Recent Research Links Anxiety with Higher IQ
A
study that was done in Lakehead University in Canada showed that people who
have anxiety, even the slightest bit of it, tend to score higher on IQ tests
than people who do not worry at all.
In
Canada, one hundred students were surveyed. Based off of their answers, the
survey would say if they had a lot of anxiety or not. From that, they also
looked at their IQ test scores and the ones who had high scores also had a lot
of anxiety, where as the ones who had low test scores had little to no anxiety.
Another
study done by Israeli psychologists found the same results from relating
anxiety to intelligence. Multiple students with high and low IQs were told to
evaluate artwork that would be presented to them from a software program. When the
students each opened up the program they also activated a terrible computer
virus which they had to go find tech support right away. As they each left,
their behaviors were observed when they went to find support. They had
different “obstacles” on the way, like someone stopping to ask them to take a
survey, someone dropping a large stack of papers in front of them, ect. From observing
them, they noticed that the ones who had the greatest anxiety while going
through the “obstacles” also had the highest IQs. The same psychologists did
another study earlier and found that students with higher IQs were also more
likely to detect potential dangers, like the smell of smoke.
There
has also been studies done at the National Institute of Health through MRI
scans to find any correlation between anxiety and intelligence. What they found
is that people with high IQs and anxiety both had a missing part of white
matter in their brain, which probably meant that anxiety and intelligence
developed together as humans evolved.
Some of
these studies have shown that when intelligence and anxiety are both present,
people stay away from situations that put them at risk too. These studies don’t
support that if you don’t have anxiety you aren’t intelligent, but the result
of all of the studies show that people who have high anxiety do tend to have
higher IQs.
https://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2016/05/19/recent-research-links-anxiety-with-higher-iq/
