Intelligent People More At Risk of Mental Illness, Study Finds (independent.co.uk) 276
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.
This explains a lot (Score:5, Funny)
No wonder people keep saying I'm crazy.
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Popular people are just more stupid. Popularity tends to do that. Being anti-popular tends to make you a book worm / computer nerd. Popular = busy with humans. Anti-popular = busy with knowledge.
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You're also getting a bit mixed up with the introvert/extrovert scale; extroverts are generally happier, introverts are generally more thoughtful -- although that's not the same as "intelligent"; it's somewhat orthogonal although both thoughtfulness and intelligence contribute to mental performance.
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Not really. If you are not popular you could use your excasism time doing non intellectual things as well. Playing video games watching movies or TV. While the popular person may choose to befriend people of good influence and learn a lot from them. As well being popular they feel less need to escape from reality and use their free time to focus on intellectual things.
In general smart people have problems dealing with most people because it is hard to find people who will talk at their level.
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I am astonished that anyone with a (claimed) IQ of 155 thinks the Meyers-Briggs types have any more relationship to a person's personality than than their horoscope sun sign.
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The first Myers-Briggs letter is significant. It's basically the E in the OCEAN system. 25% significant appears to beat astrology quite handily.
C!=C (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:C!=C (Score:5, Insightful)
They sampled MENSA members. I'm surprised the rate of mental illness wasn't 100%.
You'd need to be crazy, or deeply insecure, to join a group like that.
Re:C!=C (Score:5, Insightful)
Bright people might realize they have problems. Self-identification is part of the cure, not the problem.
Re:C!=C (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, bright people might realize that the world has problems.
There's not an objective measure of "mental illness", and determining whether you're suffering from mental illness has a lot to do with how well you fit into your role in society. A big part of the definition of mental illness is that it has to cause distress. When a person looks around at this world and their place in it, they should be distressed. If you're not suffering in some way that could be labelled "mental illness", there's probably wrong with you.
Re: C!=C (Score:2, Insightful)
Also, bright people might realize that the world has problems ...the world and themselves.
Iâ(TM)ll pick one aspect to focus on that I think helps highlight my pointâ"
I could list a dozen coworkers who drive newer cars and take regular vacations, yet have no savings or retirement.
They operate thinking only about today, or the next few weeks/months.
They also often refuse to take simple actions to correct issues in their lives, and without fail will lay blame on some external influence when things do
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They're not deficient in intelligence. They're deficient in wisdom. That's the stat right below INT, and is rolled separately.
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Bright people might realize they have problems. Self-identification is part of the cure, not the problem.
Everyone else just has Cybercondria [wikipedia.org]
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While some are functionally disabled, there are lots of Mensa members whose skills are quite sufficient to do those practical tasks, and much more. Don't be a dick.
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I never mentioned disabilities of any kind.
The fact is that people who are often labeled smart are labeled as such due to their expertise in very focused fields.
But their "smartness" often ends there.
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Not as much as you're implying. Some are savants, others are just smarter than average and more self-aware. I'm not trying to imbue classism, or in other ways divide people through typification. Rather, it's a function of real capacity and cognition, rather than the other seeming slurs that you seem to imply.
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You have accurately described the first two MENSA members I met.
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Maybe a better way to put it:
There is an inverse relationship between how often people claim they are smart and how smart they actually are.
Re:C!=C (Score:4, Interesting)
Mensa is not an acronym, and should not be spelled with all caps.
At their annual conferences, the one surefire way to pack a presentation to standing room only is to have the subject be anything to do with autism.
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...or after cheaper car insurance. maybe? Yep, that's right, you get 10% discounts at a number of places because you're in Mensa.
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Since I don't have any upvotes, I'll just chime in here to agree.
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Yeah, forget about silly things like personality and common interests. Instead, hang with people who rank themselves on test scores. Sounds like loads of fun.
Re:C!=C (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, forget about silly things like personality and common interests.
