How IQ Can Predict A Long And Happy Marriage

Can intelligence help predict how long a marriage will last?

Can intelligence help predict how long a marriage will last?

A man’s verbal intelligence helps to predict a longer marriage, suggesting it is also happier, research finds.

Higher verbal IQ also predicts getting married earlier in the relationship.

Higher verbal intelligence is particularly attractive to younger women, the study found.

Perhaps in the long haul of a marriage it’s most important to have someone who can make good conversation.

Longer marriage

In fact, all aspects of intelligence helped to predict length of marriage, it was just verbal intelligence that stood out — maybe because it is easier to spot than numerical or logical intelligence.

Another important factor in the marital equation the researchers developed was the man’s car.

Men with newer and more expensive cars were also more likely to remain married for longer.

The psychologists used the car as a signal of the man’s social status.

In other words, it is really higher social status that is linked to a longer marriage.

The study’s authors write:

“In parallel to the effect of a peacock’s mysterious tail on its mating success […] human intelligence has a direct positive impact on human mating prospects in terms of marriage.”

The authors conclude that:

“…verbal intelligence, i.e. the type of intelligence that is easier to observe, was found to especially predict the likelihood of getting married, while the harder-to-observe numerical and logical intelligence were also found to predict the likelihood to stay married, to an equal extent as verbal intelligence.”

The study was published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences (Aspara et al., 2018).

The Surprising Personality Trait Linked To High IQ

Verbal IQ refers to being able to use language to achieve goals.

Verbal IQ refers to being able to use language to achieve goals.

People who are anxious have a higher verbal IQ, on average, research finds.

In particular, people with high IQs are more likely to ruminate.

Rumination is the term psychologists give to the turning over of depressing thoughts in the head.

Rumination is a common symptom of depression.

While worrying is not normally considered beneficial, it may be that people who worry tend to keep out of danger — so passing on their genes.

The benefit may be that intelligence allows people to better imagine what might go wrong.

As a result, anxiety and verbal intelligence may have evolved together.

Verbal IQ refers to being able to use language to achieve goals.

Higher levels and anxiety and IQ are also linked to superior abstract thinking, problem-solving and critical thinking.

The study involved 126 people given tests of anxiety, depression and IQ.

The results showed that people with higher verbal IQ ruminate more.

The study’s authors write:

“It is possible that more verbally intelligent individuals are able to consider past and future events in greater detail, leading to more intense rumination and worry.

Individuals with high non-verbal intelligence may be stronger at processing the non-verbal signals they interact with in the moment, leading to a decreased need to re-process past social encounters.”

The study took into account that anxious people often perform worse on tests — including intelligence tests.

The authors write:

“…symptoms of acute depression might decrease an individual’s ability to perform optimally on an intelligence test,
and that the individual may not have lower intelligence.”

Previous research has shown that people who are low in intelligence are also prone to worry — possibly because they achieve less in life.

Average intelligence show less of a link with anxiety.

The study was published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences (Penney et al., 2015).

Academic Achievement Is About More Than Just Intelligence (M)

Why the heritability of educational achievement is about much more than just intelligence.

Why the heritability of educational achievement is about much more than just intelligence.


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Consuming This Drink Is A Sign Of High IQ

People with high IQ are generally healthier, but they have one or two bad habits.

People with high IQ are generally healthier, but they have one or two bad habits.

People with high IQs drink more alcohol, although they are unlikely to be heavy drinkers, research finds.

In other words, they drink more, on average, but spread it out, and are unlikely to be alcoholics.

The results fit with the fact that highly intelligent people are also more likely to use drugs.

It could be because the intelligent tend to be easily bored.

Study of IQ and alcoholism

The conclusions come from a large study of the links between IQ and health habits.

Higher IQs are generally linked to healthier habits.

People with higher IQs are likely to be fitter, as they do more exercise and strength training.

Higher intelligence was also linked to better oral hygiene, consuming fewer sugary drinks and reading the nutritional information on food labels.

The study included 5,347 American men and women.

They were first surveyed in their early 20s and followed up in middle-age.

The results provide an interesting picture of the way healthy and unhealthy habits are linked to intelligence.

The intelligent were found to be more likely to skip meals and snack in between.

Do smart people drink?

Drinking and smoking both have an unusual relationship because both high intelligence and low intelligence are linked to drinking more and smoking fewer cigarettes.

People of average intelligence tend to drink less or possibly be teetotal — however, they are likely to smoke more cigarettes.

The study’s authors conclude that they have…

“…found evidence of links between higher IQ and a number of more favourable health related habits (i.e. engaging in physical activity, nutritional literacy, and oral hygiene habits, as well as not smoking, binge dinking, or consuming sugary drinks),

[…]

These findings, support the notion that certain health behaviours may lie on a pathway that links intelligence in early life with various health outcomes in adulthood.”

