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Intelligent People More At Risk of Mental Illness, Study Finds (independent.co.uk)
schwit1 shares a report from The Independent: The stereotype of a tortured genius may have a basis in reality after a new study found that people with higher IQs are more at risk of developing mental illness. A team of U.S. researchers surveyed 3,715 members of American Mensa with an IQ higher than 130. An "average IQ score" or "normal IQ score" can be defined as a score between 85 and 115. The team asked the Mensa members to report whether they had been diagnoses with mental illnesses, including autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). They were also asked to report mood and anxiety disorders, or whether the suspected they suffered from any mental illnesses that had yet to be diagnosed, as well as physiological diseases, like food allergies and asthma. After comparing this with the statistical national average for each illness they found that those in the Mensa community had considerably higher rates of varying disorders. While 10 per cent of the general population were diagnosed with anxiety disorder, that rose to 20 percent among the Mensa community, according to the study which published in the Science Direct journal.
No wonder people keep saying I'm crazy.
"However, the study pointed out that a high IQ was not the cause of mental illness, but it could be correlated with the highly intelligent community."
Or a high IQ could be correlated with better jobs and better health benefits, therefore leading to more diagnoses of mental illness.
Or mental health professionals could have more difficulty identifying mental illnesses in those with lower IQ.
Or.
Or.
Where are the controls? I realize that relying on subject-reported data in studies is necessary in some cases, but I believe they could've done better than this.
This is easy, lots of people are too stupid to realise they have problems.
Doesn't mean they don't have problems. Smarter people are better at diagnosis.
It is probably true. OTOH maybe the mentally ill are more likely to join Mensa.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
People with mental illness more likely to be intelligent?
I envy those people I know who are capable of insanity and irrationality.
So far my brain just won't break.
But alzheimers or dementia are probably in my late 70s.
It's a problem because the rational person sees a lot of the bad in the world and can't really alleviate their own suffering other than by taking mind altering substances or temporarily distracting activities.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Correlation is not causation. An obvious explanation is that intelligent people have higher incomes, and can afford to better medical care, which leads to more mental health diagnoses.
Maybe people with mental disorders are more likely to join Mensa.
Members of MENSA more likely to have access to health care, including psychiatric kind.
Film at... umm... whenever. Just stream the goddamn thing.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
It seems like a flawed study in a number of ways, but it is nonetheless a believable situation.
I know a few people, co-workers and friends, who I consider brilliant. To a person they are more bothered by the disparity between how the world could be if people made better choices, and how it actually is. It is difficult for them to see a society which does not value education and understanding, where a pop celeb is held in high esteem by millions and listened to when they spout pseudoscientific babble, while scientists with real expertise are ignored.
I think the smarter you are, the more you end up disappointed by the human animal. They hide it, but it shows.
I know, I know -- I read it. I'm sorry.
Their research was based on model that suggests intelligent people with "hyper brains" are more reactive to environmental stimulus and that “may predispose them to certain psychological disorders as well as physiological conditions involving elevated sensory and altered immune and inflammatory responses".
Their study seemed to confirm this, as it suggested that because of their increased awareness levels, those with higher IQs react more to their environment. This creates a hyper brain/hyper body scenario, where they display a hyperactive central nervous system.
So highly intelligent people focus more on the shit going on around them and melt down over it. The more oblivious percentiles brush it off (if they even noticed it at all) and move on with their lives. That seems about right.
It certainly goes a long ways in explaining the comment section around here.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Don't worry about your children, modern christian teaching methods can handle all their little problems.
Imagine if you will: a world in which the other inhabitants are mere monkeys, like Planet of the Apes.
Now contrast with reality, for a man like Chris Langan:
Now think to yourself: you live in a world run by damned dirty apes, where success and means are virtually decoupled from intellectual ability, where in effect the animals have it better than the sentient creatures of the world. Would you hoot and holler and fling shit like the apes to be king of monkeyworld, or would you aim to withdraw and try not to get beaten with rocks for being different? In fact, you might even come off as a paranoid and depressed reclusive douche.