They have subgroups for many common interests. Their members have a range of personalities, which you can explore by, you know, talking to them and socializing.
I am not a member, but I know people that are. They are weird, but not abnormally so.
The real weirdos are the people that feel a need to express their illusion of superiority by preaching about why they refuse to join every time Mensa is mentioned. Those people are worse than vegans.
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For health reasons I only eat vegans.
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Personally I like to keep all my stats (Str, Dex, Con, Int, Wis, Cha) about average, I'm not a fan of min-maxing...
That said I find that as I age my Str, Dex and Con are suffering...
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If there were a better reason not to join, I can't think of it. Smart people are just fine to socialize with, as long as they aren't being expected to be smart. Shine a spotlight on their mensa card, and suddenly a wild jackass appears.
Re: C!=C (Score:2)
Good point, but there's a pretty strong evolutionary argument I think. Why wouldn't everyone be smart if there wasn't a cost? Its hard to imagine high IQ not helping with survival.
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Perhaps intelligence is genetically delicate, and evolution hasn't gotten it quite right yet?
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Psychologists say that if you think you're crazy, you're not.
Yeah, you lost that argument on the first word.
Re:This explains a lot (Score:5, Funny)
Re:This explains a lot (Score:5, Insightful)
In a more sound psychological assessment. More intelligent people are much more aware of the extreme harms caused by psychopathic capitalism, it's willingness to feed upon humanity to sate it's greed and ego. This broad based extremely abusive harm is felt by them, even when they have the intellect and ability to keep it at a safe distance, they still suffer the continuous aggravation of being subject to it due to reasoned empathy.
The worst thing about it, a lot of it is based upon empty beliefs, the majority will act upon any kind of crazy assed belief, in the past, even ones that would get people like us burned at the stake. Living in that kind of crazy society awash it idiotic beliefs is extremely disturbing, only mitigated by not taking it too seriously, meh, pack of crazy assed mud monkeys what the fuck will they worship next ;D.
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psychopathic capitalism
What does that even mean?
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Capitalism places capital over human worth, hence by description, psychopathic capitalism is a far more accurate title, shamelessly placing self capital worth over the value of other people's lives. It is the more honest title for that social system, a society of psychopaths by psychopaths and for psychopaths, so that they can more readily can prey upon those governed by capitalism or far more accurately psychopathic capitalism. Capitalism by it's very nature is psychopathic in it's implementation, born of
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...and deliberately murdered around 100 million people in a mere 50 years or so.
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"t a better system has yet to be developed. "
That depends on how one defines and measures "better", doesn't it?
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this is why background checks online are very important. http://www.identitypi.com/ [identitypi.com]
Besides the spam, I don't know what your getting at.
The summery nails me, ADHD all my life. I've had and should still have a better than top secret civilian clearance.
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Psychologists have told me I have depression and ASD, and I think they're right, so do they then tell me I don't have these?
Where are the controls? (Score:3, Interesting)
"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.
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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.
Maybe they could have "done better", but they probably couldn't with the budget they had. The usual point of cheaper-and-lower-quality studies like this is to show why spending more money might be worthwhile.
BTW, since we're throwing out random theories: Mensa, as an organisation, is more attractive to people with a predisposition to mental illness. Highly intelligent people who are well-adjusted are less likely to join.
easy (Score:5, Insightful)
Doesn't mean they don't have problems. Smarter people are better at diagnosis.
That's a bingo! (Score:2, Interesting)
Members of MENSA more likely to have access to health care, including psychiatric kind.
Film at... umm... whenever. Just stream the goddamn thing.
or.... (Score:2)
People with mental illness more likely to be intelligent?
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Apparently a higher than average percentage of people with mental illness.
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I'm guessing the percentage is extremely small. I have no evidence, but anecdotally, I've known a large number of high IQ people over the decades, and have yet to meet an actual a Mensa member in person (at least none that were willing to volunteer that information).
