7 uncomfortable facts about how IQ affects your life

pulse

May 22, 2017 4:59 PM

IQ scores can greatly affect the outcome of our lives.

Our IQ scores can greatly affect the outcome of our lives.

Americans like standardized tests. We evaluate kids at multiple parts of their academic careers, and high-stakes tests, like the SAT and ACT, are a rite of passage for entrance into college. Still, many people believe IQ scores aren't the determining factor for success in life.

While researchers haven't definitively pinned down how much a person's IQ affects their success later in life, they have uncovered that many factors throughout our lives may affect our IQ scores — and conversely, our IQ scores can greatly affect the outcome of our lives.

Read on to see seven uncomfortable facts about how IQ may affect your life.

Breastfeeding may be linked with better performance on cognitive tests

In a small 2016 study, researchers monitored daily breast milk and formula given to 180 babies for their first 28 days of life. At 7 years old, children who consumed breast milk performed better on cognitive tests they were given.

Source: The Journal of Pediatrics

Junk food diets for kids under three may be linked to lower scores on an intelligence test

Children who ate processed junk foods before the age of three were shown to have a lower score on the than their peers by the time they were eight years old. A diet rich in vitamins and minerals was shown to do the opposite.

Source:

Poverty may be linked with poorer performance on cognitive tests

For each one-point increase in a country’s average IQ, the per capita GDP was $229 higher, and can go up to $468 higher for each additional point

A 2011 study in Psychological Science revealed that in a study of 90 countries, the "intelligence of the people, particularly the smartest 5 percent, made a big contribution to the strength of their economies." Intelligence was determined by various factors such as test scores in

Source: Psychological Science

There may be a link between intelligence and life expectancy

High performance cognitive tests may also demonstrate high levels of creativity

Creative potential can be revealed in cognitive ability tests, according to c Scott Kaufman, Ph.D. "Thoughtful reasoning, divergent production, pattern detection, learning," are all part of the creative process, and are measured in an IQ test, he wrote in Psychology today in 2011.

Source: Psychology Today

Intelligence and social skills may be linked

Intelligence may be correlated with emotional intelligence, or "EQ," according to a 2013 studySocial Cognitive & Affective Neuroscience

Source: Social Cognitive & Affective Neuroscience

Eric Goldschein and Kim Bhasin contributed to a previous version of this story.

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