Smart People Defy Usual Correlations When it Comes to Happiness

[Maddy]

First, they find that people who live in more densely populated areas tend to report less satisfaction with their life overall. "The higher the population density of the immediate environment, the less happy" the survey respondents said they were. Second, they find that the more social interactions with close friends a person has, the greater their self-reported happiness. . . .

But there was one big exception. For more intelligent people, these correlations were diminished or even reversed.

"The effect of population density on life satisfaction was therefore more than twice as large for low-IQ individuals than for high-IQ individuals," they found. And "more intelligent individuals were actually less satisfied with life if they socialized with their friends more frequently."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/won ... r-friends/

[Maddy]

One possible explanation that this article does not address is that the recent proliferation of high-tech companies, and the concentration of high-IQ people in IT centers, has created new opportunities for the coupling-up of individuals who fall to the far right on the Asperger's spectrum.  I'd surmise that we're witnessing some significant inbreeding and the selection of emotional/social traits that are a little quirky.

[Libertarian666]

This is easily explained by the fact that high IQ and high introversion are strongly correlated.

ETA: I can't find a definitive reference on the web, but https://teacher.ocps.net/deirdre.kelly/ ... overts.htm mentions this.

[l82start]

i have no data to corroborate it, but i like to think its because smart people know the value of silence and cherish the ability to string several thoughts together uninterrupted and at a time they choose to think them...    they are not tormented by the inner workings of their own mind and have no need to drowned them out with loud music, inane gibberish on TV, or the incessant and meaningless chatter of random acquaintances,   

[Tyler]

This is easily explained by the fact that high IQ and high introversion are strongly correlated.

+1  Focusing on intelligence is fixating on correlation but not causation.  Personality is the real factor here. 

[WildAboutHarry]

[quote=Libertarian666]This is easily explained by the fact that high IQ and high introversion are strongly correlated.[/quote]

In one of my early report cards (1st grade I think), the teacher commented "Plays well with self".  So I got that going for me (ignoring myriad other interpretations of the teachers comment). 

[rutabaga]

It reminds me of a George Carlin quip: " If a man speaks in the forest and there is no woman to hear him, is he still wrong?"