Intelligence - Page 2 of 22

3 Personality Traits Linked To High IQ

The results come from research on many thousands of people in 86 different countries.

People rated by others as competent, dutiful and self-disciplined have a higher IQ, research finds.

So, higher IQ is linked to people seen as having a strong sense of responsibility, being self-disciplined and confident in their own abilities.

All three are facets of the major personality trait of conscientiousness.

The general link between being conscientious and intelligence makes sense, the 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 results come from research on many thousands of people in 86 different countries.

All were given personality and IQ tests.

The study was interested in the difference between how people rated their own personality and how others reported their personality.

The results showed that people who were seen by others as more competent, dutiful and self-disciplined also had higher IQs.

However, people who were seen as ‘achievement strivers’ tended to be less intelligent, although this is also a facet of being conscientious.

The picture was different, though, when people rated their own personalities.

Then, lower conscientiousness was linked to higher IQ.

The difference could be explained by the fact that people with higher IQs sometimes have to make less effort for the same result:

“Particularly, it has been suggested that less able individuals may compensate for their lower intellectual capacity by developing a high level of conscientiousness.
People with high intelligence do not need to be very conscientious as they can rely solely on their intellect to accomplish most tasks.”

The study was published in the journal Learning and Individual Differences (Zajenkowski & Stolarski,, 2015).

The Unbiased Attitudes That Are A Sign Of High IQ

The quality that people with higher IQ tend to have.

Freedom from prejudice is a clear sign that someone has a high IQ.

More intelligent people are less likely to be either homophobic or racist.

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:

“I wouldn’t mind working with people from other races.”

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.

10 Lifestyle Strategies That Will Optimise Your IQ (P)

The study was published in the journal Psychological Science (Hodson & Busseri, 2012).

A Wonderful Early Sign Of High IQ

A range of positive traits like this one are linked to higher intelligence.

People with higher IQs are less aggressive and tend to follow the rules.

Since higher intelligence is linked to better behaviour, intelligent people are less likely to steal and cheat.

In contrast, younger people with lower IQs are more likely to alarm and harass others, as well as taking part in antisocial behaviour.

Antisocial boys typically have IQ scores 10 points lower than their more social peers.

The insights come from a study of over 1,116 pairs of twins in the UK.

The children were given tests of externalising behaviour and IQ.

Externalising behaviour refers to stealing, cheating, physical aggression and rule-breaking.

The study’s results showed that higher IQs were linked to lower levels of externalising behaviours.

Naturally, lower IQs were linked with more antisocial behaviour.

The study’s authors write:

“Low IQ is a consistent risk factor for emergence and continuity of antisocial behavior across the life course in both prospective and cross-sectional studies, even when other relevant risk factors are statistically controlled.”

Both genetic and situational factors are likely important in the link, the study’s authors write:

“…cognitive deficits might promote antisocial behavior if children with low IQs misunderstand rules, find it too difficult to negotiate conflict with words, find school frustrating, or become tracked with antisocial peers.”

Studies have also linked other positive traits to higher intelligence.

For example, one study has found that being cooperative is a sign of high intelligence.

Cooperative people are good at learning from experience and seeing the bigger picture.

They are generally helpful, mutually supportive and believe in teamwork.

More intelligent people tend to cautiously trust others at first and then build on this over time.

This helps them cooperate better in the long-run, the researchers found.

The study was published in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology (Koenen et al., 2008).

The Personality Trait Associated With Low IQ Scores

One trait is linked to a worse score in intelligence tests.

People with unstable emotions tend to get lower scores on IQ tests.

This may, though, be down to nervousness while taking the test.

In fact, people who are neurotic may have higher IQs than the standard test reveals.

Neuroticism, one of the five major personality traits, encompasses unstable emotions, anxiety, self-consciousness and irritability.

People who are higher in neuroticism may also sleep poorly, the study’s authors explain:

“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, the first of which was conducted on 646 Dutch twins.

The results showed that people higher in neuroticism got lower scores on an IQ test.

The link is down to genetics, the researchers concluded.

However, a second study gave IQ tests to 213 people and split them into two groups depending on how anxious they were.

The results of this study showed that the more nervous people were, the lower their IQ scores.

By statistically removing the effects of anxiety, though, the researchers were able to show that highly neurotic people are just as intelligent.

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).

2 Personality Traits That Indicate High Intelligence

Two signs of a knowledgeable personality.

Introverts who have more stable personalities have higher levels of general knowledge, research finds.

These two personality factors, along with being open to experience, predict people’s general knowledge.

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

General knowledge is often linked to success in life because innate talent is not enough — application matters.

The other type is called ‘fluid intelligence’, and refers to abstract reasoning and the speed at which the brain works.

The conclusions come from a survey of 201 university students in the UK.

All were given tests of the five major aspects of personality: neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness and conscientiousness.

They were also asked general knowledge questions such as:

Who discovered penicillin?
Who wrote Anna Karenina?
Which Beatle was shot in New York?

(The answers are: Alexander Fleming, Leo Tolstoy and John Lennon, respectively.)

The strongest predictor of people’s general knowledge was their cognitive ability.

In other words, people whose brains work faster absorb more knowledge over the years.

However, personality was also important in how much general knowledge people had picked up.

Having a stable personality (being non-neurotic) and being more introverted, were both linked to greater general knowledge.

Other studies have also consistently linked the personality trait of openness to experience to general knowledge.

People who are open to experience are more likely to be imaginative, sensitive to their feelings, intellectually curious and seekers of variety.

With increasing age, general knowledge becomes more important, the study’s authors write:

“…at more advanced stages of life, performance and achievement are best predicted by crystallized intelligence (gc), rather than the biologically-based, content-free, and so-called ‘‘culture-free’’ tests of fluid abilities (gf) (traditionally
regarded as the best measures of g).
It thus seems that the predictive power of gf tends to decline as individuals progress through the educational system, and as acquired information and learned skills play a greater role in determining job performance.”

The study was published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences (Chamorro-Premuzic et al., 2006).

The Childhood Foods That Increase IQ

The more of the foods they consumed, the higher their IQs.

A diet low in sugars, fats and processed foods consumed at a young age may increase your intelligence.

Children under 3-years-old fed diets that are packed full of nutrients and vitamins have higher IQs.

The more healthily they eat, the higher their IQ.

The study followed the wellbeing and health of 14,000 children born between 1991 and 1992 in the UK.

What they ate was tracked up to the age of 8, when they were given an intelligence test.

The results showed that children who ate a health-conscious diet including more salad, rice, pasta, fish and fruit had higher IQs at age 8.

Those consuming more junk food high in fats and sugars had lower IQs.

The study’s authors conclude that:

“…a poor diet associated with high fat, sugar and processed food content in early childhood may be associated with small reductions in IQ in later childhood, while a healthy diet, associated with high intakes of nutrient rich foods described at about the time of IQ assessment may be associated with small increases in IQ.”

There was little effect on IQ from what children ate between ages 4 and 7.

The authors say:

“This suggests that any cognitive/behavioural effects relating to eating habits in early childhood may well persist into later childhood, despite any subsequent changes (including improvements) to dietary intake.
It is possible that good nutrition during this period [under 3 years-old] may encourage optimal brain growth.”

10 Lifestyle Strategies That Will Optimise Your IQ (P)

The study was published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health (Northstone et al., 2011).

The Simple Belief That Increases Your IQ

One simple belief could improve your performance dramatically.

People who believe intelligence can be improved perform better on tests.

First graders who believed their intelligence can be developed get better grades.

The gap continues to widen over two years between those who have a ‘growth mindset’ and those who believed their intelligence is fixed.

Growth mindset

The conclusions come from two studies of 464 students.

Both studies showed the power of a growth mindset.

In the first study, students’ beliefs were merely measured.

