IQ characteristics
Loners and left-handers are supposed to be smarter – is that right?
“Elle” says that anyone who is complicated in dealing with other people has more brains. A scientist disagrees.
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Smart people find it difficult to make small talk, writes Elle. Because they are called to higher things than banter regarding the weather and shoes.
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Intelligent people also need a lot of time for themselves. So anyone who is viewed as antisocial is very likely to be particularly intelligent.
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“Nonsense,” says intelligence researcher Jakob Pietschnig from the University of Vienna. Characteristics such as an affinity for small talk or being a loner said nothing regarding intelligence.
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Left-handed people are also particularly smart, according to Elle. This is not true either, says IQ expert Pietschnig.
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The only characteristic that he can halfway accept: A large head tends to indicate a higher IQ. And since taller people often have a bigger head, one might also use body size as an indicator. But: “The correlation between head size and IQ is small.”
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According to the magazine “Elle”, signs of intelligence are when someone falls in love or prefers to be alone.
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Physical features also indicated more brains: Tall people and left-handers are smarter.
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Intelligence researcher Jakob Pietschnig disagrees. He only halfway accepts one finding.
“If one of these three characteristics applies to you, you are intelligent,” says one Article of the magazine «Elle»:
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You need time to fall in love. It is said that smart people have a harder time falling in love head over heels. They generally think a lot regarding everything, including the consequences of a new person in life. Intelligent people often put their own goals before the goals of others, which is why they are only later ready for love. In addition, their expectations of a relationship are high.
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considered antisocial. Who likes spending time alone get labeled as anti-social, but is in fact just smarter. «Smart people need time and rest to allow their thoughts to mature. They are less likely to be distracted by people, noise and social commitments.”
There are also physical characteristics by which we recognize intelligent people, it says in another “Elle” article. One of them is body size. The bigger, the wiser This was found in a study with young people. In addition, a large head indicates intelligence. People who have a big head as an infant are more likely to get a university degree later and are also more intelligent and successful in old age, according to studies.
And finally: Left-handers are proven to be more creative and flexible than their fellow human beings, which is probably related to the ability to use both hemispheres of the brain more easily. According to a myth, left-handed people are also more intelligent.
Head size is an indicator – but only to a limited extent
Jakob Pietschnig, intelligence researcher at the University of Vienna, can only gain something from one of these statements: “There is actually a correlation between head size and IQ, but it is small.”
The other statements are, to put it bluntly, nonsense, says the researcher. He’s not surprised, because the subject of intelligence is shrouded in myths and misconceptions. For example, people still believed that classical music made you smart. The so-called “Mozart effect”, which is said to have an effect even in infancy, but go back to misinformation in a NY Times article from the early 1990s. Im Interview with 20 minutes says Pietschnig, which makes you really smart.