Do you sometimes leave your belongings lying around, do you like to work late at night or do you ask a thousand questions about everything? These habits do not necessarily mean disorganization or laziness. Some research in cognitive psychology even associates them with a higher intelligence quotient.
Disorder and intelligence: when chaos remains functional
Is your desk messy, but you know exactly where everything is? You don’t necessarily need to put everything away.
Work by Kathleen Vohs of the University of Minnesota suggests that a messy environment can encourage new ideas. In one of his experiments, participants in a messy room produced 28% more original ideas than those in a tidy room, according to the journal Personality and Individual Differences.
So clutter is not necessarily a problem. If it doesn’t bother you or prevent you from working or living normally, it may just fit the way you function.
On the other hand, if clutter becomes a source of stress, causes arguments or prevents you from doing certain things, it should be taken seriously. In this case, seeking advice from a professional can be helpful.
Night owls and high intelligence quotient: what studies show
Are you more efficient in the evening than in the morning? You’re not necessarily an early riser, and that’s not a problem in itself.
Psychologist Satoshi Kanazawa studied the sleep habits of 20,745 adolescents. He found that those who went to bed and got up later had, on average, higher intelligence quotient scores.
Another study of 887 Spanish high school students also observed a link between going to bed late and better results on certain cognitive tests. But that doesn’t mean staying up late makes you smarter.
It all depends above all on the quantity and quality of sleep. An evening chronotype can cope very well with sufficient sleep. Conversely, too short nights can lead to fatigue, irritability and difficulty concentrating.
It is therefore better to listen to your natural rhythm than to sacrifice hours of sleep to stay awake longer.
Insatiable curiosity and intelligence: the most visible trait
Do you always want to understand, do you ask a lot of questions and are you interested in very different subjects? This curiosity is often linked to openness to experience, one of the big five traits of the Big Five model.
People who enjoy discovering new things or exploring different areas, on average, perform better on certain cognitive tests. But be careful: this does not mean that curiosity automatically makes you smarter.
However, it can be a real engine for learning. Writing down your questions, keeping a list of topics to discover or varying your reading are all simple ways to maintain it.
To better understand the mechanisms that shape our personality, the five major personality traits also constitute an interesting avenue.
Because being curious, deep down, is above all wanting to continue learning.