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> When smart people spend more time with their friends, it makes them less happy. This is obviously a correlational study (and not a randomized controlled tria

> When smart people spend more time with their friends, it makes them less happy. This is obviously a correlational study (and not a randomized controlled trial) so inferring causality is just wrong. Let me instead suggest an alternative explanation for the same correlation: smart people have more time to spend with friends when things are going badly for them (crashed startup, lack of grants for research, out of work, etc) than when things are going well (startup just got funded, just received a major grant, etc).

fossuser 11y ago
Also ignores other things that seem likely to me: - People in cities have more people to compare themselves to when calculating 'how well they're doing' relative to people around them. In a big city you're less likely to be at the top. - Smart people are more likely to need opportunities provided by big cities and big city networks, and are probably more unhappy in smaller rural areas. The 'evolution' argument sets off bad science alarms, no ability to test and not even very good speculation. Then going on to suggest that smart people are more able to ignore evolutionary pressure also strikes me as a stretch. The idea that smart people have a bigger project in mind and time spent socializing makes them sad because it's 'wasted' does seem reasonable to me though.
- nibs 11y ago
  The migration pattern for the smartest people appears most likely to be growing up rural, moving to the city during peak earning years, and movng back to rural areas after. [1] [1]: http://www.citylab.com/work/2014/07/the-smartest-people-move-into-and-out-of-cities/373760/ http://www.citylab.com/work/2014/07/the-smartest-people-move...
- gbersac 11y ago
  My mind also fired me a lot of "bullshit science warning" while reading this article. And, event though the argument "smart people have a bigger project and they spend time realizing it rather than socializing" makes also sense for me, I don't really believe in it. Smart people may also spend time with friend to elaborate their plan and socializing in order to gather a group to execute that plan. Another explanation would be that they have more problem finding like minded people so they'd rather spend time alone than being with uninteresting people. Conclusion : if it is true that smart people need less time socializing to be happy than other people (psychology studies tend to always contradict each other, I don't rely on them too much), I don't have a serious explanation why.
  - troydavis 11y ago
    tl;dr: Based on the information that's publicly available, which does not include the full text of the article, it passes the sniff test. Long: To take a stab at the study's scientific integrity without access to it[1], other aspects may be better indicators than a Washington Post article written for a mainstream audience -- namely, the journal's reputation and review policy, the author's CV, and the abstract. That's not anyone's fault, but the Post author's goal - an understandable explanation - doesn't emphasize what you're evaluating. So, let's check these things out. Here's the CV of the first named author (I can't easily tell whether he was PI): http://www.smu.edu.sg/sites/default/files/socsc/pdf/psychvita2015%20Li.pdf http://www.smu.edu.sg/sites/default/files/socsc/pdf/psychvit... The abstract: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26847844 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26847844 A preview: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bjop.12181/pdf http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bjop.12181/pdf The entity behind the journal (which also grants licenses to psychologists in Britain): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Psychological_Society https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Psychological_Society ToC from the February issue: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bjop.2016.107.issue-1/issuetoc http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bjop.2016.107.iss... Peer reviewers: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bjop.12174/full http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bjop.12174/full He's a trained scientist with a lot of experience and many prior studies, and that this was published in a well-known peer-reviewed journal. Short of reading the actual article and having experience in the field, I think that's a more likely indicator of scientific integrity than the OP's URL. [1]: The full text of the article isn't publicly available. While drawing conclusions without reading it would be crazy, checking the author and the journal are reasonable.

fossuser 11y ago

Also ignores other things that seem likely to me: - People in cities have more people to compare themselves to when calculating 'how well they're doing' relative to people around them. In a big city you're less likely to be at the top. - Smart people are more likely to need opportunities provided by big cities and big city networks, and are probably more unhappy in smaller rural areas. The 'evolution' argument sets off bad science alarms, no ability to test and not even very good speculation. Then going on to suggest that smart people are more able to ignore evolutionary pressure also strikes me as a stretch. The idea that smart people have a bigger project in mind and time spent socializing makes them sad because it's 'wasted' does seem reasonable to me though.

nibs 11y ago
The migration pattern for the smartest people appears most likely to be growing up rural, moving to the city during peak earning years, and movng back to rural areas after. [1] [1]: http://www.citylab.com/work/2014/07/the-smartest-people-move-into-and-out-of-cities/373760/ http://www.citylab.com/work/2014/07/the-smartest-people-move...
gbersac 11y ago
My mind also fired me a lot of "bullshit science warning" while reading this article. And, event though the argument "smart people have a bigger project and they spend time realizing it rather than socializing" makes also sense for me, I don't really believe in it. Smart people may also spend time with friend to elaborate their plan and socializing in order to gather a group to execute that plan. Another explanation would be that they have more problem finding like minded people so they'd rather spend time alone than being with uninteresting people. Conclusion : if it is true that smart people need less time socializing to be happy than other people (psychology studies tend to always contradict each other, I don't rely on them too much), I don't have a serious explanation why.
- troydavis 11y ago
  tl;dr: Based on the information that's publicly available, which does not include the full text of the article, it passes the sniff test. Long: To take a stab at the study's scientific integrity without access to it[1], other aspects may be better indicators than a Washington Post article written for a mainstream audience -- namely, the journal's reputation and review policy, the author's CV, and the abstract. That's not anyone's fault, but the Post author's goal - an understandable explanation - doesn't emphasize what you're evaluating. So, let's check these things out. Here's the CV of the first named author (I can't easily tell whether he was PI): http://www.smu.edu.sg/sites/default/files/socsc/pdf/psychvita2015%20Li.pdf http://www.smu.edu.sg/sites/default/files/socsc/pdf/psychvit... The abstract: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26847844 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26847844 A preview: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bjop.12181/pdf http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bjop.12181/pdf The entity behind the journal (which also grants licenses to psychologists in Britain): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Psychological_Society https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Psychological_Society ToC from the February issue: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bjop.2016.107.issue-1/issuetoc http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bjop.2016.107.iss... Peer reviewers: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bjop.12174/full http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bjop.12174/full He's a trained scientist with a lot of experience and many prior studies, and that this was published in a well-known peer-reviewed journal. Short of reading the actual article and having experience in the field, I think that's a more likely indicator of scientific integrity than the OP's URL. [1]: The full text of the article isn't publicly available. While drawing conclusions without reading it would be crazy, checking the author and the journal are reasonable.