Writing in a simple and straightforward way makes you look smarter.
When readers find it easy to understand something, they assume the writer is more intelligent.
On the other hand, using long words in a clumsy way makes people look less intelligent.
Oddly enough, the use of complicated or unusual fonts also makes people looks less intelligent.
It is far better to stick to normal fonts like Times New Roman or Arial and everyday words that everyone can understand.
Of course, sometimes long words are necessary, such as in technical documents.
Professor Daniel Oppenheimer, the study’s author, explained:
“It’s important to point out that this research is not about problems with using long words but about using long words needlessly.
Anything that makes a text hard to read and understand, such as unnecessarily long words or complicated fonts, will lower readers’ evaluations of the text and its author.”
Write simple, sound brilliant
Professor Oppenheimer carried out five studies to reach his conclusions.
People were asked to read and judge various writing samples, including graduate school applications, research abstracts and a translation of the philosopher Descartes.
Readers consistently rated the writers of simpler language as more intelligent.
Professor Oppenheimer said:
“The continuing popularity amongst students of using big words and attractive font styles may be due to the fact that they may not realise these techniques could backfire.
One thing seems certain: write as simply and plainly as possible and it’s more likely you’ll be thought of as intelligent.”
Naturally, the study’s title is: “Consequences of erudite vernacular utilized irrespective of necessity: problems with using long words needlessly”.
The study was published in the journal Applied Cognitive Psychology (Oppenheimer, 2005).
This trait is a distinct part of human intelligence.
This trait is a distinct part of human intelligence.
Intelligent people are more likely to trust others, research finds.
This may be because more intelligent people are better judges of character.
The study analysed data from the ‘General Social Survey’, which asks a nationally representative sample of Americans about their attitudes and characteristics
The researchers focused on the idea of generalised trust: not trust of close friends and family, but of other unknown members of society.
People were asked:
“Generally speaking, would you say that most people can be trusted or that you can’t be too careful in dealing with people?”
They found that people who were more trusting were also happier and had higher levels of physical health.
It also emerged that trust was not just a proxy for intelligence: in other words intelligence could not explain the links between either trust and health or trust and happiness.
The study’s lead author, Noah Carl of Oxford University, said:
“Intelligence is shown to be linked with trusting others, even after taking into account factors like marital status, education and income.
This finding supports what other researchers have argued, namely that being a good judge of character is a distinct part of human intelligence which evolved through natural selection.”
It’s smart to trust
The research chimes with a number of established findings about the link between trust at the individual and societal level.
Previous research has found that people who are more trusting are:
More likely to start a business.
More likely to do voluntary work.
Happier with their lives.
Have better physical health.
In addition, societies which have higher levels of generalised trust overall also have:
Public institutions which are more efficient.
Higher levels of social capital.
Greater economic growth.
The study’s coauthor, Professor Francesco Billari, said:
“People who trust others seem to report better health and greater happiness.
The study of social trust therefore has wider implications in public health, governmental policy and private charity, and there are good reasons to think that governments, religious groups and other civic organizations should try to cultivate more trust in society.”
Openness to experience is the personality trait most strongly linked to higher intelligence, research finds.
People who are open to experience tend to be intellectually curious, imaginative, seekers of variety and sensitive to their feelings.
Naturally, people who are open to experience like trying out new activities and ideas.
Openness to experience is one of the five major aspects of personality, along with conscientiousness, neuroticism, agreeableness and extraversion.
The study’s author, Dr Scott Barry Kaufman, explains:
“Openness to experience is the broadest personality domain of the Big Five, including a mix of traits relating to intellectual curiosity, intellectual interests, perceived intelligence, imagination, creativity, artistic and aesthetic interests, emotional and fantasy richness, and unconventionality.”
The conclusions come from a survey of 146 people who were asked questions about their personality and intelligence.
The results showed the strongest links between openness to experience and higher IQ.
Being open to experience is so powerful that it is linked to intelligence when measured almost 40 years later.
