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Scientists Say Smart People Are Better Off With Fewer Friends
HughPickens.com writes: Christopher Ingraham writes in the Washington Post that a new study finds that when smart people spend more time with their friends, it makes them less happy. "The findings in here suggest (and it is no surprise) that those with more intelligence and the capacity to use it ... are less likely to spend so much time socializing because they are focused on some other longer term objective," says Carol Graham, a Brookings Institution researcher who studies the economics of happiness. According to Graham you should think of the really smart people you know. They may include a doctor trying to cure cancer or a writer working on the great American novel or a human rights lawyer working to protect the most vulnerable people in society. To the extent that frequent social interaction detracts from the pursuit of these goals, it may negatively affect their overall satisfaction with life. (More, below.)
Hugh Pickens continues: Kanazawa and Li's theory of happiness starts with the premise that the human brain evolved to meet the demands of our ancestral environment on the African savanna, where the population density was akin to what you'd find today in, say, rural Alaska (less than one person per square kilometer). Take a brain evolved for that environment, plop it into today's Manhattan (population density: 27,685 people per square kilometer), and you can see how you'd get some evolutionary friction. "Our ancestors lived as hunter–gatherers in small bands of about 150 individuals," Kanazawa and Li explain. "In such settings, having frequent contact with lifelong friends and allies was likely necessary for survival and reproduction for both sexes." If you're smarter and more able to adapt to things, you may have an easier time reconciling your evolutionary predispositions with the modern world. Accordingly smarter people may be better-equipped to jettison that whole hunter-gatherer social network — especially if they're pursuing some loftier ambition. "Whatever the explanation might prove to be, this obviously doesn't mean smart people don't like having friends," says Emma Cueto. "But it does probably mean that they don't enjoy having too many — after all, keeping track of lots of people does usually involve, you know, talking to them. So if you're naturally more of a loner, congratulations! It might be a sign of intelligence."
It seems to me (as a confessed introvert) that the dominant culture in the USA - and hence one of the most popular cultures in most of the developed world - is strongly extravert. To stereotype mercilessly, most Americans are seen as energetic, conscientious, achievement-oriented team workers. This is especially so in corporate and government environments, for fairly obvious reasons. Since all human strengths have (indeed, are) complementary weaknesses, this entails being somewhat superficial, outer-directed, over-sensitive to consensus, and averse to solitary thought or study. One consequence is that introverts often find themselves feeling excluded, undervalued, or even (in extreme cases) considered as suffering from mental illness.
That's unfortunate, not only begans introverts have just as much right to live their own lives in the way they prefer as extraverts, but also because a lot of progress depends on introverts. Not to say that extraverts can't accomplish a huge amount too - but often the really big breakthroughs, which require focused attention for many months or years on end, have been made by introverts. It would be great if we could ever adjust our social perceptions to accept the whole spectrum of introversion/extraversion.
For a good introduction, anyone unfamiliar with the topic should try http://www.ted.com/talks/susan...
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
The study was done by Satoshi Kanazawa, so take it with a grain of salt:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
"...his critics claim that what he does is 'bad science'[3] and 'racist.'[4]"
"In response to ongoing controversy over views such as that African countries suffer chronic poverty and illness because their people have lower IQs and that black women are objectively less attractive than other races, he was dismissed from writing for Psychology Today. His employer – the London School of Economics – prohibited him from publishing in non-peer-reviewed outlets for 12 months, and a group of 68 evolutionary psychologists issued an open letter titled 'Kanazawa's bad science does not represent evolutionary psychology', and an article was published by 35 on the same theme."
Study is 18-28 year olds with self reported levels of happiness.
It sounds like this article is mixing up “smart people” with “introverts.” What about the really smart extraverts? Richard Feynman was very extraverted, he had lots of friends, hung around with them a lot, and was very successful.
Introverts can act in a not-introverted manner. Feynman's bongo obsession should be enough to confirm him as an introverted autist that got placed in a lot of social situations. From the FBI files on Feynman:
...the appointee's wife was granted a divorce from him because of appointee's constantly working calculus problems in his head as soon as awake, while driving car, sitting in living room, and so forth, and that his one hobby was playing his African drums. His ex-wife reportedly testified that on several occasions when she unwittingly disturbed either his calculus or his drums he flew into a violent rage, during which time he attacked her, threw pieces of bric-a-brac about and smashed the furniture.