But good news! You don't have to take this post as a tautological proof of itself: you can move to Congo right the fuck now and try to become the king of a tribe of silverback gorillas, I bet you'd be just like Tarzan, wouldn't that be grand? Go on, give it a shot.
A complex intricate machine is more delicate and more prone to breaking down than a rock.
And are apt to be overclocked.
The sample populations here are terrible, but I can accept the overall proposition as plausible.
My theory would mostly center around the idea that higher intelligence is associated with a diminished ability to accept falsifiable or non-provable platitudes, optimism and superstitious thinking. This leads to a deficit of coping mechanisms for the difficulties of every day life and hardships, resulting increased stress, pessimism and negative thoughts and ideation. You might even oversimplify it as a lack of hope in some ways.
Less intelligent people may find superstitions (including but not just religious belief) easier to accept, especially if provided by authority figures. They're more likely to believe in optimistic future outcomes, including improbable ones, not out of gullibility but because they lack the understanding of why they are unlikely -- it's a "I can win the lottery" mindset. This provides a wealth of coping mechanisms for dealing with ordinary setbacks and problems, reducing stress and anxiety. Jesus won't _really_ set you free, but if you're dumb enough to believe it, he will actually set you free.
All this being said, it's probably just as easy to believe that people with an interest in joining an exclusive high IQ group are also people with a low sense of self esteem who are prone to depression. Belonging to a group that's not only exclusive but also exclusively for high intelligence people provides them with a sense of validation and superiority, but for many it's not enough and they wind up depressed and anxious anyway.
But I guess all of it could be true to some extent.
The same types of people that sign up for Mensa may feel that it is a badge of honor to identify as being on the autism spectrum.
That feel when to intelligent too remain sane.
When people are smart, they are able to see and understand things around them that many people do not understand or aware of. I have been writing about the instability in America and the world. I expect many people who read Slashdot can understand the the issue of instability. This is just one issue that is facing the world today. But many people are not aware of these issues so they are ignorant and not depressed.
The stereotype of a tortured genius may have a basis in reality after a new study found that people with higher IQs are more at risk of developing mental illness. A team of U.S. researchers surveyed 3,715 members of American Mensa with an IQ higher than 130. An "average IQ score" or "normal IQ score" can be defined as a score between 85 and 115.
Another interpretation of the data is that people who join American Mensa have a higher probability of having a mental illness. There's even a very plausible mechanism for this, people with a mental illness often look for ways to treat that illness, joining a group of people they can potentially relate to (ie Mensa) is one way to deal with their illness.
I stole this Sig
Illness, or a label put on healthy dissenting thought?
All of those intelligent people seeing inconsistencies and contradictions in society probably struggle to justify these things and this causes stress.
It's to the point that any stress is able to be diagnosed as a mental illness and a psychiatric drug can be prescribed. It's not even subtle. The medical industry is drugging and brainwashing people. Even children, as if public schooling wasn't enough.
The healthy reaction to this society whose only values are conformity and materialism is armed rebellion. Hard to organize when your instincts are suppressed with drugs. Hard to rebel when nonconformity is labelled by many as "mental illness" with no rational basis.
The human spirit is in its death throes. They establishment is struggling to find ways to sedate it until the killing blow can be delivered.
But that doesn't align with my hopes and dreams! I wish I hadn't lived to see such times! I just come here to feel good!
Then call me 'mentally ill' and wait for your obsolescence in the eyes of the so-called elite. It's coming soon. Or accept your fate and resist your destruction, maybe we can succeed. There is hope yet!
Is the author implying that they can't be as crazy as men?
Or that they are not "smart" enough to be crazy?
E"mail" the author and demand answers!
USB, USB, USB!
A logical person might conclude people who join MENSA are perhaps a little too impressed with themselves, perhaps even to the point of being narcissistic.