The study was published in the journal Intelligence (Wraw et al., 2018).

4 Musical Signs Of High Intelligence

This is how your musical taste reveals your IQ.

This is how your musical taste reveals your IQ.

A preference for instrumental music indicates higher intelligence, research finds.

People who like ambient music, smooth jazz, film soundtracks, classical music and similar genres without vocals tend to have higher IQs.

While vocal music might be seen as the ‘opposite’ of instrumental music, liking vocal music has no link to IQ.

In other words, many people with high IQs also like vocal music, but so do many with less impressive levels of intelligence.

The conclusions come from a survey of 1,500 people.

All were given IQ tests and asked about their preferences for eighteen musical genres.

The results showed that…

“…net of age, race, sex, education, family income, religion, current and past marital status and number of children, more intelligent Americans are more likely to prefer instrumental music such as big band, classical and easy listening than less-intelligent Americans.”

A second similar survey of thousands of 16-year-olds and their musical preferences was carried out in the UK in the 1980s.

This also found a link between high intelligence and a preference for instrumental music.

One theory about why liking instrumental music is linked to high IQ is the cognitive complexity of the music.

However, the researchers found this couldn’t be true.

Opera, for example, is seen as complex, yet the people who like it are no more intelligent than those who don’t.

The study’s authors write:

“It would be difficult to make the case that big-band music is more cognitively complex than classical music.

On the other extreme, as suspected, preference for rap music is significantly negatively correlated with intelligence.

However, preference for gospel music is even more strongly negatively correlated with it.

It would be difficult to make the case that gospel is less cognitively complex than rap.”

Instead, the reason, according to Dr Satoshi Kanazawa, the study’s co-author, is that instrumental music is more novel.

Music that is novel — in other words, developed more recently in evolutionary terms — tends to be preferred by people with higher IQs.

The study was published in the Journal of Behavioral Decision Making (Kanazawa & Perina, 2011).

2 Personality Traits That Indicate High IQ

The personality traits that suggest you have higher intelligence.

The personality traits that suggest you have higher intelligence.

The personality traits of being open to experience and having stable emotions both indicate a higher IQ, research finds.

People who are open to experience are more interested in things that are complex, new and unconventional.

Emotional stability is linked to being better at dealing with stress and minor frustrations.

People who are emotionally stable usually find it easier to control their urges and are mostly unselfconscious.

Both stable emotions and being open to experience are linked to better general knowledge, which are two aspect of intelligence.

Psychologists call general knowledge ‘crystallised intelligence’ is one of the two main types of intelligence.

Crystallised intelligence becomes more important as people get older as acquired information and skills predict their success in life.

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

The study included 201 university students in the UK who were given tests of personality and general knowledge questions, including:

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

(See the end of the article for the answers.)

The results showed that people got more answers correct if their personalities were more emotionally stable and they were more open to experience.

Openness to experience is particularly important for general knowledge because it makes people more curious and motivates them to learn new things.

Another personality trait the researchers found was linked to greater general knowledge was introversion.

Signs of introversion include preferring to be in a quiet, relaxing environment and having a rich mental life.

Having a rich mental life likely encourages people with this personality trait to pick up more information about the world.

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

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

A Curious Sign That Your IQ Is High

This quality is very important for highly intelligent people.

This quality is very important for highly intelligent people.

Curiosity is a sign of being smart, research suggests.

Curiosity could even be as important as intelligence in how well people do in life.

People who are curious ask lots of questions, look for surprises, seek out sensations and make time to search out new ideas.

Intelligence, along with curiosity and some personality factors, predicts successful performance in many areas.

Dr Sophie von Stumm, the study’s first author, said:

“Curiosity is basically a hunger for exploration.

If you’re intellectually curious, you’ll go home, you’ll read the books.

If you’re perceptually curious, you might go traveling to foreign countries and try different foods.”

The conclusions come from an analysis of around 200 separate studies including about 50,000 students.

All the studies examined how personality and intelligence affected academic performance.

The results showed that students who are curious do better in their school work.

Along with being curious, some personality traits are linked to better performance.

Conscientious students, in particular, perform better.

People who are conscientious are more careful, efficient and self-disciplined — and they aim for achievement.

Dr von Stumm said:

“It’s not a huge surprise if you think of it, that hard work would be a predictor of academic performance.”

Taken together, conscientiousness and curiosity were just as important as intelligence in students’ performance.

Curiosity is a very important quality for employers to look for, said Dr von Stumm:

“It’s easy to hire someone who has the done the job before and hence, knows how to work the role.

But it’s far more interesting to identify those people who have the greatest potential for development, i.e. the curious ones.”

The study was published in the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science (von Stumm et al., 2011).

