When intelligence hurts and ignorance is bliss
Global pandemic as an evolutionarily novel threat to happiness
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 19281998 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Kanazawa (0000-0003-3786-8797, Department of Management London School of Economics and Political Science London UK, corresponding author), Norman P Li (0000-0002-4059-1613, School of Social Sciences Singapore Management University Singapore Singapore), J C Yong (0000-0002-6413-2016, Department of Psychology Northumbria University Newcastle Upon Tyne UK) |
| Year | 2022 |
| Volume | 90 |
| Issue | 6 |
| Pages | 971-987 |
| Publication date | 2022-12-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Personality (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0022-3506 • E-ISSN: 1467-6494 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/jopy.12709 |
| PMID | 35211981 |
| OpenAlex | W4214562205 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 44 |
INTRODUCTION: The savanna theory of happiness posits that it is not only the current consequences of a given situation that affect happiness but also its ancestral consequences, and that the effect of ancestral consequences on happiness is stronger among less intelligent individuals. But what about situations that did not exist in the ancestral environment and thus have no ancestral consequences? Global pandemic is one such situation that has no ancestral analog, and the theory predicts such evolutionarily novel threats to have a negative effect disproportionately on the life satisfaction of more intelligent individuals. METHODS: We analyzed prospectively longitudinal data from population samples from the National Child Development Study (Study 1) and the British Cohort Study (Study 2). RESULTS: Consistent with the theoretical prediction, while more intelligent individuals were generally more satisfied with their lives than less intelligent individuals were throughout adulthood (albeit not because they were more intelligent but because they earned more money, were more likely to be married, and healthier), more intelligent individuals were less satisfied with their lives during the COVID-19 global pandemic because they were more intelligent. CONCLUSION: Higher intelligence may have a downside in the modern world, by allowing life satisfaction to be more vulnerable from being better able to comprehend the severity of problems that did not exist in the ancestral world
Affect (linguistics) · BLISS · Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) · Developmental psychology · Evolutionary psychology · Happiness · Ignorance · Life satisfaction · Pandemic · Political science · Population · Sociology · Computer Science · Cultural Differences and Values · Demography · Evolutionary Psychology and Human Behavior · Medicine · Psychological Well-being and Life Satisfaction · Psychology · Social Psychology
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| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |