Smart person: scientists have named 10 signs of intellectuals

Intelligence is considered one of the most respected personality traits. But while recognizing its value, people often do not understand very well what it is. “He is an intellectual,” one might hear about an erudite, knowledgeable person. However, knowledge does not guarantee a high level of intelligence. Erudition, which is associated to a greater extent with memory and breadth of interests, has value, but intelligence belongs to a completely different area - thinking.

Myth one

Intelligence is inherited, and “bad” genes cannot be changed. In fact, a child's intelligence depends on both genes and the environment in which he grows up. This was proven by studies of the intellectual level of identical twins, who, by chance, were separated and raised in different families, in different cultural environments. These twins have the same genotype, but their level of intelligence is different.

It is difficult to determine how intellectually gifted a child is, especially when he is very small, and it is impossible to change the genotype. But it is possible to create a rich environment for the development of all his natural abilities. The importance of the environment is also proven by the following fact: when children whose natural parents were not distinguished by intelligence and abilities were adopted by families that could provide these children with all the conditions for development, the intellectual level of the adopted children increased significantly after communicating with their new intelligent parents.

Our psychologists conducted an interesting experiment. They observed a group of six-year-olds with the same IQ. Some of them stayed for another year in kindergarten, some went to school. A year later, the level of intelligence of those who went to school was higher than the level of intelligence of “kindergarteners.” This is not surprising: the school offers a richer environment for development.

Thinking and intelligence: how they are connected

Thinking needs information, but in itself it is a process of acquiring new knowledge, those that are not in human experience. Thinking deals with the processing of data from our senses and what is stored in memory. Thanks to him, new ideas are born, new things are created, and human civilization itself is nothing more than a product of thinking.

What is intelligence? Any activity, including mental activity, presupposes the presence of abilities. Some have more, some have less. The ability to think is intelligence.

Therefore, erudition and the amount of information we have create conditions for the manifestation of intelligence, because it is with this information that thinking works. But if the level of intelligence is low, then knowledge will be of no use. Even the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus said that “much knowledge does not teach intelligence.” This is the same as giving a person incapable of fine art a high-quality canvas, expensive brushes and paints of various shades. This doesn't make the picture he painted any better.

Myth two

The main thing is to give impetus to the development of intelligence at an early age, then everything will go by itself. Not true. In one study, American psychologists selected young children whose mothers had very low intelligence levels and worked on their mental development and preparation for school. Over the course of several years of training, psychologists managed to significantly increase the intelligence of these babies: some IQs increased by 30 points! When they entered school, they were ahead in development of many of their peers. But when the special classes ended, the children returned to the world of their underdeveloped relatives, began to study in regular schools, their intellectual level gradually decreased and became no higher than the average level of their peers. Americans say about intelligence: “Use it or lose it” - use it, or you will lose it. You need to constantly train your brain.

Structure of intelligence

Like any ability, intelligence is a complex of various personality qualities. Psychologists have not yet come to a consensus on what is included in the structure of intelligence. And the point here is not so much the lack of knowledge of this mental phenomenon, but the fact that intelligence is different. Agree, the mental abilities of a mathematician and a writer differ, not quantitatively, but qualitatively. But we will talk about the types of intelligence and their characteristics in another article.

In order not to get confused in the various manifestations of this ability to think, we identified the concept of general intelligence or primary mental abilities.

The main, general factor (factor G) that determines a person’s level of intelligence is the speed of information processing, including the speed of acquiring new knowledge, comprehending it, establishing connections (associations) with previous experience and long-term retention in memory.

In addition to the general factor, there are several more primary mental abilities that form the basis of intelligence:

• Verbal abilities, which determine the understanding of speech and the use of words both to convey information and in the process of thinking.
• Memory, including the amount of information stored, how quickly it is remembered, and how long it is stored.
• The ability to orientate in space, the ratio of volume, size and shape of objects.
• The ability to perform mental operations: analysis, comparison, synthesis, create complex mental structures and draw conclusions.
• Ability to operate with numbers within the framework of elementary arithmetic operations.