A Delightful Sign You Have A High IQ

This bright quality is linked to higher intelligence.

This bright quality is linked to higher intelligence.

Feeling more happiness is a sign of a higher IQ, research finds.

Indeed, stable happiness is also a sign of higher IQ.

More intelligent people experience fewer drops in their happiness over the years.

People with higher IQs are just as happy at 31-years-old as they are at 51.

In contrast, the happiness of people with lower IQs is not just lower overall, but also goes up and down more over the years.

The conclusions come from a national survey of all 17,419 babies born in Britain during one week in 1958.

Those that stayed in the study were asked about their levels of happiness from ages 31 to 51.

The results are explained by Dr Satoshi Kanazawa, the study’s author:

“…childhood general intelligence emerged as the strongest predictor of the life-course variability of happiness.

More intelligent children on average tended to grow up to be more stable in their subjective well-being throughout adulthood.”

However, the reason that more intelligent people enjoy stable happiness was not clear from the study.

Dr Kanazawa writes:

“More intelligent individuals were significantly more stable in their happiness, and it was not entirely because: (1) they were more educated and wealthier (even though they were); (2) they were healthier (even though they were); (3) they were more stable in their marital status (even though they were); (4) they were happier (even though they were)…”

Satisfaction with life

Higher satisfaction with life is also a sign of high intelligence, a previous study has found.

People who are more satisfied with their life and their job score higher on tests of general mental ability.

Satisfaction with life is one of the two major aspects of happiness, along with the feeling of positive emotions in the moment.

The study was published in the British Journal of Psychology (Kanazawa et al., 2014).

5 Personality Traits That Are Linked To High IQ

Certain common aspects of personality are often linked to higher levels of intelligence by psychologists.

Certain common aspects of personality are often linked to higher levels of intelligence by psychologists.

Dutiful, competent and self-disciplined people have a higher IQ, research finds.

This means that higher IQ is linked to people who have a strong sense of responsibility, who are self-disciplined and confident in themselves and what they can do.

On top of these three factors, psychologists have found that both being open to experience and having stable emotions tends to indicate a higher IQ.

People who are open to experience are more interested in things that are complex, new and unconventional.

Emotional stability is linked to being better at dealing with stress and minor frustrations.

People who are emotionally stable usually find it easier to control their urges and are mostly unselfconscious.

Personality and IQ tests

The conclusions come from two studies: in the first many thousands of people in 86 different countries were given personality and IQ tests.

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

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

The general link between being conscientious and intelligence makes sense, the study’s 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 second study included 201 university students in the UK who were given tests of personality and general knowledge questions, including:

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

(See the end of the article for the answers.)

The results showed that people got more answers correct if their personalities were more emotionally stable and they were more open to experience.

Openness to experience is particularly important for general knowledge because it makes people more curious and motivates them to learn new things.

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

The studies were published in the journals Personality and Individual Differences and Learning and Individual Differences (Chamorro-Premuzic et al., 2006; Zajenkowski & Stolarski,, 2015).

The Surprising Sign Of High Intelligence And Self-Control

It has been linked to wise reasoning, dealing more effectively with stressful situations and feeling more confident.

It has been linked to wise reasoning, dealing more effectively with stressful situations and feeling more confident.

Talking to yourself is a sign of intelligence and self-control, research finds.

It is far from a sign of madness, as is sometimes claimed.

Whether we talk out loud or it is a silent inner voice, talking to yourself can help improve focus and boost brain power.

Talking to yourself has also been linked to wise reasoning, dealing more effectively with stressful situations and feeling more confident.

Talking to yourself has even been linked to the ability to find items more quickly.

For example, repeating “keys, keys, keys” might help you find them.

In one study of self-control, for example, people were given a set of written instructions to either read silently or out loud.

The results showed that reading the instructions out loud improved people’s control over a subsequent task.

It is thought that the benefit comes from hearing yourself.

Control impulsive behaviour

Other studies have shown that using our inner voice to talk to ourselves can also be beneficial.

Inner talk helps to organise our thoughts and control impulsive behaviour.

Dr Alexa Tullett is co-author of a study that found people who used their inner voice were better able to exert self-control.

He said:

“We give ourselves messages all the time with the intent of controlling ourselves — whether that’s telling ourselves to keep running when we’re tired, to stop eating even though we want one more slice of cake, or to refrain from blowing up on someone in an argument.”

Dr Michael Inzlicht, study co-author, said:

“We found that people acted more impulsively when they couldn’t use their inner voice or talk themselves through the tasks.

Without being able to verbalize messages to themselves, they were not able to exercise the same amount of self control as when they could talk themselves through the process.”

The studies were published in the journals Acta Psychologica and The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology (Kirkham et al., 2012; Lupyan & Swingley, 2011Tullet & Inzlicht, 2010).