So one could argue that such people might well be less stable than people with a 130+ IQ who feel no need to constantly reassure themselves about their putative intellectual superiority.
I am a model of psychological balance, yet I could join MENSA if I wanted to. I have never felt the need.
Besides, our Chairthing said I'd have to give up my seat on the Galactic Council of Woke Beings if I debased myself so blatantly.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Nature tries really hard to produce "average" people. That's why we have a think called the "normal curve"--the majority of people are within the "average" intelligence range, and are "average" in most ways. Only a very few are exceptionally beautiful, or smart, or strong, or whatever other superlative quality might be desirable.
Most extremely talented people I know are somewhat out of balance. Extremely gifted artists tend to struggle with logic, and brilliant scientists tend to struggle with social relationships. These gifted people are blessed--or cursed--with a kind of imbalance that gives them their gift, and also gives them struggles in other areas.
I'd guess that this phenomenon is linked, that when more of a person's brain is devoted to a "gift," it takes away from other areas considered "normal."
It's not at all surprising to me that gifted people might suffer more often from mental illnesses.
Read a History book ... any subject ... and figure that one out pretty quickly.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... Back when "super science" SF reigned, and Hubbard was taking notes, lol. The wikipedia article doesn't go much into the mechanics of it, but in the book controlling the central nervous system was part of the protagonists method of prevailing.
Many intelligent people do not feel they need to join any specific organization to mark that fact. Perhaps those who do are more likely to have emotional or mental issues?
Any such study that does not start with a large and unbiased cohort before they even got their IQ tested is close to worthless.
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZ9EWcaS7II
(Which the band Oasis ripped off with their song Whatever: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ly-3jIrlkYQ)
Asking any group of people to self-diagnose is hideously unscientific. Would you expect people who go into Mensa to be any different?
Nope. You're talking about conditions that precede any awareness of "how things are".
You need to be in the top 2% for IQ scores to join Mensa. It means that about 6 million Americans are eligible to join Mensa, compare this to abound 60000 actual members.
It means that only 1% of Americans with high IQ are Mensa members, so I think it is safe to assume that there are other important criteria that make people join Mensa. So is it the IQ or is it something else that cause this correlation.
I don't know how they addressed this in the (paywalled) paper. Did they run tests to weed out external factors or did they leave that task to other researchers? For example, did they do their own IQ tests in addition to relying on Mensa members to get a good sample of people with high IQ?
... just drive me crazy.
So people smart enough to know what they might have, and smart enough to get tested for things, and smart enough to ask for help, report problems more often than the average dumb person who needs to be convinced to go to a doctor once in a while, wear a seatbelt in a car, get vaccinated for major illnesses, and not fall for Nigerian scams?
I think it's safe to say that smart people identify more problems than dumb people -- independent of how many problems either group has.
I also get my car repaired more often than the average car owner -- and my car's more reliable than the average car too. But I'm willing/able to repair non-essential parts, where the average car owner would just let it go, and drive with a cracked windshield, a squeaky bushing, a rusty dent, a less-than-perfect oxygen sensor, et cetera. There's a reason why routine emissions tests are now mandated.
Mensa members have a higher IQ than average, but they are also self-selected based on other criteria, like an obsessive need to demonstrate their intelligence to others. In addition, the conclusion also assumes that mental illness is diagnosed at the same rate independent of IQ, which seems implausible.
So this result only shows you that Mensa members are more prone to having mental illness diagnosed, not that people with high IQ in general have a higher rate of mental disease.
From TFS:
A team of U.S. researchers surveyed 3,715 members of American Mensa with an IQ higher than 130.
So how do we know that this isn't just a case that mentally ill people are more interested in joining Mensa?
