Why being smart probably means you have fewer friends

Having fewer friends might not be such a bad thing after all.

In fact, a new study by Norman Li and Satoshi Kanazawa for the British Journal of Psychology found that the more intelligent a person, the less likely they are to be satisfied with socialising.

The study, which took place over a number of years and looked at a wide variety of adults from the ages of 18 and 28 found that, in general, people who socialised the most were the happiest.

The only exception were those with high intelligence, who did not tend to find the same level of enjoyment from it.

Why?

The study explains:

More intelligent individuals experience lower life satisfaction with more frequent socialization with friends. This study highlights the utility of incorporating evolutionary perspectives in the study of subjective well-being.

The main reason for this is the theory that intelligent people tend to focus more on long-term projects, and socialising distracts from that.

An evolutionary explanation argues that the human race have moved beyond a hunter-gatherer species, and less socialising actually helps clever people better adapt to life.

HT Spring

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