I'm depressingly sane (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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I envy those people I know who are capable of insanity and irrationality.
That's crazy.
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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.
I know! I keep driving past the local mental institution and thinking to myself, "man, THOSE people have the life!" I mean, I really wish I could have my own free dormitory where I never had to have any of life's responsibilities. Sure, there are violent outbursts from other patients, harsh discipline, and crippling suicidal depression to contend with, but free room and board and no responsibilities balances that out.
Oh wait, you mean you wish you were sociopathic? God, you're a weirdo.
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I envy those people I know who are capable of insanity and irrationality.
Then you're a fool.
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.
As someone who suffers from mental illness, I perceive people who are distraught by the everyday evils in the world to be like children crying over spilled milk. You seek to escape what I would consider an ideal state. The world isn't great but you fail to recognize that it's full of issues that can be rectified.
You too clever; thus, you must realize the relatively undamaged humans amongst us have no more appreciation for the misfortunes not befallen them than the truly damaged have for those ridden with unexperienced maladies like childhood cancer, bacne or psoriasis.
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To be honest, your year with cancer sounds more pleasant than my experience with depression, of only in that it ended a lot sooner.
Re:I'm depressingly sane (Score:4, Insightful)
There's a joke where Bono claps his hands on stage. He then says that every time he claps his hands, a child starves to death, and some guy shouts "Then stop doing that you bastard!"
We live in a world where the death of children is so routine that you can clap to it, and this is the setup for a punchline. Your mental illness may well cause you profound pain, but it's not childish to see the world and be miserable.
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Yes, but the version I've seen calls him Pagliacci.
Selection bias? (Score:3)
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No, but they are much more likely to read Slashdot.
...and in fact their use of Mensa as the means of selection has about the same outcome as it would have been if they'd just picked /. readers. The only difference is that Mensa members could have slagged off the research as being too 'thin' because it picked a self-selected bunch of people with ideas above their station.
However, it adds some weight to the age-old notion that there's a thin line between genius and insanity.
Flawed, but believable. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
head-up-ass IQ (Score:2)
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 cer
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Yeah, this really doesn't sound like mental illness.
Disappointed or frustrated != mental illness.
Plausible explanation in TFA (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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I'm being pedantic, but if you notice everybody else complaining about the lack of controls (including myself), then you'll excuse some pedantry.
Your post is mistitled because it is not a "plausible explanation in TFA." They created a model, then tried to validate it with research. That fact that it "seems about right" to you isn't enough because it obviously "seemed about right" to them also. That's why they decided to conduct research to try to validate it.
Our collective problem is with the *research*
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They created a model, then tried to validate it with research.
I confess that made me chuckle. Sure glad we're not currently trying to change the entire global economy over anything like that.
Re:Plausible explanation in TFA (Score:4, Interesting)
I know, I know -- I read it. I'm sorry.
So highly intelligent people focus more on the shit going on around them and melt down over it.
I'd say this might be somewhat of a misrepresentation of the situation. It's not about focusing on shit, any more than spotting a tiger lurking in the shadows, triggering your fight or flight response, is about focus. Your actual focus is elsewhere when the particular brain module triggers. Since, as with many of our brain's hair trigger modules, there's a significant false positive rate (faces in clouds / crackers) your endocrine system, in working overtime, leads to side effects such as neural fatigue, inflammation, and so on.
A reasonable working hypothesis might be that some of these brain modules are also useful for things for which they didn't evolve, such as the pattern matching module helping with the visual aspect of the IQ tests, or the social inference module helping with the language aspects of the IQ tests. The more 'competent' your module is the higher your IQ but the more times it gives a false positive. And it turns out that seeing a tiger hiding in every shadow or feeling crippling embarrassment every time you're in company is not good for your mental health.
The more oblivious percentiles brush it off (if they even noticed it at all) and move on with their lives. That seems about right.
Yup. That does sound about right.