The more intelligent you are, the more aware you are of more things around you, and your understanding of them also increases; that's my experience, at least. That heightened awareness of the worlrd around you, and all the troubles that you perceive, can certainly stress you emotionally. "Ignorance is bliss" is a truism; on the flip-side of that coin, "Laughter is the best medicine" is also true; without sometimes laughing my ass off at whatever, I think I'd be much less balanced emotionally (Whose Line Is It Anyway is very good for this, by the way).
This is so wrong I hardly know where to begin.
And damn fool can solve the world's problems with a generous application of "if everyone would just ...".
For those who lack imagination and drive the continuation is inevitably "behave the same way that I behave." (With drive, the continuation becomes "drink this special Kool-Aid.")
I concede that grotesque distortion of the problem domain displays a certain genius, but only if a) it serves your interests—usually as projected onto the slangy, self-serving axis of T, A, H, and S-class—and b) you are charismatic enough to convince many followers to go along with your views.
Also, head-up-ass IQ generally tests well. That would change if more of the tests involved actually pointing the guy who just mounted dual Evinrude V8s on the back of a birch bark canoe in the general direction of Polynesia.
In theory, it should be a short voyage.
Deep thinkers are less inclined to side-step the problem domain. Deep thinkers tend to spend most of their lives attempting to more accurately define the underlying problem domain, while their "sharper" peers futz around with ever more cylinders complexed.
Before Einstein: Assume time and space are separable.
Einstein: Why would we assume that, if light itself doesn't seem to have gotten the memo?
The coprolite breadcrumbs of head-up-ass IQ is to feign puzzlement over the origin of sex, since, after all, "asexual reproduction is more efficient". Duh! Of course. Right, because before sex, organisms could only compete, but after sex, it became possible to compete and cooperate at the same time. Competing and cooperating at the same time sure doesn't sound efficient (especially if your hearing is muffled by your liver and kidneys), yet here we are.
Yet. Here. We. Are.
Then: Eureka! Some dewy thinker leaps out of the bathtub to solve all of humanity's problems. "If only everyone would just ..."
That wet slapping sound you hear? That's the sound of some wet wizened wanker trying to uninvent sex (the oft attempted, yet rarely successful genie-returns-to-bottle reverse orgasm).
All competition and no cooperation makes Jack a dull boy.
Sex: the original, unruly mess (which somehow has never stopped humanity from reducing male vitality down to one number, and female vitality down to three—turns out, sex is inherently nostalgic about its far simpler prelude).
Yea, I say unto you, imagine if numbers in the "real" world were not just a single value, but two different values, magically bound together? How crazy would that be?
Well, for starters, it would be z->z^3-1 crazy.
And who would want that in a universe far easier to conceptualize without invoking spinors? (Sorry, Einstein, we tried, we really did.)
I don't know what IQ is deep down, but it certainly exists in some brittle forms ("sex is an aberration") which are far easier to stereotype than the real thing (the almost completely stymied "sex is not an aberration" crowd).
Hence a lot of flipping bullshit about how "intelligent" people really think.
———
[ed: GEB bonus prize for spotting the half-crab ass hat.]
And, no, I'm not the least bit bitter about EME.
Maybe they don't suffer more mental disorders, they are just more introspective and sensitive to their own mental state. Maybe someone stupider wouldn't identify their unpleasant feelings as being depression or whatever.
When did Mensa lower requirements from IQ of 3x std.dev. To 2x std.dev ? I.e. from 148 to 130?
I imagine when their subscription income started declining.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
It's really heartwarming to read so many stories from self-diagnosed tortured geniuses in this thread.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Autism is *not* a mental illness (software) but a neurological difference (hardware). It's not something you acquire, but rather you're born with (and most assuredly will die with). This amateur gaffe calls the rest of the article into doubt.
The distinction between hardware and software in the human brain is not as clear cut as in a computer. It is by no means clear that mental illness is something equivalent to a software bug that can be corrected.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
I feel like the more I discover and learn about things the more troubled I am and scared of the world
It's that difficult age round about 12, I remember it well.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it