Intelligence: Is it over rated?? How would I know.

This post is way way way too long. Sorry.

There was a great episode of House on last night. I'll try not to spoil anything important here just in case some of you are going to watch it on Hulu later.

Dr. House's patient was a former genius (for some reason he is no longer as smart in the hospital) who was making the argument that life is better when he's not so smart, and that he's much happier stupid. He claimed it was nice to not have so much on his mind all the time.
When the man starts to get smarter again, he looks at Dr. House, who is also somewhat of a genius, and says something like, "It's hard isn't it? It's kind of lonely." Dr. House replied, "It's not that hard." And the patient said, "Then you're not that smart."

So the first question is, are intelligence and happiness mutually exclusive? In other words, if you get smarter and smarter, is it harder (or to be accurate, impossible) to be as happy?
I don't think they are completely linked. But it's possible that if you get to a certain intelligence level it would be hard not to think everyone was slow and stupid. It would be like driving on a 55MPH highway when everyone else was driving 20 mph. Yeah, you can pretend it wouldn't upset you.
So maybe if you add patience and kindness into the equation, then you can be happy and freaking smart at the same time. Good thing that's oh so easy to do.

Then, the second question is whether or not you'd trade some of your smarts in for more happiness. If you had to drop your IQ by a substantial amount, say 20 percentile points (so if you were smarter than 60% of people, you'd now be smarter than only 40%), but it would make your average daily happiness 20% higher, would you do it?

I used to use surveys to meet cute girls, and then use the results on my marketing assignments. One time, I did an unscientific survey that read like this:

"Would you take an IQ increase of 30 points (that's a TON), if it meant your average lifetime weight would be 50 lbs higher?"
Of the girls I surveyed, the vast majority of them said no. The most common reasoning was "I'm already smart enough." Yeah, right.
Just for information, the men surveyed overwhelmingly said yes.

I find this information to be extremely interesting. Like I said, it was completely unscientific, because I only asked thin and attractive girls, and my sample size was rather small (around 40 girls).
Look at it from the opposite point of view. I'm 50 pounds overweight, and there's no way I would trade 30 IQ points in to be 50 lbs lighter. But I don't have that much to spare. Maybe if I had a genius IQ I would be more willing to give some of it up.

I assume that most people would probably choose to be smart, and a little less happy. And I think most women, at least, would give up an intelligence bonus in order to stay thin and beautiful. So does that mean that our priorities as a society go in this order: Beauty first, Intelligence Second, Happiness third.
I assume most smart and beautiful people would say they are happier because they are smart and beautiful, but I think happiness is more independent than that.

STOP READING HERE IF YOU ARE IN A HURRY.


One time I got kicked out of class for being a jackass. There was a period of my life where girls didn't like me (well, that's more than a period of my life) and I didn't have a lot of friends, and my hormones were being screwed up by Acutane (magical anti-acne pills). I was trying to learn how to be funny, and it made me less nice.
So I was in Mrs. Oberhansly's 11th Grade English class. (Bless her heart) We were watching a movie about how kids with various levels of intelligence should be in classes together, rather than separating people by intelligence or aptitude. When the teacher paused the movie to give commentary I raised my hand and said, "Professor, aren't we in an honors english class?" She was mad, but not mad enough to kick me out yet.
The movie continued with a psychologist suggesting that everyone is smart in some way. The psychologist said, "The question isn't 'are you smart?' The question is 'how are you smart?'"
I muttered under my breath (not quiet enough) It's not "are you stupid?" it's "how are you so stupid?"
"GET OUT NOW!!!"
So I went outside. Not to the principal...oh no. She didn't tell me where to go, so I just sat outside. But I forgot to get my book inside, so I had to wait and go back in for it. Awkward. I was a decent student in the easiest highschool in the world, and so I had a 3.8 at the time, but I got a C- in her class.

I don't know why I felt the need to respond to this film with sarcasm, but I did. I guess I just rejected the idea that alternate forms of intelligence, like working with your hands, or "street smarts", should have any bearing on who gets to be in what classes. At the time, I felt like that was choosing people for the basketball team based on their ability to play tennis, or snow ski. Although those skills are admirable, they aren't sufficiently related to base so much on.

However, I do feel like that movie makes a great point. The education system only really rewards a few different kinds of intelligence, and overlooks the others. Is there a solution to this? Probably not a practical one. And unfortunately, many employers hire based on academic achievement thereby not fully considering the other types of intelligence.
So what are the different forms of intelligence? There are probably thousands of subcategories. And I'm not even talking about talents. I don't think the ability to crochet is broad enough to be considered a form of intelligence.

I want to focus on the more broad forms. I looked all over the internet and found basically the same 9 types of intelligence. For more information click here

The 9 types are:
Naturalist
Musical
Logical
Existential
Interpersonal (people smart)
Bodily (hands on)
Intrapersonal (self smart)
Spatial (picture smart)

I did a quick search in many of these sources and I never found the word memory. So I'm going to reject these 9 types and go with my own. I'm not saying mine are better, but my list just includes what I want to focus on.

John's suggested types of intelligence:

1: Reading Comprehension
2: Ability to memorize
3: Ability to retain information
4: Analytical, logical abilities
5: Focus
6: Charisma (ability to impress, and lead)
7: Street Smarts (Including the ability to figure stuff out on your own, or by watching)
8: Hands on smarts
9: Athletic Ability (Yes I think this is intelligence. Your brain controls your body.)
10: Empathy
11: Ability to Communicate
12: Ability to be a visionary (i.e., Steve Jobs)

I'm sure I left some things off.

So going back to that video in 11th grade. . . Is everyone smart in some area? What if you limit it to my 12. Let's define smart as "in the top 25% of the population (for your age) in that category."

I've got no shot at 1,2,3, or 5. I'd say I'm clearly in the bottom quarter of 3 and 5.
6,7,8, 9 and 12 are almost certainly no-goes as well for me.
So it's possible I'd make it in for 4, 10, and 11, but those are toss-ups.

Now I really don't want to be arrogant. I don't think I'm naturally that special at all. But I'm a graduate student, I went to good schools, I have loving and involved parents, and I've made it through life with out too many major problems. And I STILL only have a shot at 3 out of 12.
Statistically, (if there were an even distribution-- but there's not) most or all people would be in the top 25% of 4 of the 12 categories.

So what do you think. Do you think that every mentally-healthy person on earth is "smart" in one of the 12 categories? If so, then the question should be "how are you smart?" As a result, it would make sense for people to identify their strengths and weaknesses early on.

So here are my questions for you:
1: Do you think the more intelligent you get the harder it is to be happy?
If so, then what kinds of intelligence are most likely to make you unhappy? I am pretty good at looking at systems and finding problems, and then fixing those problems. That makes me unhappy every time I go to a business.

2: Would you sacrifice 20 percentile points in each type of intelligence in order to be 20% happier?
I wouldn't, but that answer makes me feel stupid . . .

3: Would you take an intelligence bonus in each category of 20% if it meant your average lifetime weight had to be 50 lbs heavier?
This is hard for me, because I'm already fat. However, I'd say Yes.

4: Are all mentally-healthy people smart (top 25%) in at least one of the 12 categories?

5: Which types of intelligence would you most like to be "smart" in? If you could choose three types, what would they be?
I'd love to have me some memory smarts, and that visionary thing could make me some big money.