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posted by janrinok on Monday December 19 2016, @05:27PM   Printer-friendly
from the appealing-to-a-community-of-loners dept.

A story at Inverse, covers research that concludes that Evolution Made Really Smart People Long to Be Loners:

Psychologists have a pretty good idea of what typically makes a human happy. Dancing delights us. Being in nature brings us joy. And, for most people, frequent contact with good friends makes us feel content.

That is, unless you're really, really smart.

In a paper published in the British Journal of Psychology , researchers Norman Li and Satoshi Kanazawa report that highly intelligent people experience lower life satisfaction when they socialize with friends more frequently. These are the Sherlocks and the Newt Scamanders of the world — the very intelligent few who would be happier if they were left alone.

[...] To come to this conclusion, the researchers analyzed the survey responses of 15,197 individuals between the ages of 18 and 28. Their data was a part of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health — a survey that measures life satisfaction, intelligence, and health...

Intelligence is believed to have evolved as a psychological mechanism to solve novel problems — the sort of challenges that weren't a regular part of life. For our ancestors, frequent contact with friends and allies was a necessity that allowed them to survive. Being highly intelligent, however, meant an individual was more likely to be able to solve problems without another person's help, which in turn diminished the importance of their friendships.

[...] That certainly doesn't mean that if you enjoy being around your friends that you're unintelligent. But it does mean that the really smart person you know who spends much of their time alone isn't a sad loner — they probably just like it that way.

In my estimation, the community here is above-average in intelligence so I am curious: How many of you are loners? Do you prefer the company of yourself to the company of others?


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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by tathra on Monday December 19 2016, @05:41PM

    by tathra (3367) on Monday December 19 2016, @05:41PM (#443217)

    smart people don't necessarily want to be isolated and alone, we just really hate being bothered by dumb people.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 19 2016, @06:50PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 19 2016, @06:50PM (#443257)

    I have no clue what you're talking about ... oh, wait ... a dog with a puffy tail.

  • (Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 19 2016, @07:21PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 19 2016, @07:21PM (#443268)

    Totally agree.

    I LOVED my graduate university days spent in an office with a table tennis table and 140+ IQ office mates who were as nutty as me. We had a ball and spent as much time together as possible.

    Then I went to the corporate IT world where I was very successful and even ended up in management but hated every minute of it.

    The sad fact is that VERY highly intelligent people (and no, this board is not populated by mostly this category) tend to be treated like freaks because they operate in a head-space and at a pace that bewilders other people. At best people try to control them for their own purposes as they see the value in their intelligence and feel the need to use them like a tool, being tools themselves. I have to constantly be dumbing myself down and taking a breath to make sure I was operating slow enough for others to keep up.
    It was tiring. It was draining. It was like swimming in a swamp.
    And don't trot out that tired old stereotype that I was anti-social with a low emotional IQ and unempathic - quite the opposite which I why I gravitated towards management. I DO have my many, many, MANY faults its just those are not among them.

    And don't bother replaying with the snarky retort you have in your head right now mouth breather. I will purposely not be coming back here to read it...going to spend some time alone instead.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 19 2016, @07:28PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 19 2016, @07:28PM (#443274)

      140+ IQ

      While those office mates might well have been very intelligent, don't confuse IQ with intelligence; there's not enough significant scientific evidence to support that.

      low emotional IQ

      That's (emotional intelligence) not just a tired old stereotype: It's more garbage from the social sciences.

  • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday December 19 2016, @09:13PM

    by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Monday December 19 2016, @09:13PM (#443339) Homepage Journal

    The nose. You hit it squarely.

    I can hang regularly only with people with a 130 IQ or higher. Even that's mathematically equivalent to an average person picking their friends from the short bus though. The very few good friends I have are all 145 or better and exceed me in some area that it would take me years to pass them up in expertise; rather than the weeks it would take me to surpass a normal person in their signature mental endeavor.

    That's not at all to say I look down on people for being less intelligent. I don't. I make a conscious effort not to. Unfortunately that effort is exceedingly tiring over the span of days or weeks, so many things in life are just out the flipping window for me.

    This may be why I enjoy fishing so much. It's just me and the fish. Fish rarely say anything insanely stupid. Also, there are so many highly influential variables to having a productive day of fishing on any given day that it's one hell of a mental pursuit, while at the same time being enjoyable anywhere along the skill curve. Unless it's raining harder than a drizzle. Fuck a bunch of that.

    --
    My rights don't end where your fear begins.