So you think you’re pretty smart? Take the test

Being academically gifted doesn’t necessarily make you intelligent. In fact, it might make you stupider | TAKE THE TEST

Some people make no effort to apply their intelligence in everyday situations. Picture: iStock

So you think you’re pretty smart, huh? You’re the sort of person who got top grades all through school and went on to a good university, so surely there’s not much anyone can tell you about being clever.

Well, I’ve got some bad news. A new book called The Intelligence Trap, by the science journalist David Robson, argues that being academically gifted doesn’t necessarily make you intelligent. In fact, it might make you stupider. Time for all you swots to wipe those smug smiles off your faces.

I spoke to Robson about the ways intelligent people end up acting dumb. The most basic problem, he says, is laziness.

He coined the term “cognitive misers” to describe those who are miserly with their brain power.

They are the sorts of people who walk into an exam hall and think: “OK, I have to use my brain here.” But in everyday situations they make no effort to apply that intelligence.

Robson says these people are “susceptible to fake news and misinformation because they go with the gist rather than looking at the detail”.

Of course, this might also apply to those without a strong academic background. Anyone can be a lazy thinker.

A more boffin-specific problem is something Robson calls “motivated reasoning”. People can fall into the trap of using their brain power in a “one-sided way”, employing their intelligence to support existing beliefs and knock down arguments against them rather than considering a problem from both angles.

The Intelligence Trap by David Robson.

He points to the example of Arthur Conan Doyle, who was notoriously hoaxed by two young girls who faked photographs of fairies dancing at the bottom of their garden.

We know from the Sherlock Holmes books that he was “an enormously intelligent person who understood the principles of rational reasoning”, says Robson. But the problem was that he applied all of “that knowledge and intelligence to support his own irrational beliefs”.

Related to this is another phenomenon in which people who perceive themselves to be intelligent because of their qualifications or grades come to feel that this gives them a “licence to be more closed-minded and dogmatic”. They fall into the trap of thinking: “Well, I know I’m a bright person, so I must be right.”

For example, in the US Republicans with a scientific education are more likely to be climate-change deniers than those who are less educated, because their “expertise” means they feel, erroneously, that they are in a position to dismiss climate science.

Robson has made intelligent people sound pretty useless. So I ask him whether companies should consider hiring fewer ­academically qualified graduates in future, steering away from all these bumbling overeducated types.

Although he’s keen to emphasise that he still thinks an academic education is important, he says employers should consider whether there are “other ways of appraising someone’s thinking skills and reasoning skills that may well be more important than, say, having a PhD”. This is especially true if you’re looking for someone to work in a team.

“There’s lots of evidence to show that the maximum IQ of the smartest team member doesn’t do much to improve overall group performance,” he says. Instead, factors such as emotional awareness and an ability to relate to people from different backgrounds can be more important.

If you’re a boffin, you might be feeling pretty bleak by now. You thought you were pretty smart, with your elite degree and your good job, but suddenly it turns out that you’re not as clever as you thought.

And if they’ve read this article, your employer might even be thinking of sacking you and hiring someone with high levels of “emotional perception” instead.

Fear not. Robson has supplied a few easy ways to escape the intelligence trap. One surprisingly effective trick, he says, “is to pause before you make a decision and write down your immediate hunch, your intuitive feeling, and to then argue against that with yourself and look at all the alternative possibilities, gather as much evidence as you can to disagree with your initial reaction”.

It sounds obvious, but it has been shown to be quite powerful. In one study, doctors using the technique reduced diagnostic mistakes by 40 per cent.

Another idea is something Robson calls “self-distancing”, which even he admits sounds odd.

He suggests that if you have a problem, you should try to view it from a distance by talking about yourself in the third person. You’ll sound “a bit mad”, but “that process of giving yourself a bit of psychological distance actually cools some of your emotional ­reactions in those situations”.

It’s especially handy if you suffer from motivated reasoning, which is down to “our ego or emotions pulling us in one direction”.

Robson says that, since researching the book, he has become “especially distrustful of politicians or political commentators who have a very dogmatic ­opinion”.

However, “if someone can own up and say they don’t know all the answers, but they’re looking into it, I would trust their answers more than someone who expresses absolute certainty”.

The Times

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The Intelligence Trap Quiz

Are You Intuitive?

1) The wind blows west. An electric train runs east. In which cardinal direction does the smoke from the locomotive blow?

2) Jack is looking at Anne but Anne is looking at George, Jack is married but George is not. Is a married person looking at an unmarried person? Yes, no, or cannot be determined?

3) If you were running a race, and you passed the person in 2nd place, what place would you be in now?

4) If you have only one match and you walk into a dark room where there is an oil lamp, a newspaper and wood — which thing would you light first?

5) A farmer had 15 sheep and all but 8 died. How many are left?

6) Emily’s father has three daughters. The first two are named April and May. What is the third daughter’s name?

Answers

1) It’s an electric train so there is no smoke

2) Yes

3) 2nd place

4) The match

5) Eight

6) Emily

What your answers say about your thinking

Each of these questions provokes an intuitive response, which you need to override to come to the correct answer. It seems obvious that the smoke would be blowing west in question 1, for instance, leading us to overlook the fact it is an electric train.

