Why Intelligent People Drink More Alcohol

Celaeno · Joined: 09 Jul 2006 Posts: 3039 Location: Kzoo

This is old and probably wouldn't typically deserve its own thread, but this is Sinfest where alcohol, intelligence, and evolution are (generally) highly valued, so I thought this was just the kind of thing you might enjoy.

Sam · Joined: 09 Jul 2006 Posts: 11143

There are so many sociological variables that could be presented here that you could come up with hundred of theoretical models over psychological or physiological angles. Here are a few:

- Intelligent people are more often socially networked and get into social drinking, which increases overall drinking rates.

- Intelligent people are more often socially adept and get into social drinking, which increases overall drinking rates.

- People in more networked, social families tend to grow up to be more intelligent (factors of socioeconomic advantages in enculturation and education) and create the parallel correlation linking drinking and intelligence.

- Children whose upbringing was conformative to a parental model of reinforcement through harsher means — and thus more degrees of self-doubt and stress in adulthood, see ~tiger moms~ — tend to be both more intelligent and create the correlative relationship to drinking because they DRINK THE PAIN AWAY OH GOD

- herp derp

- derpa herp

- etcetera

They are all more or less crude guesses which will take a while to straighten out and figure out why this is in terms of social patterning and the relations to intelligence. Since drinking habits are, minus a few physiological patternings, mostly trackable through social patterns.

Usagi Miyamoto · Joined: 09 Jul 2006 Posts: 2259 Location: wish I was here

I realize Kanazawa's writing for Psychology Today, which is about as representative of psychology as Popular Science is of science, but I can't say I'm impressed with the way his simple hypothesis that intelligence correlates with seeking out evolutionarily novel behavior becomes a hammer in search of nails. His next three posts are all about looking for support for his own hypothesis in pretty much the exact way I'd have looked for confirmation.

So, here's what he puts up as the numbers for drinking:

Okay then. Pretty clear.

Let's look at smoking:

Ah... hmm.

How about drugs?

Errrr. Um. Maybe if you squint?

So, some positive correlation, not a slam dunk, and it's pretty easy to come up with competing hypotheses that don't appear to have been controlled for. Maybe the evolutionarily novel is more attractive to thrill seekers, or anti-authoritarians, or people who put more trust in their own analysis. Or maybe it's not correlating with the novel as much as the self-modifying, or the anti-anxiolytic. Do reckless drivers drink or smoke more? Do smarter people get more tattoos, or go the the spa more often?

Also, way to make me feel like an outlier.
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Sam · Joined: 09 Jul 2006 Posts: 11143

You're not an outlier, you're just secretly dumb until you start drinking with us.

Sam · Joined: 09 Jul 2006 Posts: 11143

Snorri · Posted: Fri May 06, 2011 5:44 pm Post subject:

Snorri · Posted: Fri May 06, 2011 5:50 pm Post subject:

for realsies though, the idea that curiosity is the main factor just strikes me as a large leap. I don't drink because I'm curious about it because surely I'd get bored of it after the first two months right? If anything my more advanced brain would help me get tired of it more quickly than other less evolved humans.
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Samsally · Joined: 10 Jul 2006 Posts: 7454

This conversation is epic fun because it forces people to make really silly assumptions.

But I just don't drink much, so what do I know?

Dogen · Joined: 10 Jul 2006 Posts: 11274 Location: PDX

The hypothesis that intelligent people are more likely to engage in evolutionarily novel behavior is interesting. What is it about the behavior that makes it compelling? Simply because a behavior is novel on the scale of evolution doesn't make it novel for the individual. Do smarter people drive more? Do we put more things into grocery sacks? How novel does a behavior have to be in order for it to qualify as evolutionarily novel?

Now, Kanazawa seems to have solid credentials, so I'm inclined to believe he's simply not explaining his hypothesis well.
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Usagi Miyamoto · Joined: 09 Jul 2006 Posts: 2259 Location: wish I was here

From an evolutionary standpoint I think practically everything we Westerners do is novel. Everything from trade to agriculture to animal domestication to living in cities is evolutionarily novel. Practically everything we eat is novel in substance, production, and taste. The way we clothe and shelter ourselves and earn a living is novel. The way we interact with perhaps hundreds of strangers every day is especially novel. Picking alcohol as an index for novelty is like picking a pair of socks as representative of the contents of a department store.

I don't know about the Yanomami, say, or Sentinelese, and how they might adopt or reject evolutionarily novel behaviors in correlation with intelligence, but the rest of us are swimming in a sea of the evolutionarily novel. I agree, Kanazawa certainly seems sharp, and may have some appropriately argued academic papers I haven't bothered to look up to his name, but the pop psych treatment of his blog entries don't seem to be showing his argument in its best possible light. (These are not the hypotheses you're looking for. Move along.)

On a (very) tangential note, while thinking about smart people and social drinking, I remembered that I've long been curious if Mensa gatherings are as depressing as I fear. I joined once, while a freshman in college, but never made it to a meeting. Since then I've apparently saved about $1800 in membership dues, adjusted for inflation, which makes me feel pretty smart, even without alcohol.

YOU DON'T DRINK WELL HOW SMART CAN YOU BE also WHY AREN'T YOU RICH variant for Objectivists YOU DON'T SMOKE WHY DO I EVEN WASTE MY TIME YOU PULING GOVERNMENT-CODDLED SOCIALIST MORON alternative title The Most Interesting Man In The World (Once You've Had At Least Three Dos Equis)
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Guest · Joined: 15 Aug 2006 Posts: 2178

If I didn't know better (I'm not the heavy drinker type), I'd say this study is total pish. Evolutionary novel would arguably be to abstain from drinking, because from an evolutionary standpoint you'd last longer.

I notice he also didn't form a study on the smoking of marijuana in his smoking section, which increases brain cells, apparently (or brain cell formation). I also wonder, what does this imply about Einstein? Was he secretly normal?
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Michael · Joined: 09 Jul 2006 Posts: 11042

Maybe intelligent people are more likely to earn money, get sloshed and get away with it?

Sam · Joined: 09 Jul 2006 Posts: 11143

Mr Gary · Posted: Sat May 07, 2011 4:28 am Post subject:

Yeah I'm a frickin' genius.

Sam · Joined: 09 Jul 2006 Posts: 11143

tonight I will express my genius in the form of a Vieux Carré or three.