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functionaldisaster

2 years ago

World's Wealthiest May Actually Be Less Intelligent Than Those Who Don't Earn As Much

Being at the top end of the income scale doesn't necessarily mean you're all that smarter than the average person, according to a new study – and those in the top 1 percent of the earnings scale score lower in cognitive ability tests than those earning...

Researchers of the study argue that this “plateauing of cognitive ability” amongst the biggest earners shows that at the very top pay scales, the resources available due to someone’s family background and lucky breaks in careers carry more weight than overall intelligence.

A team of researchers from Linköping University in Sweden, the European University Institute in Italy, and the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands say that better cognitive ability plays more of a role further down the pay scale.

“We find that the relationship between ability and wage is strong overall, yet above €60,000 (US$64,407) per year ability plateaus at a modest level of +1 standard deviation,” write the researchers in their published paper.

“The top 1 percent even score slightly worse on cognitive ability than those in the income strata right below them.”

This is based on data from 59,387 Swedish men who completed a military conscription test aged 18 or 19. While this limits the findings in terms of nationality and gender, it still provides a relatively large sample across a variety of pay levels and occupations.

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not surprised science social sciences humans wealth intelligence but it's nice to have it on paper

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