Smarter People Tend to Possess Enhanced Working Memory

Thinking styles changed during the twentieth century. Practical, use-based thinking gave way to abstract, symbolic, and scientific thinking. Questions about whether intelligence can increase with maturity remain controversial. Intelligence is often treated as fixed, like eye color, or as modifiable, raising questions about how to increase it. A common but unhelpful definition equates intelligence with what intelligence tests measure, which is circular. IQ results are culturally treated as determining intelligence, with environment playing a secondary role, and with individual IQ gains over a lifespan described as modest. Lifestyle changes such as learning more, attending school longer, and associating with highly intelligent people may increase knowledge, but their effect on actual intelligence is questioned. Traits associated with intelligence include fluid intelligence, which does not rely on previously acquired knowledge.

"Thinking styles changed during the twentieth century. Thinking based on practical use has given way to abstract, symbolic, and scientific thinking. Wouldn't we all like to be smarter? No matter how intelligent we actually are, we always know someone who at least appears to be smarter than we are (or so we believe)."

Read at Psychology Today