In the second study, one group was given a course encouraging them to believe that their intelligence could be improved.

Once again, the growth mindset led to higher grades and a widening gap compared to those who thought their intelligence was fixed.

The researchers put the improved performance of the ‘growth mindset’ students down to more effort and a more positive reaction to setbacks.

Professor Carol Dweck, study co-author, said:

“These findings highlight the importance of students’ beliefs for their academic progress.
They also show how these beliefs can be changed to maximize students’ motivation and achievement.”

The study was published in the journal Child Development (Blackwell et al., 2007).

These 3 Personality Traits Indicate High IQ

The surprising traits that indicate high intelligence.

Being genuine, cooperative and sincere are all linked to having a high IQ.

Although being ‘nice’ is not linked in the popular imagination with being intelligent, this study found that it was.

The study also found that half of the connection between high IQ and being ‘nice’ was down to genetics.

Other personality features that are linked to high IQ include being a seeker of variety, intellectually curious, imaginative and sensitive to emotions.

All of these are aspects of ‘openness to experience’, which is one of the five major aspects of personality.

Openness to experience is frequently strongly linked to high IQ by studies.

The study included 2,488 people who were given tests of personality and intelligence at 12 and 18-years-old.

Genetic modelling was used to examine the links between intelligence, personality and genes.

The results were explained by the study’s authors:

“Intelligence as measured by IQ was positively associated with
openness to experience and agreeableness.
Moderate phenotypic correlations [genetic associations] between agreeableness and IQ were also of interest.
Earlier studies reported small correlations between intelligence and agreeableness.
There have been a few studies on altruistic behavior in young children that found a positive relation with IQ.”

In fact, people with high IQs are better at working well with other people, other studies have found.

That is why those with high IQs are so essential: without them society would not work.

Being cooperative, in particular, may have strong links to higher IQ, the authors write:

“…unique aspects of human cognition are driven by social cooperation.
The cooperative attitudes of the subjects scoring high on agreeableness could therefore be the shared underlying factor in the relationship with IQ.”

The study was published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences (Bartels et al., 2012).

This ‘Bad’ Habit Might Be A Sign Of High Intelligence (M)

Intelligent people often value novel things and are at a greater risk of getting bored.

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The Vitamin Linked To Higher IQ

Deficiency in this vitamin is very common.

Higher vitamin D levels during pregnancy are linked to higher IQ among children.

Unfortunately, vitamin D deficiency is common in the general population and especially among Black people.

Around 80 percent of Black pregnant women may be deficient in vitamin D.

Dr Melissa Melough, the study’s first author, explains:

“Melanin pigment protects the skin against sun damage, but by blocking UV rays, melanin also reduces vitamin D production in the skin.
Because of this, we weren’t surprised to see high rates of vitamin D deficiency among Black pregnant women in our study.
Even though many pregnant women take a prenatal vitamin, this may not correct an existing vitamin D deficiency.
I hope our work brings greater awareness to this problem, shows the long-lasting implications of prenatal vitamin D for the child and their neurocognitive development, and highlights that there are certain groups providers should be paying closer attention to.
Widespread testing of vitamin D levels is not generally recommended, but I think health care providers should be looking out for those who are at higher risk, including Black women.”

The study included over 1,500 women and their children, who were tracked over five years.

The results showed that children had higher IQs at 4-6 years old when their mothers had higher vitamin D levels during pregnancy.

Dr Melough said:

“Vitamin D deficiency is quite prevalent.
The good news is there is a relatively easy solution. It can be difficult to get adequate vitamin D through diet, and not everyone can make up for this gap through sun exposure, so a good solution is to take a supplement.”

The recommended daily intake for vitamin D is 600 IU.

The average intake in the US is just 200 IU, with the remainder required from exposure to the sun.

Unfortunately, most people do not get enough exposure to the sun, especially in the winter months.

Foods that contain high levels of vitamin D include cow’s milk, breakfast cereals, fatty fish and eggs.