Being Lazy Is a Sign of High Intelligence, Study Suggests (independent.co.uk)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Independent: Findings from a U.S.-based study seem to support the idea that people with a high IQ get bored less easily, leading them to spend more time engaged in thought. And active people may be more physical as they need to stimulate their minds with external activities, either to escape their thoughts or because they get bored quickly. Researchers from the Florida Gulf Coast University gave a classic test -- dating back three decades -- to a group of students. The 'need for cognition' questionnaire asked participants to rate how strongly they agree with statements such as "I really enjoy a task that involves coming up with new solutions to problems," and "I only think as hard as I have to." The researchers, led by Todd McElroy, then selected 30 'thinkers' and 30 'non-thinkers' from the pool of candidates. Over the next seven days both groups wore a device on their wrist which tracked their movements and activity levels, providing a constant stream of data on how physically active they were. Results showed the thinking group were far less active during the week than the non-thinkers. "Ultimately, an important factor that may help more thoughtful individuals combat their lower average activity levels is awareness," said McElroy, according to The British Psychological Society. "Awareness of their tendency to be less active, coupled with an awareness of the cost associated with inactivity, more thoughtful people may then choose to become more active throughout the day."

Comments

was going to post earlier

[Anonymous Coward]

but did'n feel like doing it

As Calvin once said

[Anonymous Coward]

As Calvin once said, "You know how Einstein got bad grades as a kid? Well mine are even worse!"

obvious conclusion

[KiloByte]

"Being lazy is a sign of high intelligence" -- I knew it, this means I must be an underappreciated super-genius!

Yay!

[MouseR]

That's actually a very

Re:I can buy that

[bain_online]

I just hire bright people to write my scripts :p

Re:I can buy that

[Zontar The Mindless]

And all I have a copy of this on our team server's home page, darn.

xkcd is funny but does not always present reality

[aepervius]

Think about it, our modern world mostly exists because of the huge automation processes going on.

I concur with the GP, if a problem is being repeated, then I seek solution on how to automate it. Over the year i automated a lot of stuff from testing, to revenue accounting. I also learned to always foresee additional cost equal to the initial development, over the next ten year, as debugging or maintenance, and when somebody ask me to automate stuff I ask them to sign it off with the knowledge and understanding of that maintenance cost.

Re:OR (exclusive)

[arglebargle_xiv]

My brother-in-law must be a freaking genius then, he's the only person I've ever met who has moss growing on one side.

How lazy was the grad student who came up with it.

[SeattleLawGuy]

You can really imagine the conversation that led to this research question.

"So you're too lazy to come up with a research topic?"

"Yes."

"That's not very smart."

"... I beg to differ."

Re:It isn't laziness

[Anonymous Coward]

Any sufficiently advanced laziness is indistinguishable from efficiency.