It pays to be smart. Many of the highest-earning professions, such as medicine and law, are open only to those with the fiercest intellects. But does intelligence have positive effects on other aspects of our lives? Specifically, are smarter people luckier in love?
Some evolutionary psychologists have theorized that humans’ big brains may partly have evolved through a process called “sexual selection.” In other words, smart people may find it easier to attract partners, keep their relationships stable, and have kids. Over time, the genes that code for intelligence would spread through the population, enhancing our species’ brain power.
There is evidence that more intelligent men are more likely to be married. However, this isn’t very strong evidence for the psychologists’ theory, because, as we know, intelligent people tend to be higher earners. Perhaps intelligent men marry in greater numbers not because they are smarter, but because they have greater access to resources? After all, we have known for some time now that, compared to men, women are more likely to place high value a partner who is ambitious, industrious, and has good financial prospects.
So, is intelligence itself an important driver of relationship success or simply a proxy for wealth?
Jaakko Aspara led a team of researchers from Finland and the U.S. to find out. He made use of Finland’s famously detailed national statistics, linking IQ data collected by the Finnish armed forces (into which all young men are conscripted) with data from the National Population Register Center and the Finnish Tax Authority. The result — a dataset including the IQ, marital status, and income of almost 190,000 men.
Aspara found that men were more likely to be married (and to still be married four years later) if they were higher in intelligence, confirming the results of earlier studies.
This was true even when Aspara controlled mathematically for the influence of a man’s income on his marriage prospects. A man’s wealth had an important effect on his likelihood of marrying; in fact, wealth was more influential than intelligence. But an intelligent man was still more likely to have married and to have stayed married, regardless of his wealth.
In further analyses, Aspara split the IQ scores into three components — verbal, logical, and numeric. Verbal intelligence was by far the most important form of intelligence when it came to getting married. Arithmetical skill had no effect at all. This makes sense, given that verbal skills are the most easily observable form of intelligence during courtship. A man with a quick wit may well be seen as a catch.
Other possible explanations for Aspara’s findings are that verbally fluent men are more able to persuade a woman to enter into a relationship, or that they are better able to outwit their male rivals.
Source: Intelligent Men More Likely to Marry and Stay Married