These are the most basic, elementary factors that determine the level of intelligence. In fact, there are much more of them. For example, one of the famous intelligence researchers, J. Guilford, identified 120 primary mental abilities, the development of which can provide a person with a high level of intelligence.

Myth three

Only communication with adults develops a child. This statement is true for babies. Yes, a child learns to speak and think by communicating with adults. His parents explain to him the meaning of new words, teach him new expressions, and correct him when he pronounces something incorrectly. And babies, left to their own devices, twins, the same age, whom their parents leave for a long time in each other’s company, begin to lag behind their peers in mental development. But later, during school years, communication with peers is just as necessary as communication with adults. During the presidency of John Kennedy in the United States, a situation arose that scientists did not fail to take advantage of. Kennedy decided to merge schools for black and white children. Before this, the children of white and black Americans studied separately. The white parents of the state of Georgia - descendants of South American planters - were categorically against such an innovation. They stopped sending their children to school, and the schools closed for two years. The children, and they were mostly from quite prosperous, wealthy families, studied with hired teachers at home. When the conflict was settled two years later and the children returned to school, it turned out that their IQ (in the USA the level of intelligence of schoolchildren is constantly measured) was significantly lower than the IQ of children from other states who did not interrupt their studies at school and continued to communicate with their peers. And this backlog was eliminated only after 4 years.

Recommendations for increasing the coefficient

5 practical tips for training your brain activity and increasing your IQ that you can use every day:

1. Challenge your brain, solve math problems, learn foreign languages, learn to play a musical instrument.
2. Talk to educated people. By having a conversation and understanding the way smart people think, you will benefit for yourself.
3. Play computer games that require strategy development and train your reactions.
4. Read books, it develops vocabulary and erudition.
5. Play sports, lead a healthy lifestyle.

Myth four

To get a smart child, you need to develop his logical thinking. Employees of the Department of Psychogenetics, Faculty of Psychology, Moscow State University, conducted long-term observation of the development of intelligence of a group of people from 6 years of age to 24 years. And we saw that the level of logical thinking was higher among those teenagers and young people who, at the age of 6, were distinguished by rich visual and figurative thinking.

So don’t rush to solve logic problems with preschoolers. Children need to develop fantasy, imagination, imaginative thinking, write more, draw, and play with them. Play is a very important stage in a child’s development. Our famous psychologist, researcher of the world of childhood D. B. Elkonin said: if a child does not play enough in preschool age, this will affect his further development.

Types

Until now, there is no unified classification of intelligence. Only one scientist, Howard Gardner, put forward the theory of 8 varieties:

1. Spatial, most developed among drivers and designers. Characterizes the ability to navigate the terrain. If you are having difficulty building a route, this is what you need to develop. This can be done by solving problems with finding a way out, painting and sculpting, and tracking the movement of objects.
2. Kinesthetic, responsible for the ability to use one’s own body, dexterity, and coordination. Those who have it developed dance and work well. Sports, yoga, and physical activity will help in its development.
3. Musical, gives its owners a sense of rhythm, hearing and understanding. The more a person immerses himself in music, dancing, listening, singing, the more he will improve this type of intelligence.
4. Linguistic, responsible for written and oral speech, develops when studying foreign languages, reading, communicating with people.
5. Logical, allows you to feel like a fish in water among symbols, signs and diagrams. Will be an excellent companion for a scientist and inventor. To improve logic, you need to solve problems, puzzles and puzzles, and build chains.
6. Interpersonal, also known as social, is close to empathy. This is the ability to feel and understand people, ease in building relationships, sociability and communication. It is important for creating a family and forming friendships. He is trained at seminars, trainings, and group games.
7. Emotional is needed to understand yourself, to live in harmony with your inner world. It is especially difficult to develop, therefore it requires the use of spiritual practices: meditation, purification, reflection.
8. Naturalistic is associated with worldview, natural phenomena, and physical laws.