Question 2 is particularly deceptive. Most people adamantly believe that the answer is “cannot be determined”, but it really is yes. To get it right, you need to think through the two possible situations: if Anne is married, and if Anne is unmarried. You will see that in either case, one married person is looking at an unmarried person. (Draw a diagram if necessary.) This capacity to think through multiple hypotheses is an important element of rational thinking. If you got most of them wrong, you are a cognitive miser — meaning that even if you have a high IQ, you don’t apply it in a reflective, analytical way. Studies show that many Ivy League students get them wrong for this reason. If you got most of them right, you are less likely to go with your flawed gut instincts. You think through all options before coming to a conclusion, allowing you to make wiser decisions without being persuaded by irrelevant information.

Do You Think Logically?

Decide if the given conclusion follows logically from the premise. Answer yes if, and only if, you judge that the conclusion can be derived unequivocally from the given premise. Otherwise, select no.

7)

Premise 1: All living things need water.

Premise 2: Roses need water.

Conclusion: Therefore roses are living things.

8)

Premise 1: All things that are smoked are good for the health.

Premise 2: Cigarettes are smoked.

Conclusion: Cigarettes are good for the health.

Answers

7) No

8) Yes

 

What your answers say about your thinking

These questions test your ability to analyse the logic of a statement at hand, even if it involves suspending your beliefs.

To understand why the answer to question 7 is wrong, for instance, consider the following:

All insects need oxygen. Mice need oxygen. Therefore mice are insects.

The logic of this and the rose question is exactly the same, but it’s easier to notice the flaw in the reason when the conclusion clashes with your existing knowledge.

For question 8 we have the opposite problem — we know the conclusion is wrong (cigarettes aren’t good for your health) even though the logic is right! Again, many intelligent people aren’t very good at these kinds of questions. (According to one study, 70 per cent of university students got the roses question wrong.)

The capacity to evaluate an argument on its own merits is increasingly important in the modern world. When thinking about politics, for instance, it could stop us from accepting fallacious arguments that happen to conform with our existing beliefs.

Can You Reason Scientifically?

9)

An experiment is conducted to test the efficacy of a new medical treatment. The results can be summarised as follows:

Treatment Given — Improvement 200 / No Improvement 75

No Treatment Given — Improvement 50 / No Improvement 15

Does the treatment work?

Answer

9) No

What your answer says about your thinking

This question tests a basic ability to weigh up evidence. You have to notice that higher ratio of patients improved in the “no treatment” condition than in the “treatment” condition, meaning the treatment is not effective. Many people focus on the high absolute number (200) who improved in the treatment condition, meaning they intuitively believe the treatment was effective. It measures your capacity to read evidence based on logic rather than your initial preconceptions.

Can You Escape Biases?

10)

After a large meal at a restaurant, you order a big dessert with chocolate and ice cream. After a few bites, you find you are full and you would rather not eat any more of it. Would you be more likely to eat more or to stop eating it?

11)

You are tossing an even coin, and you have just flipped five heads in a row. What is the chance that the next turn you will flip a tail? (a) More than 50% (b) Less than 50% (c) 50%

What your answers says about your thinking

These questions test two specific cognitive biases which are common among intelligent but miserly thinkers.

Question 10 examines the sunk-cost effect: our reluctance to give up on an initial investment even if continuing will be futile. In this case, many people do not want to waste the money spent on the ice cream and so continue eating, even though it will gives them no pleasure and will actually make them feel worse. In what other situation would you actually pay money to feel sick and get fatter? Yet that’s exactly what you are doing here. This may seem like a trivial example, but the sunk-cost effect can lead to huge losses in business as people pour more and more money into failing projects. Ultimately, it’s a question of emotion regulation: you need to recognise that your guilt or sadness over the lost money is derailing your decision making.

Question 11 looks at the “gambler’s fallacy”. This is the common misperception that probabilities somehow even out — so many people say (a), believing that after five heads a tails must be more likely. Yet the logical answer is (c) — the probability has not changed at all. This kind of thinking has been the downfall of many roulette players. It can also influence family size: if parents have had five sons, for instance, they may believe that a daughter is more likely the next time … This happens to be one of the biases that is actually more common the more intelligent you are.

How Did You Do?

Research suggest that tests such as these can predict many important things in life — from your chances of falling for fad diets to your risk of catching an STD, getting in debt or even going to prison.

If you got most of these answers right, your decision making is already pretty good; you can override your intuitions when they are leading you astray, and you appraise evidence in a rational way.

But if like many otherwise intelligent people you got many of these answers wrong, don’t worry! Although your errors suggest there are many vulnerabilities in your “miserly” thinking, there are many ways you can overcome those flaws. Anyone can learn to identify their own cognitive biases and common logical fallacies, inoculating themselves from bias and misinformation. We can also train our intuition and reflective skills, so that we are more aware when our gut reactions might be leading us astray. This is only possible if you acknowledge your flaws, meaning that this test could be an important first step to a wiser future.

The academic reference for these tests can be found at davidrobson.me

The Times