The smart-people-checklist

All people are different, but there are characteristics that bind certain people. Intelligent people have quite a few traits in common and oh, they are so nice. So take a moment for the big how-smart-am-I checklist.

1. You curse
Yes, there is a connection (I actually wanted to write correlation to sound very intelligent, but how childish is that) between an extensive arsenal of swear words and intelligence. So you have to vary a bit with your insults.

2. You are lazy
Research has been done on this as well. Smart people can be lazy and do nothing for a long time. Probably because they entertain themselves in their heads with their special thoughts. By the way, being lazy is also good for your health.

3. You are messy
Messy people are often more creative and feel freer and less inhibited in a similar environment. They don't have to color outside the lines because you can't even see those lines anymore. So do you belong to the group that gets a bit itchy from Marie Kondo? No worries.

4. You don't believe
Multiple studies have shown that there is a negative balance between intelligence and religion. Intelligent people want facts and if you believe, you have to surrender to certain things. British and Danish scientists recorded the average IQ of countries and the percentage of non-believers. The higher the IQ, the lower the percentage of believers.

5. You are a night owl
Oh, I score very low on this, because I fall asleep even earlier than my daughters. A study was conducted in America (among 20,000 participants) on the time of going to bed and IQ, and the people who went to sleep at 00:30 and got up around 08:00 had the highest IQ. Now I must note that this research was done among ‘young adults’ and they probably don't have three daughters, a dog, and a job.

6. You are a worrier
The better our brains developed in evolution, the better we could imagine things, which also made danger and fear have more grip on us. Simply because we could envision worst-case scenarios. According to scientists, worrying is good because you take bad situations into account and thus prepare for them. Nine tips for the worry queen you can find here.

7. You love dark humor
The University of Vienna showed people comics with dark jokes about death, illness, and disabilities. People with the highest IQ appreciated the dark jokes the most. By the way, it's not that people who like dark humor are less cheerful. In fact, the pessimistic group couldn't really laugh. To appreciate dark humor, you need to be smart and in a good mood. Well.

Image: Lidian van Megen