In particular, two aspects of openness to experience were most strongly related to intelligence.
Firstly, intellectual engagement, which comprises:
finding abstract thinking pleasurable,
enjoying coming up with new solutions to problems,
and liking reading.
Secondly, aesthetic engagement, which can involve activities like:
going to the cinema,
drawing or painting,
dancing,
and playing a musical instrument.
More intelligent people are particularly appreciative of beauty: they have a strong aesthetic sense.
Curious
Along with these factors, insatiable curiosity is also strongly linked to higher intelligence.
The link is probably down to higher intelligence driving ‘cognitive hunger’.
Cognitive hunger makes people seek out new experiences to satiate this hunger.
The study was published in The Journal of Creative Behavior (Kaufman, 2013).
One personality trait is linked to higher intelligence above all others.
One personality trait is linked to higher intelligence above all others.
Being open to experience is the personality trait most strongly linked to high IQ.
People who are open to experience show a special interest in things that are unconventional, new and complex.
Openness to experience is one of the five major aspects of personality, along with conscientiousness, neuroticism, extraversion and agreeableness.
Recent research has shown that certain sub-components of openness have strong links to high IQ:
Appreciating beauty,
having an active fantasy life,
being emotionally sensitive,
and wide-ranging curiosity
Strongest of these is curiosity: people who are highly curious are likely to have high IQs.
Curiosity is strongly linked to IQ because higher intelligence drives ‘cognitive hunger’.
Cognitive hunger makes people seek out new experiences.
The conclusions come from a study of 17,415 people in the UK who were given personality and IQ tests and followed up over four decades.
The study’s authors explain their results:
“…childhood intelligence is indeed positively associated with adult trait Openness, even when it was assessed almost four decades earlier when participants were at 11 years.
Intelligence may influence the development of personality in that intelligent people develop habits to satisfy their curiosity and ‘‘cognitive hunger’’ which are an essential ingredient of Openness.”
It is a higher IQ that drives a greater level of openness to experience, the authors write:
“Parents of higher socioeconomic status may foster children’s trait Openness by providing better resources such as choosing good schools and cultural environment (theaters, museums, traveling abroad, etc.); intelligent children tend to use more mental activities (such as abstract ideas, learning new
vocabularies, or math formulas) than those who are less intelligent; school settings (quality of teaching, good facilities) may enhance pupils to engage more in school learning.
All these three factors may influence educational and
occupational achievement, which in turn, may increase
the scores on Openness.”
The study was published in the Journal of Individual Differences (Furnham & Cheng, 2016).
People with high intelligence tend to have this quality.
People with high intelligence tend to have this quality.
Extravert get higher scores on IQ tests, a study finds.
People who are outgoing, talkative and energetic perform better on tests of verbal and abstract reasoning, psychologists found.
Extraverts are generally self-confident and cheerful and can also be impulsive, sensation-seekers.
The conclusions come from a study that tested the effects of background music on how people perform on IQ tests.
The study also revealed that extraverts are better at dealing with noisy conditions when carrying out intellectual tasks.
Introverts find background noise and music much more distracting.
For the study, 118 people took IQ tests, sometimes in silence and other times with background noise.
The background noise was either music or simulated office noise.
The results showed that extraverts got higher scores on the IQ tests, whether it was noisy or not.
However, everyone tended to perform better on the test in silence.
So, background noise generally made everyone’s performance worse.
The worst type of noise for performance was the simulated office noise.
Still, extraverts coped much better on the tests in noisy conditions than introverts.
The study’s authors write:
“This study found a positive correlation between extraversion and IQ, suggesting the relationship between intelligence and extraversion may be a bit more complex than it appears at first sight.
[…]
…extraversion and introversion are intimately associated with different intellectual styles and intelligence profiles.
[…]
Introverts were found to perform relatively better on verbal tests, and extraverts on performance tests.”
The study was published in the journal Applied Cognitive Psychology (Dobbs et al., 2011).
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.”
Higher intelligence is associated with this personality type.
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).
