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- [Amanda] Hey, Psych2Goers, and welcome back
to your favorite spot for all things psychology.
Thank you so much for your love and support
enabling us to make yet another exploration
into everyday psychology, so let's begin.
Do you ever wonder if your problems can be concluded
to the idea that you're just too smart for your own good?
Even high IQ comes with its own set of highs and lows, sigh.
We usually think of the highly intelligent
as people who are destined for success
and given more opportunities than others.
But what if there are some problems
that are more likely to arise
just because you are intelligent?
According to psychologists and extensive research,
there are some problems smart people
are more likely to have.
Before we begin, please do not use this to self-diagnose
as this is not a scale for rating intelligence.
With that said, here are six problems
only smart people have.
Number one, they often suffer from psychological disorders.
Yes, you heard that right.
Research suggests that your intelligence
can also mean an increased risk
of you developing certain affective disorders.
Psychologist and researcher, Ruth Karpinski,
conducted a study in which all of her participants
were members of American Mensa, a high IQ society,
which requires all its members to have an IQ in the top 2%.
The participants self-reported
whether or not they were diagnosed with
or suspected they had a range of mood disorders
and anxiety disorders.
Disorders reported included attention deficit,
hyperactivity disorder, ADHD, and psychological diseases
that include environmental and food allergies,
asthma, and auto-immune disease.
According to the study, this implicates high IQ
as being a potential risk factor for affective disorders,
ADHD, and for an increased incidence of disease
related to immune dysregulation.
Number two, they're night owls.
Are you frequently burning the midnight oil?
Are you more awake while the rest of the world sleeps?
According to researchers, Richard D. Roberts
and Patrick C. Kyllonen, evening types are more likely
to have higher intelligence scores.
While being a night owl may sound like a good thing,
and it can be, there are some downsides
to working through the night.
Firstly, your schedule is likely messed up.
You work long hours throughout the night
without getting tired, but because of this,
you stay up through the night,
and then you also have to get up early for work.
If you don't get the necessary sleep, you may feel tired
and groggy when you have to work during the day,
or when socializing with friends.
If your sleep schedule is off, you likely won't be feeling
as alert and well-rested as your friends at 7:00 am,
which means that morning picnic you all had planned,
well, you may just feel that you need to cancel.
You're too tired, maybe reschedule
for an evening of dancing instead.
Number three, they have high expectations.
Did your test scores label you as smart
early on in childhood?
Did this raise other's expectations of you?
Even you may have these paramount expectations
from none other than yourself.
People expect you to succeed
and achieve nearly perfect scores on all your tests
because you displayed characteristics
that deemed you as smart.
So meeting these expectations may hang
as a bit of a burden upon your shoulders.
And those expectations ultimately cause you serious stress
if you don't manage them effectively.
It's best to take it one step at a time
with whatever you do, look towards the future
but don't be discouraged
if it's not everything you thought it would be.
Odds are a year or two from now, you won't be thinking
about that A-minus on your geography exam.
Number four, they're overexcitable
and can have high energy.
Have you ever had an intelligent friend
who always seemed to be extremely intense
and excitable in whatever they did?
Do they go long hours without sleep
because they're always hyper-focused
or excited regarding their work?
In the 1960s, Polish psychiatrist and psychologist,
Kazimierz Dabrowski, introduced the concept
that being highly gifted or intelligent
is associated with psychological
and physiological overexcitabilities,
otherwise known as OEs.
It's most often a sudden high energy
towards a certain situation or topic.
It displays itself in varying ways,
such as a competitiveness, compulsive organizing,
compulsive talking, impulsive behavior, and others.
It's unfortunate that these OEs are treated
as a problem by teachers or parents.
Intelligent students and children are often mislabeled
or punished due to unawareness about OEs.
As research from the University Kebangsaan Malaysia
suggests, gifted students who are frequently labeled
as problematic because of their intense behavior
should be given assistance and understanding
in coping with their overexcitabilities.
Number five, they overanalyze things.
Have you ever admired someone for their intelligence
but notice they always tend to overanalyze things?
Well, this urge to analyze
likely has a strong link to their intelligence.
This tendency to overanalyze may be connected
to the hyper brain, hyper body theory,
proposed by Ruth Karpinski and her colleagues.
The theory connects being overly analytical
to Dabrowski's psychological
and physiological overexcitabilities or OEs.
These psychological OEs cause you stress,
and physiological OEs appear as a response to that stress,
so as a result, over-analyzing often occurs.
Let's say you receive a negative remark
from someone you care about,
someone who is smart and also exhibits overexcitabilities,
may overanalyze the comment causing physiological OEs
in the form of the body stress response,
which means more stress and anxiety.
They could be creatively imagining all the scenarios
and implied meanings from this one comment,
while another person may shrug their shoulders and move on.
Number six, they can become super stressed.
(sighs) No surprise here.
It was a long time coming right?
With all the extra analyzing going on,
it ultimately had to lead to this.
It has often been suggested that smart people
are some of the biggest worriers, no, not warriors,
but hey, with all the stress they've been through
they might as well be called warriors too.
Karpinski's studies only add to this idea
that those who have a high IQ
and likely display overexcitabilities
are often suffering from stress.
With psychological OEs, people will often ruminate
and feel stress about certain situations.
Since physiological OEs appear from the body's response
to this stress, when these two interact,
it can cause both physiological
and psychological dysfunctions.
Stress, stress, stress.
The truth of it all is the more you think
and ponder on an idea, the more you may think
of negative scenarios or problems,
and therefore stress about them.
We hope we were able to give you insight in some of the ways
you can identify the sneakiness of smartness.
Do any of these resonate with you?
Leave a comment down below and feel free to share
any experiences and thoughts you have as well.
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out there still boggled with the trials
and tribulations of intelligence.
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