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New IQ research shows why smarter people make better decisions

phys.org

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Re: New IQ research shows why smarter people make better decisions

#41

Post by dgfl »

api wrote: post #9
ceoofballin wrote: post #3

Personally I think IQ and practical intelligence differs for a person. I have know many IQ smart people that can solve complex problems but fail to solve or foresee everyday basic problems

Intelligence isn't one dimensional, but the parameters do tend to have a correlation on average. Higher IQ usually means higher other forms of intelligence -- on average. That being said, the caveat "on average" must always be added. On average, on average, on average. Same goes with anything about average tendencies of different genders. On average, on average, on average, averages across large groups do not map to…

It could also be that their brain is somehow just more optimized. Some extreme outliers (e.g. Von Neumann or Tao) don’t seem to have any significant gaps in their abilities. Although Von Neumann did die of a brain-related issue, so perhaps what was gained in efficiency was lost in reliability. Kind of like tuning an engine.

But this is biology after all. Most likely, plain improvements with zero downsides, very narrow improvements at the expense of something else, and improvements at the expense of life expectancy, are all possible mutations.

Re: New IQ research shows why smarter people make better decisions

#43

Post by 010101010101 »

owebmaster wrote: post #34
HPsquared wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of unhappy poor people. It's probably the largest category overall.

there are plenty of unhappy rich people and probably the % is bigger.

I think it’s pretty well understood that the money/happiness relationship is initially very strongly correlated but reaches a point of rapidly diminishing returns once a certain economic threshold is met. i.e. it’s nearly impossible to be “happy” if you’re experiencing food shortages because you can’t afford food consistently, but it’s also possible to be “unhappy” if you didn’t get the right color Porsche for your 16th birthday

Re: New IQ research shows why smarter people make better decisions

#44

Post by ecocentrik »

dinfinity wrote: post #35
delegate wrote: post #20

It's interesting how people always try to find some kind of number to race against. Here's a simple theoretical situation. A brilliant mathematician with very high IQ crashes in the jungle, but is unhurt. Not far from the crash site, there's a tribesman who lived in the jungle all his life. He doesn't know how to read or write. The jungle is filled with predators, spiders and snakes. The sun is setting, the night sta…

You're confusing 'adaptation', 'knowledge', and 'intelligence'. The scientific comparison would be to put the mathematician and (lower IQ for the example) tribesman in the same situation from birth and see which performs better. Now it's still not a given in that situation that the high IQ individual would be better adapted to the environment as physical traits may matter more, but it is probable that the high IQ ind…

> but it is probable that the high IQ individual has a better model of the predators, spiders, snakes and environment in general.

In a hostile environment a lack of prior experience or a lack of guidance with prior experience can mean death in a few days. The mathematician has no time to update priors. A nutritional deficit or a lack of adequate shelter will result in a rapid cognitive decline.

IQ as a predictor of health seems like the most relevant point in the research to this hypothetical situation.

Re: New IQ research shows why smarter people make better decisions

#45

Post by rTX5CMRXIfFG »

delegate wrote: post #20

It's interesting how people always try to find some kind of number to race against. Here's a simple theoretical situation. A brilliant mathematician with very high IQ crashes in the jungle, but is unhurt. Not far from the crash site, there's a tribesman who lived in the jungle all his life. He doesn't know how to read or write. The jungle is filled with predators, spiders and snakes. The sun is setting, the night sta…

I could care less. If it isn't intelligence, it's net worth, or body count. People like to gloat what they have, and then complain about those who have what they don't.

Re: New IQ research shows why smarter people make better decisions

#46

Post by molticrystal »

api wrote: post #11
scandox wrote: post #2

I think IQ is an incredibly bad measure of anything. So many IQ smart people I know make bad decisions and it's always because they don't judge other people well.

