Are dumb people happier than smart ones?

Discussion in 'Science & Society' started by Syzygys, Sep 25, 2006.

  1. Syzygys As a mother, I am telling you Valued Senior Member

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    I know, happiness is hard to measure, but I have the impression that dumber people can be happier than smart ones. Maybe it is just because they worry less..

    What do you guys think? is there a correlation between smartness and happiness in any way?
     
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  3. francois Schwat? Registered Senior Member

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    Yeah, I think there is.
    There's a definite inverse relationship between intelligence and religosity, meaning dumb people tend to be more religious than smart people. People believe in religion even if there's no proof of it being true, which is the idea behind faith. Faith means blind acceptance of an idea. They do this usually because the idea appeals to them in a way.
    In other words, facts and logic don't get in the way of idiots believing in what they want to believe and that can have a positive effect on one's psyche. If you're dumb, you're probably going to be more likely to have romantic thoughts like, "There's a soulmate for everyone!" or "God loves me!" or "These socks are very comfortable!"

    I think a general rule may be more apt, however, and it doesn't necessarily apply to "dumb" people, but rather people of average intelligence. I think the higher the intelligence, the lonelier an individual may get, because fewer people understand them. On the other hand, if you have an average IQ, it's a lot more likely that you're going to share similar feelings, thoughts and attitudes with other people, because your perceptions and understandings of things are going to be more aligned.

    If you're average, you're in good company.
     
    Last edited: Sep 25, 2006
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  5. Tortise Registered Senior Member

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    I might argue that well rounded intelligent people are more likely to have the ability to meet their needs on a consistent basis. Therefore are more likely to be happy then less intelligent people. However I might also argue that luck plays a very significant role in happyness, maybe more so then intelligence. Just being born in this time and place, we are more likely to be happy then someone in pre history ect. But in all honesty, many of the secrets to happyness are passed down from parents to their children "Get a good education!!" sound familiar? Even the smartest PHD may have a miserable life without that diploma. I think there are many ways to look at the question.
     
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  7. redarmy11 Registered Senior Member

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    On the negative side: smart people often think too much, often when action would be the better option.

    On the positive side: smart people are able to think through their problems better than less intelligent people, are apt to be more realistic in their assessments and are more likely to come up with a workable solution. It's not quite that simple, as a degree of common sense is necessary too - and is often an adequate replacement for book-smarts. But, on the whole, the smarter you are, the more adaptable you are, and the better-equipped to deal with life's sudden avalanches.
     
  8. Oniw17 ascetic, sage, diogenes, bum? Valued Senior Member

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    Is Bill Gates happier than some random crackhead? Probably not.
     
  9. imaplanck. Banned Banned

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    I would say intelligence is; to be presented with potentially damaging/rewarding facts and then be able to come up with the best stratagy to negotiate them. This is a great evolutionary advantage.
    Knowing more of what could harm you, or that of which you could miss out on due to this intelligence is not exactly condusive to contentment though.
     
    Last edited: Sep 25, 2006
  10. Chatha big brown was screwed up Registered Senior Member

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    Think about this, wheren't you happier when you were a kid?

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  11. spuriousmonkey Banned Banned

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  12. francois Schwat? Registered Senior Member

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    Maybe they're smarter than adults at picking up languages... but that's about it.
    Do you think you could easily teach a 6 year old how to do calculus?
     
  13. spuriousmonkey Banned Banned

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    Can you easily teach an adult to play with lego?
     
  14. francois Schwat? Registered Senior Member

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    Of course!
    But if IQ tests are any indicator of a person's intelligence (I think it's generally a very good indicator of intelligence) then it would seem children are pretty dumb. And gay.
    I'd say that jump from premise to conclusion is about on par as yours when you say that because children have larger heads in proportion to their bodies than adults, they must be smarter.
    Of course, I realize it's not real science. Your site is more humor than anything. I sometimes have difficulty deciding whether you're being serious or not--like I wonder if you're mocking the thought processes of other people or if you actually think you're being intelligent.
    In any case, I like the cartoons.
     
  15. TimeTraveler Immortalist Registered Senior Member

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    I'd say it's the opposite. If you are very intelligent, why would you let your emotions be the central theme of your life?

    There is more to life than happiness and sadness, if you are happy it's because you found something of value, something to care about, if you are unhappy it's because you likely undervalue what you already have.
     
  16. TimeTraveler Immortalist Registered Senior Member

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    There is no such thing as general intelligence. You can have a 240 IQ and have a 20 emotional IQ, so you can be emotionally a child, but be a technical genius, and yes you could be a scientist wth no common sense, and yes you could be a doctor with no connection to the patient, you could be a physicist with no knowledge or theories of your own, just an ability to memorize the formulas and theories of others.

