Do Smart People Worry More?

If you worry a lot, fear not—your anxiety just might be a sign of high intelligence. The idea has been around for a while: The adage that ignorance is bliss suggests the reverse, that knowledge involves anguish. Now it’s starting to get some scientific validation.

In a recent study, for instance, psychologist Alexander Penney and his colleagues surveyed more than 100 students at Lakehead University in Ontario, Canada, and asked them to report their levels of worry.

The researchers found that students with more angst—for instance, those who agreed with survey statements like “I am always worrying about something”—scored higher on a verbal intelligence test.
The perception that worrywarts are smart is bolstered by a peculiar 2012 experiment by psychologists Tsachi Ein-Dor and Orgad Tal, from the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya in Israel. The experiment inflicted seemingly incidental bursts of stress on 80 students.

The students in the study were told their role was to assess artwork presented by a software program—but this was just a cover story. While doing so, participants “accidentally” activated a supposedly virulent computer virus. (This, of course, happened automatically, regardless of the participants’ behavior.) Next, they were urged by the trained actress running the show to seek technical support urgently.

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