How is your doctor making sure you are recovering your
lost 5 cognitive years from your stroke?
You are going to need high intelligence since you will need to find, study and apply stroke research to your recovery needs. Your doctor has NO clue on how to get you 100% recovered.
From The Best Brain Possible by Debbie Hampton.
Less intelligent people tend to overestimate their competence (I’m sure
you can think of a few.), while smart people tend to sell themselves
short. Apparently, this trait is nothing new because even Shakespeare
noticed it. In “
As You Like It“ he said:
The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.”
Science actually supports that observation.
A Cornell University study conducted
by David Dunning and Justin Kruger dubbed the phenomenon the
Dunning-Kruger effect. In other words, the smartest folks know how much
they don’t know. More intelligent people are able to admit when they
aren’t familiar with a particular concept. If they don’t know it, they
know that can learn it.
Here are some other traits which correlate with higher intelligence.
You have a dark sense of humor. Yep.
Your brain loves to laugh and brighter brains are more likely to have a darker sense of humor one
study
found. Your brain needs to be clever enough to get the irony inherent
in dark humor and subsequently interpret it to sense what’s funny about
it. Researchers say it takes more intelligence to be able to do that.
According to the study:
Humour
processing is a complex information-processing task that is dependent
on cognitive and emotional aspects which presumably influence
frame-shifting and conceptual blending, mental operations that underlie
humour processing.
Surprisingly, the study also found that a preference for black humor
correlated with lower aggression levels and fewer mood disturbances.
You’re the oldest child. Became the oldest child at age 9.
Negative associations between birth order and intelligence level have been found in
numerous studies.
The explanation for this is not exactly clear. One possible reason may
be that parents interact more emotionally and psychologically with their
first child, thus causing the child’s brain to develop better
intellectually.
The oldest children average scores 2.3 points higher on IQ tests than their younger brothers and sisters. One
study found that it wasn’t necessarily being born first that made the difference — it was being raised as the eldest child.
As the youngest of three, I was relieved to find the difference in IQ
isn’t really all that much. The mean IQ of first-born kids was just
over 103, second-borns just over 100, and third-world about 99. But if a
child’s elder sibling had died, leaving him or her to be raised as
first-born, their IQ increased to match the top scores of 103.
You have blue eyes. Gray
Studies have shown that
light-eyed people are more intelligent than
dark. Light-eyed individuals and even light-eyed animals perform better
at behaviors that required a delay, self-pacing, or non-reactivity.
Blue eyed people on average excel better at activities like academics
and are better strategic thinkers.
Don’t worry if you have brown eyes though, the study found that you
perform better at behaviors requiring speed, sensitivity or
reactivity. Brown eyed people on average tend to do better at quick
response based activities like sports and are perceived as more
trustworthy than your blue-eyed counterparts.
You drink alcohol and/or use recreational drugs. Alcohol - yes, I would use marijuana if it was easily available.
A more intelligent mind is usually a more open, curious mind that craves new experiences According to
Psychology Today,
people who use more drugs and drink tend to be more intelligent. This
is because more intelligent people seek “evolutionarily novel things”
which often are not the healthiest or even the smartest things.
Just like experimenting with drugs, drinking alcohol is a novel activity.
Studies show that people with a higher IQ drink more alcohol than the average person. However, there are
clear detriments for your brain when consuming too much alcohol regularly.
The science just shows a correlation between higher intelligence and
drinking. Don’t confuse this with drinking making you more intelligent.
It won’t.
You dress smarter. Nope
Wearing formal clothes can actually make you smarter, one
study
found. Dressing up makes people feel powerful and encourages the brain
to focus on ‘big picture’ thinking. People feel more competent and
rational when they are wearing formal clothing.
Thinking in a more abstract way helps people stick to long-term goals
and avoid short-term temptations research has found. Abstract thinking
also increases certain types of creativity, allowing people to make
connections between disparate things.
The study’s authors wrote:
Formal
clothing (like formal language) signals situations that are not casual
and familiar (i.e., situations of increased social distance; Easterling
et al.,1992).
