said:
“In little more than a week, a change in diet appears to have made the rats’ hearts much less efficient.
We look forward to the results of the equivalent studies in human volunteers, which should tell us more about the short-term effects of high-fat foods on our hearts.
We already know that to protect our heart health in the long-term, we should cut down on foods high in saturated fat.”
The study was published in The FASEB Journal (Murray et al., 2009).
People use this music to ‘purge’ their negativity.
People use this music to ‘purge’ their negativity.
Liking heavy metal music is a sign of high intelligence, research suggests.
Some people may use heavy metal music as a way of coping with being talented.
Being a ‘metalhead’ is sometimes associated with poor performance and delinquency, but this survey found otherwise.
More intelligent people may find themselves outsiders and use heavy metal music to deal with the stress.
Dr Stuart Cadwallader, the study’s author, says there is a stereotype that more intelligent people are into classical music.
While this is true for some, others take solace in heavy metal.
Dr Cadwallader said that young people enjoy the complex and sometimes political themes in metal that are not explored in mainstream pop music.
Both alienation and being separate from society may chime with some gifted people.
The results come from a survey of 1,057 members of the National Academy for Gifted and Talented Youth in the UK.
This body represents young people aged 11-18 who are in the top 5 per cent academically.
The results showed that while rock was the most popular genre among talented youngsters, one-third rated heavy metal in their top five genres and 6 per cent gave it top spot.
Those who particularly liked heavy metal also tended to have lower self-esteem.
Genres traditionally linked to intelligence — classical music and jazz — were the least popular.
Some young people said they liked to literally ‘jump out’ their frustrations and anger to heavy metal.
Dr Cadwallader said:
“Perhaps the pressures associated with being gifted and talented can be temporarily forgotten with the aid of music.
As one student suggests, perhaps gifted people may experience more pressure than their peers and they use the music to purge this negativity.”
The study was published by the National Academy for Gifted and Talented Youth (Cadwaller, 2007).
Study of over 7,000 finds diet linked to IQ.
Study of over 7,000 finds diet linked to IQ.
People fed a healthier diet from an early age have a higher IQ, research reveals.
Children who were breastfed and later given plenty of fruits, vegetables and other healthy foods had IQs up to two points higher at age 8.
Dr Lisa Smithers, the study’s first author, said:
“Diet supplies the nutrients needed for the development of brain tissues in the first two years of life, and the aim of this study was to look at what impact diet would have on children’s IQs.
We found that children who were breastfed at six months and had a healthy diet regularly including foods such as legumes, cheese, fruit and vegetables at 15 and 24 months, had an IQ up to two points higher by age eight.
The results come from a study of over 7,000 children whose eating habits were analysed at ages 6 months, 15 months and two years.
They were followed until age 8.
Set against the benefits of healthy eating, children fed junk food had lower IQs, Dr Smithers said:
“Those children who had a diet regularly involving biscuits, chocolate, sweets, soft drinks and chips in the first two years of life had IQs up to two points lower by age eight.
We also found some negative impact on IQ from ready-prepared baby foods given at six months, but some positive associations when given at 24 months.”
Eating well is particularly important in the formative years, said Dr Smithers:
“While the differences in IQ are not huge, this study provides some of the strongest evidence to date that dietary patterns from six to 24 months have a small but significant effect on IQ at eight years of age.
It is important that we consider the longer-term impact of the foods we feed our children.”
The study was published in the European Journal of Epidemiology (Smithers et al., 2012).
People with higher intelligence tend to have this musical ability.
People with higher intelligence tend to have this musical ability.
People who can learn a tune more easily have higher intelligence, research suggests.
People with higher IQs were able to learn to play “Happy Birthday” on the piano more accurately in the study.
Whether or not people believed they could improve did not seem to matter.
Instead, pure intelligence predicted how well they did, not a ‘growth mindset’.
A growth mindset is a belief that basic abilities can be improved through hard work.
Musical aptitude was the only other factor that mattered, said Mr Alexander Burgoyne, the study’s first author:
“The strongest predictor of skill acquisition was intelligence, followed by music aptitude.
By contrast, the correlation between growth mindset and piano performance was about as close to zero as possible.”
The study included 171 people who had little or no experience playing the piano.
All were given tests of their mindset and their intelligence.
They followed a video guide that taught them to play “Happy Birthday”, which contained 25 notes.
Afterwards they were rated on their performance of the simple song.
The results showed that IQ mattered most in predicting who did well.
When IQ was taken into account, even musical aptitude paled into insignificance.
Mr Burgoyne said:
“The results were surprising, because people have claimed that mindset plays an important role when students are confronted with challenges, like trying to learn a new musical instrument.
And yet, it didn’t predict skill acquisition.”
There were also some interesting patterns in the results:
Mr Burgoyne said:
“Our study examined one of the earliest stages of skill acquisition.
Early experiences can be formative, but I would caution against drawing conclusions about skilled musicians based on our study of beginners.”
The study was published in the journal Intelligence (Burgoyne et al., 2019).
Genetics is important for giving us our start in life, but effort is required to reach our full potential.
