True of False - Higher Intelligence = Less Common Sense?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Is there any basis for the belief that more intelligent people (IQ, book smarts, et al) tend to be more absent minded or have less common sense?

At the risk of sounding like an arrogant pig (and because my wife does not read this board) I can say that I am most definitely the most educated and intelligent of our married team (although she is prettier).

That said, I tend to always do many more absent minded things (forget keys and kids!) and have l more than once driven my 30 mile commute forgetting my notebook computer. Additionally my wife is always much quicker to resolve very simple daily mundane tasks as I tend to way over think them (errand logistics for the day as an example). Every time this happens I think to myself “why didn’t I think of that?”

So is it true that more “intelligent” people tend to be more Professor Farnsworth than we care to admit?

2

I hate to break it to you, but your wife sounds like the more intelligent one.

ETA: There’s difference between education and intelligence.

3

From an old Victorian melodrama -
“I’m not as dumb as you think I am!”
“No, you couldn’t be…”

I’m not sure there’s a correlation between absent-mindedness, intelligence, and common sense. I would rate each as a separate trait that people do or don’t have. someone who is stupid and lacking in common sense and/or mindedness simply appears to be even more stupid.

4

I knew I was lobbing a softball when I wrote that… well played :wink:

5

I’m inclined to think that something like this is correct. Some people are good at some intelligence-type things and bad at others. Furthermore, I suspect that some of the difference (from one person to the next) is due to innate differences in talent, but some of the difference is due to what intellectual skills they’ve developed through exercise or allowed to atrophy.

There have been efforts to define different sorts of smart (“multiple intelligences,” “emotional intelligence,” “social intelligence,” etc.).

6

Emphatically yes.

7

Cite?

8

Well you started out talking about common sense, and then switched to absent-minded. They aren’t the same thing. In my experience, being forgetful has to do with thinking about other things - having your mind in the clouds. There’s probably a correlation there, because it’s related to abstract thinking and/or having a vivid imagination. Those, in turn, are aspects of intelligence. But it’s a question of being distracted, not of missing something other people have.

9

It’s possible that there’s some correlation for each of these.

For the first, a lot of highly intelligent people are apt to go about thinking of all sorts of deep intellectual thoughts, with the result that they overlook the more mundane things that less intelligent people spend more of their time thinking about.

And for the second, it’s possible that highly intelligent people tend to rely too much on their intelligence, while people with less intelligence tend to develop (perhaps subconsciously) rules of thumb that tend to work better.

Of course, these are just correlations. Obviously there will be quite a lot of crossover. And if someone is really really smart/dumb, then that might outweigh the above factors anyway.

10

I think something along these lines is the way to go here. Some people seem intelligent precisely because they have a lot of common sense (here meaning something along the lines of being able to quickly perceive the general structure of a given situation), some people have the ability to remember to do things at some point in the future (like take out the garbage, pay bills and so on), and some people have the ability to juggle multiple perspectives. And so on and so on and so on. An ability to do one does not necessarily imply an ability to do another.

11

Absolutely.

Also, you could argue that focusing whatever level of intelligence someone has purely on academic matters leaves little practice at the practical for them to learn.

I have 2 cousins who are both university lecturers, highly educated, dumb as dog shit when it comes to anything practical or what could be considered “common sense”.

12

As opposed to cat feces? :smiley:

13

I think the OP is better suited to IMHO rather than General Questions. Moved.

samclem,moderator

14

This is a stereotype, and there’s probably some truth to it, but I think it depends. I’m highly intelligent and educated myself, and there’s some things that I’m absent minded about and other things that I’m not. The thing is, no matter how intelligent one is, there’s a limited amount of attention one has, which may be more or less for different people, and it has to be divided between various things. Someone who is highly intelligent can easily have that level of discipline too.

Speaking for myself, I think I used to be a lot more absent minded than I am, and I think my intelligence is a large reason why, but not because higher intelligence means lower attention. Rather, I think a lot of people learn about how to pay attention and retain information and not get distracted as part of their education. If you have to study, take notes, remember facts, and have good time management skills to do well in school, you learn those lessons at a younger age. I coasted through most of my education with no effort and I never really learned those skills. As a result, when it came down to times when I needed to discipline myself with time management, routine, all that sort of stuff, I just plain sucked at it. I’ve gotten a lot better about it, but probably by going a bit too far in the other direction.

I also think people who tend to be very heady or idealistic will have these problems too. At least for me, I’ll sort of get lost thinking about things and not really focusing on what’s going on. Having a solid routine is good for managing this, but this also means that if, for whatever reason, I put my wallet down in a different spot, I can easily miss it in my routine and forget it. To some extent, there’s the idea that more intelligent and educated people might be more likely to be like this. If that’s true, it’s probably just because of extended exposure to academia.

Either way, I think this is mostly just confirmation bias. We recognize the smart people like this, but when we see less intelligent people, rather than thinking they’re dumb and absentminded, we just lump it all together as dumb.

15

My family anecdote: my second son is a member of Mensa. Zero commonsense, has lost his keys countless times, never allows anywhere near the right amount of time/money to get him where need needs to be. He doesn’t understand why I rant when I see him polishing his shoes on the carpet and if I send him to the shop on an errand for three things, I consider myself lucky if he returns with one correct item.

16

I’m inclined to agree. We tend to notice and remember things when a person does something contrary to expectations. When a smart person does something dumb/foolish, it catches our attention.

An impulse to level the field may also be a factor sustaining the stereotype. It’s consolation of a sort to be able to say, “He may be book-smart, but he’s got no common sense.” It allows the speaker to assert superiority in the area they feel is more important in their life, so they don’t have to feel bad for not measuring up in the intellectual’s field. The other is not superior, just different, which is easier to accept.

17

Unless there is some correlation between intelligence and mental disorders, I’d think not. However, there are certainly things that would bother most people that someone else, perhaps thinking about other things, wouldn’t even notice. I don’t know what that has to do with intelligence, though. Maybe a whiz ball player is working on his throwing arm so much he doesn’t notice that his apartment needs cleaning, or maybe doogie howser is so busy making a brain surgery he doesn’t notice he has no friends except that one weird neighbor kid he had who was kind of annoying.

18

When I was younger, I focused on academics and books to the exclusion of nearly all other activities. I had lofty ideals, spent a lot of time thinking and learning and arguing with myself, and didn’t really pay attention to boring stuff like whether my socks matched or where my housekeys were (I had to crawl in through my window once a week). My sister and dad would make fun of me for being absent-minded, and I was frequently accused of lacking common sense. So, in adulthood, I made a concerted effort to become more grounded. Mindfulness and common sense are life skills like any other. I’m not any less intelligent than I used to be, but I am more humble, more mindful, and I try to be more sensible. I meditate, which helps me be more mindful and live in the present. I also developed routines, so I haven’t locked myself out of my house or car but once in the last 5 years.

In the end, I don’t see any reason that anyone of moderate intelligence can’t learn to be more grounded. It just takes practice. Of course, not everybody wants or cares (or has time) to do that. And that’s okay. I just got tired of being made fun of.

19

In my opinion there are just a lot of different kinds of “smarts” that people get in random assortment. Book-smart people (like me) get so used to being praised in childhood that they assume they ought to be good at all kinds of mental tasks, and it stings when they discover they aren’t.

I’m personally very good at absorbing information and taking tests. I’m also very good at logistics and planning like your wife. I’m also good at reading social cues. Unfortunately I am very very bad at improvisation, temporary information retention, and calculation. I totally got my butt whupped at Euchre this Thanksgiving.

20

My thought precisely.