High-IQ People Have One Peculiar Habit That Doesn't Make Sense To An Average Person, Says A Behavioral Scientist
Andrii Iemelianenko | ShutterstockHave you named your car? Do you call her Darla and talk her through a tricky moment of parallel parking? Yeah, I’ve totally done it as well. In fact, I think that more people than those who outwardly admit it are guilty of talking to pets, their cars, and maybe even their toaster ovens.
Despite the temptation to think people are crazy when they do this, those who talk to objects may be more intelligent than those who don't. Science has linked the ability of people to give human attributes to things like animals, plants, and random objects with the same area of the brain used to think about human behavior.
Scientists believe that people who assign human characteristics to inanimate objects tend to have higher IQs.
Dr. Nicholas Epley, a behavioral science professor at the University of Chicago, is an expert on anthropomorphism, or giving human attributes to animals, objects, plants, and the like. He argued that doing this is not a sign that someone is insane, but rather a sign of intelligence.
"Historically, anthropomorphizing has been treated as a sign of childishness or stupidity, but it’s actually a natural byproduct of the tendency that makes humans uniquely smart on this planet," he said. "No other species has this tendency."
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This really starts in childhood, when we all give names to and have conversations with our stuffed animals. Adults are discouraged from continuing to do this, but it still happens all the time, even if we don't realize it. The most common way that people do this is by assigning human names to objects, like Darla the car.
According to Epley, there are a few different reasons why we do this. First, we seek out things that look like they have a face, even when they don't. We're also hardwired to assume that things we like have thoughtful minds as we do. And, if we can't explain something's unpredictability, our brains jump to the conclusion that it must be human in some way.
Multiple studies have proven the validity of Epley's points.
Sometimes we see faces in objects where there clearly isn’t one, which is called pareidolia. Who hasn't pulled a potato chip out of a bag before and sworn that it featured a human-like face? It turns out eyes are the most striking facial features we notice.
"Fake eyes are a trick we fall for almost every time — one that can dupe us into seeing a mind where no mind exists," said Epley. "As a member of one of the planet’s most social species, you are hypersensitive to eyes because they offer a window into another person’s mind."
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This was proven by a study at Newcastle University in which scientists kept track of students' "littering behavior" in the cafeteria. They hung different posters with images of things like flowers, faces, and text to see how they would affect people. People were more likely to tidy up when a poster with eyes was hanging because it made them feel like they were being watched.
In another interesting study that Dr. Epley conducted himself, he observed people's reactions to "Clocky," a robotic alarm clock developed by MIT. When the set alarm time went off, the clock jumped down from the bedside table, wheeled across the floor, and emitted a loud sound.
Dr. Epley wanted to study whether people would anthropomorphize the object. He told half of the subjects that the clock was unpredictable and the other half that it was very predictable. The group he told that the clock was unpredictable thought the clock was more mindful, and MRI scans of their brain showed similar patterns to thinking about actual humans when thinking about the clock.
Anthropomorphizing may sound random, but there are actually benefits to it.
When you're struggling to explain how or why something happened, anthropomorphizing an object can help you do so, giving you a sense of peace. It's also possible to feel connected to non-human things when you think this way, which can aid with loneliness and empathy.
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Obviously, our minds are incredibly adept at processing social situations at top speed since we need to respond to them so quickly. This can also explain anthropomorphizing. We're just used to seeing faces all the time, so we start to pick up on them in things that don't actually have them as well.
Choosing to anthropomorphize something, whether it's conscious or not, points to higher levels of intelligence, especially social intelligence. Don't let average thinkers make you feel strange for doing this when it's actually something of a superpower.
Shannon Ullman is a writer who focuses on travel and adventure, women's health, pop culture, and relationships. Her work has appeared in Huffington Post, MSN, and Matador Network.
