Sleep less = Smarter?

[Andy Nguyen]

Interesting study and I will develop a habit of seeing who is visiting quantnet.com when others are at sleep

Night owls are smarter than other people, and now we may know why. The modern world contains many features our slow-to-evolve brains still find unfamiliar—cars, TVs, hot dogs on a stick. But the world has always thrown new stuff at us, and brighter humans may adapt more ably.

Satoshi Kanazawa, a psychologist at The London School of Economics and Political Science, argues that, while we have specialized mental modules for navigation, social interaction, and other age-old tasks, general intelligence is its own module handling only evolutionarily novel circumstances. And he has data showing that people with higher IQs are more likely to have values and preferences that just didn't make sense for our ancestors to embrace. One of those is staying up late.

A previous study found that evening people are smarter than morning people. In a new paper, Kanazawa replicates the finding and provides a theoretical grounding. Because the nocturnal lifestyle allowed by electricity didn't exist 10,000 years ago, we must now rely on general intelligence to override our early-to-bed instincts. So those with more of it stay up later. How much later? See below

Night Lights

Bedtimes and wake-up times for Americans in their 20s by IQ.

Very Dull (IQ < 75)

Weekday: 11:41 P.M.-7:20 A.M.
Weekend: 12:35 A.M.-10:09 A.M.

Normal (90 < IQ < 110)

Weekday: 12:10 A.M.-7:32 A.M.
Weekend: 1:13 A.M.-10:14 A.M.

Very Bright (IQ > 125)

Weekday: 12:29 A.M.-7:52 A.M.
Weekend: 1:44 A.M.-11:07 A.M.

Source: Intelligence: The Evolution of Night Owls | Psychology Today

 

[MSFHQ]

Interesting findings. There could be some simple answers to this though. If you look at the type of jobs different education levels can provide individuals, in general, you will see more construction and labor jobs for lower educated people and more office or flex time positions for higher educated. I also hope the study controls for college students because that can skew it right there haha.

Interesting premise though. Nice to see something contradict the early bird manta everyone hears.

 

[joel_b]

And you could argue many jobs that are not generally disposed to high IQ, many trades, shift-work and service jobs, have much early start-times.

Also, the 20's is kind of a skewed age group on top of that. If you have a med to high-IQ, you are likely in school from 20 to at least 24. We all know what school schedules are like.

I would think the 30's are a more stable age group to look at.

 

[alain]

IMHO, this is all hogwash. Basically, the party animals are way smarter than the average populetion. The same would apply for people who work until late at night (i.e. bouncers at clubs, artists, etc) since they force themselve to stay up.