People with high IQ do not need a lot of friends for happiness
An interesting study published in the British Journal of Psychology. The authors of the research, evolutionary psychologists Satoshi Kanazawa from the London School of Economics and Norman Lee from the Singapore University of Management, tried to determine which factors influence the subjective feeling of happiness of a modern person. They analyzed data from a survey of more than 15,000 Americans from 18 to 28 years old to determine how population density, the number of friends, and intelligence affect happiness. Some results can be called quite unexpected, although for specialists they did not become a revelation (see below).
The dependence of the subjective level of happiness on various factors is a popular research topic in recent years: polls are conducted around the world, economists study how income levels affect happiness , and biologists and other scientists are interested in this.
Specifically, according to the results of the analysis, Kanazawa and Lee found several correlations.
First, a link was found between the population density and the level of happiness. In densely populated areas, people feel worse. This is a well-known fact, confirmed by previous studies : residents of rural areas feel happier than residents of the suburbs, and residents of suburbs and small cities, in turn, feel better than residents of large cities.
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Secondly, people with more friends and social connections feel happier. But there is one big exception. The higher the intellect of a person, the less influence on the level of happiness is the number of friends and social connections. Moreover, there is even a negative correlation! That is, an intelligent person does not need a lot of communication to feel his own well-being, but on the contrary - the less communication, the better for him. In addition, smart people are not so strongly affected by the population density factor.
“The effect of population density is more than twice as strong on people with low IQ than on people with high IQ,” the authors say . “And smarter people in reality are less satisfied with life if they communicate with their friends more often.”
This should be repeated separately: when an intelligent person spends more time with friends, it makes him less happy.
It turns out that this is not a secret for specialists: “The research results show (and there is nothing surprising here) that people with higher intelligence and the ability to use it ... are less inclined to spend a lot of time talking, because they are focused on other more long-term goals”, - explains Carol Graham (Carol Graham) from the Brookings Institution.
Kanazawa and Lee put forward their own theory. They say that the lifestyle of the hunter-gatherers that our ancestors were is the basis of what makes many people happy now. That is, certain factors and circumstances that improved the quality of life of our ancestors, in the same way make us happier now - this is a low population density and communication with relatives and friends "from their tribe." The researchers called their theory the “savanna theory”.
However, the savannah theory is not fully extended to people with high IQ, since they are better adapted to changes and independently solve new problems without having to communicate with the "tribe."
Other scientists were skeptical about the “evolutionary theory of happiness” by Kanazawa and Lee, but no one disputes the fact that people with high IQ really do not need as many social communications as people with low IQ.
The dependence of the subjective level of happiness on various factors is a popular research topic in recent years: polls are conducted around the world, economists study how income levels affect happiness , and biologists and other scientists are interested in this.
Specifically, according to the results of the analysis, Kanazawa and Lee found several correlations.
First, a link was found between the population density and the level of happiness. In densely populated areas, people feel worse. This is a well-known fact, confirmed by previous studies : residents of rural areas feel happier than residents of the suburbs, and residents of suburbs and small cities, in turn, feel better than residents of large cities.
')
Secondly, people with more friends and social connections feel happier. But there is one big exception. The higher the intellect of a person, the less influence on the level of happiness is the number of friends and social connections. Moreover, there is even a negative correlation! That is, an intelligent person does not need a lot of communication to feel his own well-being, but on the contrary - the less communication, the better for him. In addition, smart people are not so strongly affected by the population density factor.
“The effect of population density is more than twice as strong on people with low IQ than on people with high IQ,” the authors say . “And smarter people in reality are less satisfied with life if they communicate with their friends more often.”
This should be repeated separately: when an intelligent person spends more time with friends, it makes him less happy.
It turns out that this is not a secret for specialists: “The research results show (and there is nothing surprising here) that people with higher intelligence and the ability to use it ... are less inclined to spend a lot of time talking, because they are focused on other more long-term goals”, - explains Carol Graham (Carol Graham) from the Brookings Institution.
Kanazawa and Lee put forward their own theory. They say that the lifestyle of the hunter-gatherers that our ancestors were is the basis of what makes many people happy now. That is, certain factors and circumstances that improved the quality of life of our ancestors, in the same way make us happier now - this is a low population density and communication with relatives and friends "from their tribe." The researchers called their theory the “savanna theory”.
However, the savannah theory is not fully extended to people with high IQ, since they are better adapted to changes and independently solve new problems without having to communicate with the "tribe."
Other scientists were skeptical about the “evolutionary theory of happiness” by Kanazawa and Lee, but no one disputes the fact that people with high IQ really do not need as many social communications as people with low IQ.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/371977/
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