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Learning at the Tibetan meditation and yoga center near my house made me more perceptive, not less.
That explains a few things (Score:2)
It certainly goes a long ways in explaining the comment section around here.
Terrible samples but overall plausible (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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> Less intelligent people may find superstitions (including but not just religious belief) easier to accept, especially if provided by authority figures.
Not everything is about IQ. For example, there are a lot of smart people floating around that really do think God (as described in Bible) exist or that X = Y, or whatever else.
There are all kinds of people. We see IQ as it's ultimate and final metric for whatever, ignoring dozen other things that are equally important but we have no way of measuring them
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I don't disagree, but the "study" was that high IQ people are more at risk for mental illness, not that it was a defined cause-effect.
Obviously the psychology associated with this is complex, and yes, there have been many extremely intelligent people with a belief in God, individual spiritual/metaphysical beliefs or philosophical understandings that provide a less cynical, positive psychological bias.
I was mostly elucidating the mechanism where I thought intelligence could become a barrier to belief systems
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Who's "We"? I don't know anyone who thinks IQ is the ultimate measurement. It's the best we've got.
There's also differences between believing something that is false, believing something that cannot be proven false, and believing something based on subjective evidence. Don't be too sure that people who believe in God are necessarily wrong and deluded. S
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Actually, the PowerBall is capable of having no winners, which is how the jackpot gets up into the hundreds of millions of dollars.
Yes, *somebody* will win the lottery but mathematically speaking the odds against winning are so mathematically large the most realistic prediction is that you can't win the lottery.
Reporting bias (Score:2)
Massive Selection Bias (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
There's a huge problem with this (Score:2)
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 Ga
Maybe imbalance causes both (Score:2)
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 relat
Well, Duh! (Score:2)
Read a History book ... any subject ... and figure that one out pretty quickly.
Mensa is a very biased sample (Score:2)
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.
The important thing is Mensa, not IQ (Score:3)
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?
Studies like this ... (Score:2)
Huge Intelligence Bias (Score:3)
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.
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Risk aversion may correlate with intelligence but I doubt the correlation is very strong. Some of the smartest people I know seem to have the part of their brain responsible for weighing risks absent.
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I wasn't talking about risk aversion, per se, more knowing the difference between an everyday reality and a solvable anomaly.
If you think that car brakes squeal normally, then you don't replace your brakes until they stop working. If you know that brakes squeal as an early-indicator, then you replace your brakes well-in-advance of them failing.
Ask a few thousand people if there is anything wrong with their brakes, and the group with understanding of brake squealing will say yes, and the ignorant group will
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I did give four non-car analogies too.
Correlation/causation (Score:2)
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 issue is awareness (Score:2)
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phantomfive pointed out:
Measuring only people from MENSA is one hell of a confounding factor. They are a self-selected group by definition.
This. To start with.
This is about the laziest excuse for experimental design I've ever seen. Self-selected, self-reporting sample with no controls other than Mensa membership vs Mensa non-membership?
Feh.
Social "sciences" have a well-deserved reputation for straining at gnats and swallowing camels - and crap like this doesn't sure help their credibility ...
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I always saw Mensa as a kind of a selfhelp group and gave that as a reason for not joining. But hey, maybe I wouldn't have qualified. Preempting the sour grapes and all that.
I'm sure it's full of people who don't need the help though
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Unfortunately, my urine tested negative for "credulity about the scientific merit of IQ tests".
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IQ tests measure IQ fairly repeatably, meaning that IQ tests measure something real. It correlates with what most people would call intelligence, although "intelligence" is pretty ill-defined. Clearly, what determines IQ doesn't completely determine intelligence, but it does have the advantage of being objectively measurable. If you can't get grant money for flashlights you have to look for results under the street lights.
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selects for the results of a urine test.
Missed the cup? You're in!
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A complex intricate machine is more delicate and more prone to breaking down than a rock.
And are apt to be overclocked.
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