Category: Intelligence

People with these two traits had higher crystallised intelligence.

Being open to new experiences and more extraverted are both linked to higher intelligence, research finds.

People who are open to experience tend to have a more active imagination, higher sensitivity to beauty and more intellectual curiosity, among other things.

Open people tend to retain general information better and they are also better at storing memories in the short term.

The results come from a survey of 381 people aged 19- to 89-years-old.

They were split into different groups depending on their cognitive performance.

The type of intelligence measured in the study is known as ‘crystallised’.

This refers to the ability to use learned information and is often tested through general knowledge and vocabulary.

In a twist to the findings, though, it turned out that some adults over 60 performed as well as younger people.

Among these people, it was being disagreeable that was linked to higher IQ.

Other research has also found that people who are highly intelligent tend to be independent and aloof.

The study’s authors conclude:

“The results also suggests that there are differences in personality–intelligence relationships between those who retain a normal level of overall cognitive ability in old age and those older adults who are cognitively superior.”

The study was published in the journal Personality and individual Differences (Baker & Bichsel, 2006).

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 type of writing that makes you look smarter.

Writing in a simple and straightforward way makes you look smarter, research finds.

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.”

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).

Four personality factors are linked to high intelligence.

People with higher intelligence find it easier to accept confusion and vagueness, a study finds.

Many problems in life do not have a definitive answer — and intelligent people can deal with this more easily.

More intelligent people can make better decisions because they are able to accept ambiguity, researchers have found.

Other common signs of a high IQ include being conscientious, taking risks and being curious.

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

Intelligent people are more likely to have ‘Type A’ personalities — this is linked both to being competitive and taking risks.

Curiosity is also linked to high intelligence.

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

The conclusions come from a study that included 820 people.

All completed measures of both intelligence and personality.

The personality traits are part of the High Potential Traits Inventory, which focuses on workplace behaviours.

The results showed that four personality factors were linked to intelligence.

The ability to cope with uncertainty is an especially strong sign of high intelligence, 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 [working memory] ability.”

The study was published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences (Furnham & Treglown, 2018).

High IQ brains have greater functional connectivity and higher synchronisation, but this has an unexpected real-world effect.

Intelligent people take longer to solve difficult problems than those with lower IQs, a study finds.

The reason seems to be that people with higher IQs avoid jumping to conclusions, which means they are more likely to end up with the correct answer.

On simpler problems, though, people with high IQs do indeed answer more quickly.

Greater functional connectivity

The conclusions come from a study of 650 people who were given a series of logical problems to solve, which became steadily harder.

From a combination of brain scans and simulations of brain activity, the researchers found that the brains of smarter people took longer to solve difficult problems.

High IQ brains have greater functional connectivity and higher synchronisation.

It is these properties that allow the more intelligent brain to ‘hold out’ while complex information is being processed.

Dr Michael Schirner, the study’s first author, said:

“Synchronization, i.e., the formation of functional networks in the brain, alters the properties of working memory and thus the ability to ‘endure’ prolonged periods without a decision.

In more challenging tasks, you have to store previous progress in working memory while you explore other solution paths and then integrate these into each other.

This gathering of evidence for a particular solution may sometimes takes longer, but it also leads to better results.

We were able to use the model to show how excitation-inhibition balance at the global level of the whole brain network affects decision-making and working memory at the more granular level of individual neural groups.”

Brain simulations

To reach their conclusions, the researchers used simulations of brain activity, personalised for each of the 650 people in the study.

Professor Petra Ritter, study co-author, explained:

“We can reproduce the activity of individual brains very efficiently.

We found out in the process that these in silico brains behave differently from one another—and in the same way as their biological counterparts. Our virtual avatars match the intellectual performance and reaction times of their biological analogues.”

The simulations revealed that the brains of people with lower IQs cannot wait until all the various areas of the brain have finished their processing steps before ‘jumping to conclusions’.

In contrast, greater synchrony in high IQ brains allowed time for all the brain regions to complete their processing and deliver up an answer that was more likely to be correct.

Related

• Human intelligence arises from the efficiency of all brain regions put together.
• American IQ is dropping — and it’s happening elsewhere too.
• The biggest myth about IQ is the assumption that it cannot change.

The study was published in the journal Nature Communications (Shirner et al., 2023).

The common drink is linked to a higher level of education.

Smarter people are more likely to drink alcohol daily, research finds.

Better educated people are also more likely to have a drinking problem.

Higher grades in school at the age of just 5-years-old predict greater intake of alcohol many decades later.

Among women, there is an especially strong link between alcohol consumption and being highly educated.

The reason may be that middle-class lifestyles — accessible through education — are linked to more alcohol consumption.

It could also be because intelligent people often value novel things and are at a greater risk of getting bored.

The study’s authors write:

“The more educated women are, the more likely they are to drink alcohol on most days and to report having problems due to their drinking patterns

The better-educated appear to be the ones who engage the most in problematic patterns of alcohol consumption.”

The results come from a study that followed everyone born in the UK in one week in 1970.

Women with degrees were 86% more likely to drink on most days than those with less education, the study found.

Highly-educated women were 1.7 times more likely to have a drinking problem than the less well-educated.

The authors write:

“Both males and females who achieved high-level performance in test scores administered at ages five and 10 are significantly more likely to abuse alcohol than individuals who performed poorly on those tests.”

The link between alcohol consumption and education could come down to a range of factors, the authors write:

“Reasons for the positive association of education and drinking behaviours may include: a more intensive social life that encourages alcohol intake; a greater engagement into traditionally male spheres of life, a greater social acceptability of alcohol use and abuse; more exposure to alcohol use during formative years; and greater postponement of childbearing and its responsibilities among the better educated.”

The study was published in the journal Social Science and Medicine (Huerta & Borgonovi, 2010).

Four things that indicate high intelligence in a person.

Being open to experience, cooperative, happy and having strong perceptual skills are all signs that you have a high IQ, psychological research finds.

Of these, being open to experience is a particularly strong sign…

1. Open to experience

Insatiable curiosity, an active fantasy life, a sensitivity to emotions and an appreciation of art and beauty are all linked to high IQ.

These are all aspects of the major personality trait called ‘openness to experience’.

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

Being open to experience is so powerful that it is linked to intelligence when measured almost 40 years later.

Children who scored higher on IQ tests at just 11-years-old were more open to experience when they were 50-years-old, the psychologists found.

2. Cooperative

Intelligent people are better at cooperating with others.

While personality traits like being generous and conscientious have an effect on cooperation, higher IQ is the main factor that encourages people to work well together.

People with higher intelligence use more consistent strategies and consider the consequences of their actions.

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

3. Happy

Happy people have higher intelligence.

The finding goes against the popular idea that being intelligent somehow predisposes people to unhappiness.

The study looked at happiness in the best-known sense of feeling positive emotions and being satisfied with your life.

The results showed that people with the lowest IQ (70 – 99) were the least happy in comparison to those with the highest IQs (120 – 129).

4. Stronger perceptual skills

People with high IQs have stronger basic perceptual skills, research finds.

For example, they can tell which way objects are moving more quickly.

They are also better at blocking out background information to make their judgement.

Imagine a ball thrown at high speed — a more intelligent person can pick up its trajectory faster.

A higher IQ makes the brain faster at a fundamental level.

It helps underline that high IQ is about more than just solving puzzles or making the ‘right’ decision.

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