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from the not-what-soylentils-want-to-hear dept.
If ignorance is bliss, does a high IQ equal misery? Popular opinion would have it so. We tend to think of geniuses as being plagued by existential angst, frustration, and loneliness. Think of Virginia Woolf, Alan Turing, or Lisa Simpson – lone stars, isolated even as they burn their brightest. As Ernest Hemingway wrote: "Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know."
The question may seem like a trivial matter concerning a select few – but the insights it offers could have ramifications for many. Much of our education system is aimed at improving academic intelligence; although its limits are well known, IQ is still the primary way of measuring cognitive abilities, and we spend millions on brain training and cognitive enhancers that try to improve those scores. But what if the quest for genius is itself a fool's errand?
The first steps to answering these questions were taken almost a century ago, at the height of the American Jazz Age. At the time, the new-fangled IQ test was gaining traction, after proving itself in World War One recruitment centres, and in 1926, psychologist Lewis Terman decided to use it to identify and study a group of gifted children. Combing California's schools for the creme de la creme, he selected 1,500 pupils with an IQ of 140 or more – 80 of whom had IQs above 170. Together, they became known as the "Termites", and the highs and lows of their lives are still being studied to this day.
As you might expect, many of the Termites did achieve wealth and fame – most notably Jess Oppenheimer, the writer of the classic 1950s sitcom I Love Lucy. Indeed, by the time his series aired on CBS, the Termites' average salary was twice that of the average white-collar job. But not all the group met Terman's expectations – there were many who pursued more "humble" professions such as police officers, seafarers, and typists. For this reason, Terman concluded that "intellect and achievement are far from perfectly correlated". Nor did their smarts endow personal happiness. Over the course of their lives, levels of divorce, alcoholism and suicide were about the same as the national average.
As the Termites enter their dotage, the moral of their story – that intelligence does not equate to a better life – has been told again and again. At best, a great intellect makes no differences to your life satisfaction; at worst, it can actually mean you are less fulfilled.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by mcgrew on Wednesday April 15 2015, @06:17PM
"We tend to think of geniuses as being plagued by existential angst, frustration, and loneliness. Think of Virginia Woolf, Alan Turing, or Lisa Simpson"
Two of those three are FICTIONAL CHARACTERS, and Turing, the only real person, wasn't plagued by anything except his sexual orientation and people's reaction to it. Had he not had the misfortune of being born homosexual, I doubt he would have committed suicide.
At the bottom of the summary (article?) it states, and this cannot be emphasized too much, Over the course of their lives, levels of divorce, alcoholism and suicide were about the same as the national average. This DISPROVES the "smart guy's angst" theory.
As to Hemingway, not only has my experience differed from his (my experience parallels what the study said), I don't understand why people think he's so great, I find the writing tedious. OTOH look at some seriously smart people -- Isaac Asimov, for example. I see no sign of angst in his life, although I know his divorce wasn't fun; they never are. Look at Stephen Hawking, he seems happy even trapped in that chair. My former boss was the smartest guy I ever met, and he was happy.
As to "ignorance is bliss", that hasn't been my experience, either. The most disturbed souls I know are a dumb as a post and dirt poor. Money won't buy happiness, but lack of it will buy misery.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 15 2015, @08:16PM
Depression is higher in people that test as having a higher IQ, which only shows that the article was poorly written not that the underlying thought is wrong.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Thursday April 16 2015, @12:49AM
Perhaps his homosexuality was a consequence of some other factor like high surge of testosterone during pregnancy that improved his analytical skills so he could actually do those fantastic things he did.
His bad luck were to be born in a narrow minded society that bothered too much with what people did among consenting adults. (Fucking morons to waste such talent!)
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Sunday April 19 2015, @01:53PM
I don't think it's known why some people are homosexual, but I agree if he had been born 40 years later he probably wouldn't have killed himself. We might all be speaking German, too.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Sunday April 19 2015, @11:54PM
He might actually been quite critical to the Bletchley Park such that it's perhaps a choice between speaking German or having a brilliant scientist (say in computational biology)..
Perhaps it's like destiny or the master plan telling us we can't have both. But societies doesn't have to be so narrow minded either. But if the society were more developed then there would perhaps not been any war either.
Faustian choice? ;)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 16 2015, @03:40PM
Virginia Woolf was a real person:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Woolf [wikipedia.org]