Indeed, we found that
over and above any sociometric status felt when wearing formal clothing,
this enhanced social distance (feelings of power) predicts abstract
processing.”
You’re a night owl. Yep, until 3-4 am.
If you like to stay up late, you’re in good company, and it could be a
sign that you’re more intelligent. Barack Obama, Charles Darwin,
Winston Churchill, Keith Richards and Elvis Presley are all famous for
being nocturnal. It’s rumored that Nikola Tesla only slept for two hours
every night.
It is well established that
sleep is absolutely essential to optimal brain health and function. In fact,
more sleep equals more grey matter. However, the link may actually have to do more with the quality of the sleep, not the quantity.
Research
shows that sleep spindles — short neural oscillations that occur during
non-rapid eye movement sleep — are linked to IQ test
performance. Specifically, the quality and characteristics of sleep
spindles were linked to fluid intelligence and reasoning ability.
You use more cuss words. You have read my blog haven't you?
The typical stereotype of someone who swears is an unintelligent
person with a limited vocabulary. Studies have shown, however, that
swearing may, in fact, display a more, rather than less, intelligent use
of language.
While swearing can become just a habit, people choose to
swear in different contexts and
for different reasons, such as for linguistic effect, to convey strong
emotion, for laughs, or maybe even to be deliberately insulting.
Psychologists tested people who curse. The
study
showed that people who could name the most swear words within a minute
also scored higher on an IQ test. What this correlation suggests is that
swearing isn’t simply a sign of language poverty, lack of general
vocabulary, or low intelligence. Instead, swearing appears to be a
feature of language that an articulate speaker can utilize to
communicate with maximum effectiveness. It’s a sign of one aspect of
intelligence, verbal fluency.
You have a messy desk. My kitchen table is only 3 inches deep right now, was 6 inches.
A study by the
University of Minnesota suggests,
that the messy desk typically associated with geniuses is actually
linked to their intelligence. If you don’t spend much time cleaning and
organizing everything around you, your mind is available to work on
other things. The study went on to show that a messy environment could
lead to a more creative workflow.
Psychological scientist Kathleen Vohs said:
Disorderly
environments seem to inspire breaking free of tradition, which can
produce fresh insights. Orderly environments, in contrast, encourage
convention and playing it safe.”
You play video games. I'm addicted to Best Fiends right now.
Gamers tend to be more intelligent. A common perception is that playing video games is intellectually lazy. However,
recent research
suggests that the activity actually may strengthen a range of cognitive
skills such as spatial navigation, reasoning, memory, and perception.
Long-standing research has been conducted for decades on the negative
effects of gaming, including addiction, depression, and aggression
which is still very valid. However, there is a wide range of video
games.
Different kinds of games have different effects.
Specifically, one
study
found that those who play and score higher on strategy-heavy games do
better than average on IQ tests. Being a wiz on the more action-packed
games did not correspond to higher intelligence. Athanasios Kokkinakis, a
Ph.D. student with the EPSRC Centre for Intelligent Games and Game
Intelligence (IGGI) research program at York and lead author on the
study said:
Unlike
First Person Shooter (FPS) games where speed and target accuracy are a
priority, Multiplayer Online Battle Arenas (MOBA) rely more on memory
and the ability to make strategic decisions taking into account multiple
factors. It is perhaps for these reasons that we found a strong
correlation between skill and intelligence in MOBAs.”
You’re sarcastic. Yep, it has caused problems with some of my women friends.
According to a
study at Harvard University,
sarcasm can actually promote creative thinking. Being able to assess
the situation and come up with intelligent, sarcastic comments is an
indication of higher intelligence.
Just as processing dark humor, delivering or receiving sarcastic
jokes requires a great deal of effort for both the brains of the
commenter and the recipient in order to be understood and appreciated as
humor. This activity
boosts the creativity and cognitive functioning of both the parties.
I don’t know about you, but this sarcastic, swearing, night owl feels
a little bit vindicated (even though I’m the youngest child)!