IQ is a rough measure of how big the engine is, like horsepower in a car. It says nothing about the quality of the driver or anything else about the car. A car with a huge engine in the hands of a bad driver can ram itself into a tree with great force. In my experience I've met a ton of extremely high IQ people who believe insane things: the Moon landings didn't happen, bizarro political theories that fall apart if y…

>In my experience I've met a ton of extremely high IQ people who believe insane things

My working hypothesis is that in individuals with high IQ, the brain has a stronger propensity to make connections autonomously. Then there is the exposures to common public information, ranging from unscientific beliefs like home remedies and crystals, and noticing in news articles, through reasoning ability, that there are omissions, inaccuracies, and outright lies. This can be great, the doubts and misapprehension about mainstream or even specialist knowledge has caused many breakthrough and discoveries.

But this goes haywire when their brain starts making connections between the nonsense and domains they only have a superficial knowledge of, often overestimating their understanding due to intellectual confidence, often driven by cognitive biases like pattern-seeking or overconfidence. For example, if a high IQ person pursued physics and engineering, they would quickly understand most rocketry and its capacities(moon landings certainly happened), but in less familiar domains, their pattern-seeking can lead to flawed conclusions.

The mix of information(pseudoscience,inaccurate news) that is prominent, as described above, combined with personal predispositions or exposure to specific communities, causes some to lose faith in the mainstream and influences whether they become occultists, moon landing deniers, or the like.

Re: New IQ research shows why smarter people make better decisions

#47

Post by 9rx »

calvinmorrison wrote: post #27
s_dev wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Happiness > Wealth Accumulation. Depends on what you're optimising your life for. Money is very easy to measure, work/life balance, family and other factors are all incredibly difficult to measure and are arguably more important. Plenty of relatively poor people have extremely happy lives.

If you have to work to survive you are working class, simple as. Life's much happier without survival struggle

> If you have to work to survive you are working class, simple as.

While the working class always have to work to survive, it is also possible for someone in the middle class and even the upper class to also have to work to survive.

In both the middle and upper class cases, if the capital portion of one's position is insufficient to cover one's survival needs, then the labor component remains necessary to their survival. In other words, they have to work to survive even though they have capital to take them out of the working class.

It is not so simple at all.

Re: New IQ research shows why smarter people make better decisions

#48

Post by readthenotes1 »

Two things that strike me about this study are:

1. Comparing the bottom 2.5% to the top 2.5% is a vast range and not really applicable to just about anybody who's able to read. So the effect may be real but irrelevant for 95%+ of humanity.

2. It doesn't look like they controlled the expected longevity to the actual longevity and instead compared it to projected longevity. It seems flawed.

0. Since it comes from sociology type research, odds are that it is pure bunk. I would like to see it replicated before it actually got any air time in any serious conversation.

(Yes, I know I have trouble counting but the last one is applicable to almost all modern research)

Re: New IQ research shows why smarter people make better decisions

#49

Post by amelius »

9rx wrote: post #47
calvinmorrison wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have to work to survive you are working class, simple as. Life's much happier without survival struggle

> If you have to work to survive you are working class, simple as. While the working class always have to work to survive, it is also possible for someone in the middle class and even the upper class to also have to work to survive. In both the middle and upper class cases, if the capital portion of one's position is insufficient to cover one's survival needs, then the labor component remains necessary to their survi…

Well, in upper class you simply hire someone to manage your money, making sure that you have a high return on investments.

Re: New IQ research shows why smarter people make better decisions

#50

Post by lnfromx »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #18
s_dev wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Happiness > Wealth Accumulation. Depends on what you're optimising your life for. Money is very easy to measure, work/life balance, family and other factors are all incredibly difficult to measure and are arguably more important. Plenty of relatively poor people have extremely happy lives.

That's interesting. So I'd imagine that sharper folks might maximize quality of life, work/life balance, and friendships rather than a simple number.

This. Just look at Math Professors. I think of them as incredibly rich. The compensation of their life enjoyment, fulfillment, freedom and free time is not visible, but could possibly be estimated very high, monetarily. For instance, one estimation of fulfillment could be the price of yachts and other status symbols of super rich people.
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