Any type of intelligence in psychology is based on the development of personality traits and determines its individuality.

Myth fifth

People of different nations differ in intelligence. In the United States, the intelligence of representatives of the white and black races was constantly studied and compared. And it used to always turn out that whites had an average IQ of about 15 points higher. From this they concluded that blacks are a genetically defective race. But more recent research has shown that the cause of differences in IQ levels is not genes, but environment. And 15 points is a typical difference in the level of intelligence of privileged segments of the population and groups with limited rights, regardless of nationality. When the level of intelligence of representatives of black and white groups, equal in position in society, education, income, the number of children in the family, and the spiritual values ​​of their parents, was determined, it turned out that they had the same IQ.

And in Germany, the intelligence of children from mixed marriages and children of ethnic Germans was compared. And also there were no differences in single social groups.

Levels

Levels:

1. Stimulating and productive. The mental activity of an individual depends on the manifestations of external factors. At this level, intellectual activity is limited to the path initially found or set by someone. A person can solve problems, but they are not connected.
2. Heuristic level. Spontaneous cognitive activity, with the help of which various patterns are discovered. At this level, a person can create a single picture from disparate problems and phenomena, find commonality in them in order to identify unknown patterns.
3. Creative. This is the highest level of intellectual activity. Finding connections in different phenomena becomes a big problem that requires deep analysis to establish the essence of things.

Interesting

Mormon experience. The intellectual level of children from large families also greatly depends on the education and social status of their parents. In educated families where children are taught, the level of intelligence in the first four is no lower than that of their peers from single-child and small-child families. And only the fifth could be worse. Apparently, our parents no longer have enough strength for the fifth. In large families where the parents themselves do not shine with either intelligence or education, a decline in intelligence is already observed in the second child, not to mention all subsequent ones.

However, in large families of Mormons and Quakers, who traditionally are very involved with their children, the intelligence of their heirs does not decrease, regardless of what age they were born.

Basic function of intelligence

Why is intelligence so valuable? Why is it important for people to have a high level of mental ability? Successful, productive thinking gives a person a lot:

• opens the way for self-realization and manifestation of abilities;
• serves as a necessary condition for achieving success;
• guarantees rapid acquisition of new knowledge and skills;
• allows you to earn respect and high social status.

All this is true, but secondary. Intelligence is a product of evolutionary development, which means that in the past (and often now) it provided a person with the opportunity to survive and leave offspring, that is, to continue his family. It is not the strongest and fastest that survive, but the smartest, most intellectually developed individuals. This, by the way, applies not only to humans, but also to animals.

Therefore, the main function of intelligence is adaptation. And intelligence is often defined as a person’s ability to adapt to the environment as quickly and effectively as possible. Depending on the manifestation of the adaptation function, 3 levels of intellectual activity are distinguished.

• Short. People on it with weak mental abilities are not able to resist the influence of the environment, and it suppresses them. They exist at the expense of the social environment, if it agrees to take care of them.
• Average level. This includes people with good thinking abilities and a level of mental activity sufficient for adaptation. They can find their place in the world according to their abilities and needs.
• The highest level is the level of creativity, when a person does not adapt to his environment, but changes it, adapting it to his own needs.

Most people are at the average level, and that's not bad at all. Society does not need a large number of creative people who strive to radically change the world in accordance with their interests.

The influence of society on IQ

An important issue to study is the relationship between a person’s social status and activity and his intellectual potential. Can society influence this indicator and is there a relationship between different social groups and their mental indicators?

The Relationship Between Intelligence and Academic Achievement

A certain relationship between the good performance of students and their IQ was noticed even in the early stages of developing these tests. However, a much more important question is the relationship, in other words, is this relationship one-way or do both factors have the same influence on each other? Can we assume that good performance in school will be the key to a high IQ upon graduation?