Genetics is important for giving us our start in life, but effort is required to reach our full potential.
Skills above and beyond IQ are vital to success, genetic research finds.
Many ‘non-cognitive skills’ are linked to higher educational attainment, earning more money and even living longer.
Persistence, motivation and self-control are all examples of non-cognitive skills.
Similarly, personality traits like emotional stability, curiosity and being industrious and orderly are linked to success.
Inheriting these types of traits is just as important as inheriting raw brain power, if not more so, the researchers found.
The conclusions come from a large genetic analysis, Dr Daniel Belsky, study co-author, explained:
“Genetic studies of educational attainment were initiated with the goal of identifying genes that influenced cognitive abilities.
But it turns out they’ve also identified genetics that influence a range of other skills and characteristics.
What was most surprising to me about our results was that these noncognitive skills contributed just as much to the heritability of educational attainment as cognitive ability.”
The study analysed genetic and cognitive test data from almost 1.5 million people.
It found that 43 percent of the influence of genes on educational attainment comes from cognitive abilities.
The remainder — 57 percent — is from noncognitive abilities.
Professor Paige Harden, study co-author, said:
“Motivation, persistence, grit, curiosity, self-control, growth mindset—these are just a few of the things that people have suggested are important noncognitive skills.
For personality and risk behavior, we saw relationships we expected; noncognitive skills genetics were associated with less risky behavior and a personality profile we associate with maturity, and social and professional competency.
But the results for mental health were a surprise.”
Professor Harden is referring to the finding that genes linked to educational attainment were also associated with mental health problems.
These genes increased the risk of OCD, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and anorexia.
Professor Harden said:
“This is an example of what geneticists call pleiotropy.
Our result warns us against a simplistic view of genetic variants being good or bad.
The same genetic variant that predisposes someone to go further in school might also elevate their risk of developing schizophrenia or another serious mental disorder.”
While genetics is important for giving us our start in life, effort is required to reach our full potential.
Professor Harden said:
“Genetic influence must always be understood through the lens of history and social structures.
These results tell us about what is, not what could be.
Nothing about our study should discourage investments in ensuring that all children reach their maximum potential.”
The study was published in the journal Nature Genetics (Demange et al., 2021).
People with high intelligence proved to be a fascinating exception to the usual rule.
How different types of screen time affect IQ.
The quality that people with higher IQ tend to have.
The quality that people with higher IQ tend to have.
Freedom from prejudice is a clear sign that someone has a high IQ, a study finds.
More intelligent people are less likely to be either homophobic or racist, the research found.
On top of this, more intelligent people are also more likely to be trusting of others and sensitive to other people’s needs.
The conclusions come from a couple of studies in which people were given IQ tests and asked questions that probed whether they were prejudiced.
In one survey of 15,874 people in the UK, participants were asked questions like:
Their answers to questions like this were compared with IQ tests they had been given as children.
The results showed that people with lower IQs tended to display more overt racism.
A second group of 254 people in the US were asked about their attitudes to homosexuals, as well as being given IQ tests.
Once again, the results showed that people with lower IQs were more likely to be prejudiced against gay people.
The researchers found that in both groups of people, those with lower IQs had lower contact with people from minorities — in this case, races other than their own and gay people.
The study’s authors conclude that:
“…we found that lower general intelligence (g) in childhood predicts greater racism in adulthood a predictive effect of poor abstract-reasoning skills on antihomosexual prejudice, a relation partially mediated by both authoritarianism and low levels of intergroup contact.
Our results suggest that cognitive abilities play a critical, albeit underappreciated, role in prejudice.”
Authoritarianism is a disregard for the feelings and wishes of others.
Unsurprisingly, this was also linked to prejudice.
→ Discover 22 more signs of intelligence.
The study was published in the journal Psychological Science (Hodson & Busseri, 2012).
Intelligent people often value novel things and are at a greater risk of getting bored.
Intelligent people often value novel things and are at a greater risk of getting bored.
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.
The conclusions come from a series of studies conducted around the world.
One looked at data from the UK and the US, tracking childhood intelligence and the drugs people took later in life.
The study’s authors explain the results:
“More intelligent children, both in the United Kingdom and the United States, are more likely to grow up to consume more alcohol.
More intelligent American children are more likely to grow up to consume more tobacco, while more intelligent British children are more likely to grow up to consume more illegal drugs.”
A second study used a survey of 12,686 people in the US who were first interviewed in 1979 and tracked to the present day.
The results showed that:
“…intelligence tends to be positively related to the probabilities of having tried alcohol, marijuana, cocaine and several other recreational drugs.”
One explanation is that more intelligent people value novelty.
But, there are other ideas:
“…more intelligent people may be less concerned about addiction.
More intelligent people tend to be better at self-control and may therefore be better at restricting their consumption of addictive substances
[…]If more intelligent people anticipate that they will be able to break their addictions, then they may be more likely to try recreational drugs.”
This fits with another recent study that 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.
The studies were was published in the journals Review of General Psychology and Intelligence (Kanazawa & Hellberg, 2010; Wilmoth, 2012).
Join the free PsyBlog mailing list. No spam, ever.