    The IQ test is mostly memorization based, and it ignores emotional IQ, it ignores creative intelligence, it ignores all the types of intelligence which actually come up with the new brilliant ideas.

    So if there is more than one type of intelligence, either the IQ test needs to be vastly expanded upon, or it's just a biased cultural test which tests only a very small narrowly defined definition of common sense(intelligence).

    If you give an IQ test, in my opinion, the testee should be able to choose the cultural tilt of the test.

    Second, anyone given an IQ test should be tested for all types of intelligence, creative, emotional.

    You want an example, a lot of people claim that Asian's have high IQ's, or do well on the IQ test, but at the same time, most if not all inventions seem to come from America, and American's, and these inventions of the creative talents, require an intelligence. It's one thing to be able to memorize facts, and think, it's another thing to be able to create stuff, have new ideas, and invent.

    Americans, are among the most creative, inventive, artistic, scientific and socially intelligent people on planet earth, but the test only tests academic intelligence (the SATs and standard IQ test).

    All IQ tests therefore are useless as a guide to intelligence, and to think otherwise is as silly as thinking a computerized test can test intelligence, sure the computer can tell you a number and you can choose to give it weight or not, but it's just a number and it does not really matter.

    You can learn how intelligent a person is just by talking to them, and it's more accurate than any IQ test in existance. You can learn how smart a person is based on the questions they ask. You can figure out the depth of their mind, the precision of their thoughts, and also verify their creative energy, in the process of dialog. Anything other than dialog, is useless, but I suppose it does help a persons self esteem if they really believe in these tests just like.

    So, if you want to take tests, go ahead and take a personality test, go ahead and take an intelligence test, go ahead and take an emotion test, and then calculate what your core is on each and see how intelligent you as overall, or just talk to people and find out in the real world.
     
  17. imaplanck. Banned Banned

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    Monkeys are of course dumber than most 6 year olds

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  18. francois Schwat? Registered Senior Member

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    TimeTraveler:
    You're right that there are different kinds of intelligence and that IQ tests don't indicate things like emotional intelligence. However, you are completely wrong when you say there is no such thing as general intelligence.
    When analyzed cognition tests indicate that if a person does very well in one area, then it's likely that he or she will do well in another. This correlation or tendency for a person to do well in many different kinds of cognitive tasks has a name. It's called g, or general intelligence. Look it up. A person's g is very real and very telling. Check it out.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_intelligence
     
  19. TimeTraveler Immortalist Registered Senior Member

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    If there is general intelligence there must also be a general personality right? If so what is the general personality?

    Look, most people arent balanced, and I've never seen anyone who was more intelligent than me in every area, in one area sure, maybe in two, but never in all areas, and thats my point. We have a lot of smart stupid people, and a lot of stupid smart people, and in general most people are just average, smart in some areas and stupid in some areas. Very few are actually just plain stupid in all areas or just plain smart in all areas.

    But ok, prove me wrong. How do you define general intelligence and how do you decide what "general" is and isn't? How do you measure social intelligence or economic intelligence? How do you test how rational a person is?
     
  20. francois Schwat? Registered Senior Member

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    That made zero sense dude. That's a complete non-sequitur. I have no idea what you're talking about. A general personality? Wtf?
    I know. People are intelligent in different ways. We already went over this. It doesn't mean there's no such thing as general intelligence.

    General intelligence has to do with how a person's different cognitive abilities overlap with each other. It is a person's correlation of different kinds of intelligence. If you're very smart in math, you're probably going to be pretty good at language too. Doesn't guarantee it, but overall, they do correlate. That is the idea behind general intelligence. If you want a more definitve definition go here:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_intelligence_factor

    It's right at the very top of the article. Read it.
     
  21. sargentlard Save the whales motherfucker Valued Senior Member

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    Not really true...I should be ecstatic then.
     
  22. TimeTraveler Immortalist Registered Senior Member

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    If you are good at language, it has nothing to do with being good at math, and what type of math? Everything is math, rhyming words is math, do you mean math which applies to written word, such as linguistics and poetry, or do you mean math with numbers?

    I'm skeptical of the general intelligence idea, honestly, I don't think you can calculate general intelligence in a single test. But sure, you have your opinion, and at least a few psychologists agree.
     
  23. francois Schwat? Registered Senior Member

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    Yeah. I have my opinion that's based on mainstream psychology. It's not a few psychologists dude. People who study intelligence simply know this. g has a lot to do with how successful a person is going to be in the world. It has a lot to do with a person's fitness. A person's g is also known to correlate with his or her general developmental stability factor. I don't really have the time to go through this right now, but it means that the more smoothly a person's development, the close his or her general intelligence is going to be to his or her full potential.

    And yes, if you are good at language, it DOES have something to do with how good you are at math. You're ignorant dude... do some reading. Read the wiki link. Challenge your beliefs.
     

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