In search of an answer to this question, many observations and tests were made, which equally showed that a student’s IQ level directly affects his ability to quickly learn material, and as a result, this plays a key role in academic performance. However, the opposite effect is not observed, that is, a diligent student who devotes a lot of time to “memorizing” the material does not thus increase his intellectual potential.

Do you need a high IQ to do a good job?

The influence of intelligence on employment is another issue of concern to society, especially recently, when interest in this indicator has increased manifold. This formulation also refers to a person's potential well-being and the impact of IQ on financial income.

A scientific experiment also helps in this matter, which shows the significant influence of intellectual potential in professions that require analytical processing of information; this indicator is also very important for middle and senior managers. High mental activity allows you to better optimize the management process and systematize data. Thanks to the results obtained, managers of many companies have introduced an IQ test into the mandatory list during job interviews. Among representatives of this range of professions, it was those with a high IQ who showed high efficiency in their work, which directly affected their income.

Another category of specialties, which involves a person’s physical skills, such as strength, dexterity, and certain skills, did not show any dependence on the intellectual age coefficient, which proves the insignificant importance of such a test when choosing workers. In this direction, this indicator did not play any role on the productivity and financial income of workers.

Does IQ affect crime?

It was hypothesized that people with low intelligence scores most often break the law, since it is difficult for them to find a method of self-realization in life, and they do not fully understand the impact of their actions on their own lives and those around them.

However, the research revealed that the effect of IQ on crime was only 4%, which can be regarded as an error due to incomplete information about the associated factors. Thus, one can see that people with different levels of intelligence become criminals and there is no innate predisposition in their choice.

Honesty and decency are also inherent in completely different categories of people, both in terms of social indicators and intellectual potential.

Innate mental abilities

Many scientists agree that genetic inheritance definitely has a significant impact on a child's subsequent development and intellectual abilities. In this direction, since the nineties, a lot of research began to be carried out, dividing and analyzing different groups of subjects by age, hereditary factors, upbringing conditions and other indicators. Will mental simulators if he has bad heredity and does not have the prerequisites for effective intellectual activity?

Direct influence of heredity

To study this issue, indicators obtained from children both from ordinary families and foster families, where the child has dysfunctional biological parents, were considered. Various tests over different periods of time showed a heritability dependence of 40 to 80%. Which is a very significant indicator, provided that it was genetic inheritance that influenced the IQ, and not psychological reasons related to the understanding of the inferiority of one’s position in the family or society.

According to individual observations, the majority of adopted children whose biological parents had problems with the law are subsequently more prone to crime. However, there is no sufficiently objective method to prove that the matter is precisely in the genetic information transmitted from biological parents, and with a high degree of reliability one can only state the fact of statistics. The reasons for this phenomenon can be not only genetic factors, but also problems with one’s own positioning, both in the social environment and in a new family, a feeling of one’s own loss and deep resentment towards biological parents or a feeling of unreasonable one’s own guilt for what happened.

Isolation of individual genes of mental development

Previous claims about the influence of heredity on IQ have led scientists to search for a single gene or a combination of genes that could directly indicate a high IQ. However, years spent searching and deciphering genetic information have not yielded tangible results and at the moment it is still not possible to track intellectual potential using a genetic test.

Such data may indicate a false attribution of such importance to genetics in the further development of a child; however, despite such indicators, many scientists still adhere to the theory of the heredity of outstanding intellectual abilities.

Living conditions and upbringing

How much does the so-called “habitat” affect a child’s IQ Having studied this issue, a group of scientists found a dependence within 10% of the infant’s nutritional and living conditions. Thus, the consumption of fish products by a nursing mother and breastfeeding of the child in general give him an advantage over his peers, and his brain activity has a potential slightly above average in this group. However, by adulthood, this difference is leveled out and by this period, what matters is how a person dealt with his own development, and not what socio-economic conditions he lived in as a child.