walking papers alone in a place like this

“In general, more intelligent individuals are more likely to have ‘unnatural’ preferences and values that our ancestors did not have,” Kanazawa says. Urban areas are still shown to be far more stressful for living than rural environments. Instead, humans were interacting with unknown humans constantly. No longer were humans rarely interacting with strangers. When humans made the shift to highly urban environments, it profoundly impacted our culture.

But the researchers have made an interesting suggestion.Īccording to the researchers, this doesn’t apply to highly intelligent people. Therefore, because our brains have evolved to be best suited to the way life was as hunter-gatherers, most people these days would be happier by living in a way that is more natural to them: be around fewer people and spend more time with friends. We also spend far less time with our friends than our ancestors did.

How frequently humans socialize with their friendsĪccording to the researchers, in the modern era many people live in places of a higher population density than our ancestors did.

The researchers analyzed two key factors that are unique to the contemporary era: Evolution moves at a slow pace and hasn’t caught up with technological and civilizational progress. In simple terms, evolutionary psychology assumes that our bodies and brains have evolved to be hunter-gatherers. Therefore, the researchers argue, our brains are not well suited to comprehending and responding to the unique conditions of modern-day society. The theory comes from evolutionary psychology and argues that the human brain was largely designed by and adapted to the conditions of the environment before we created an agricultural-based society. The Savanna Theory of happiness suggests that the average human’s happiness comes from conditions that mirror this ancestral savanna.

Instead, humans lived in bands of up to 150 different humans in tight-knit groups. It refers to the concept that our brains did most of their biological evolution while humans were living in the savannas.īack then, hundreds of thousands of years ago, humans lived in sparse, rural environments where it was uncommon to meet strangers. What is the “savanna theory of happiness?” The authors explain their findings by referring to the “savanna theory of happiness.” That’s right: for most people, socializing with friends results in increasing levels of happiness. One of their key findings was reported by Inverse: “Analysis of this data revealed that being around dense crowds of people typically leads to unhappiness, while socializing with friends typically leads to happiness – that is, unless the person in question is highly intelligent.” They got their data as part of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, a survey that measures life satisfaction, intelligence, and health. The researchers came to their conclusion after analyzing survey responses from 15,197 people between the ages of 18 and 28. How intelligence, population density, and friendship affect modern happiness The psychology of being a loner, according to Carl Jung.It doesn’t mean that if you like to be around your friends you’re not highly intelligent.Explaining the research finding that highly intelligent people like to be alone.How intelligence, population density, and friendship affect modern happiness.Let’s dive deeper into the research study. But more intelligent people were happier being alone as they could solve challenges on their own. Therefore, less intelligent people were happier to be with friends as it helped them to solve challenges. The more intelligent members of a group were more able to solve problems on their own without needing help from their friends. They based their findings in evolutionary psychology, suggesting that intelligence evolved as a quality for solving unique challenges. In a paper published in the British Journal of Psychology, Norman Li and Satoshi Kanazawa explain why highly intelligent people experience lower life satisfaction when they socialize more frequently with their friends. This quite surprising claim is backed up by research. Being in nature brings us joy.Īnd, for most people, being around friends makes us feel content.įriends will make you happier. Reducing social media use will improve your emotional wellbeing. Exercise is known to reduce anxiety and help you relax. Scientists have a pretty good idea about what makes people happy. Read our affiliate disclosure.Ī research study suggests that highly intelligent people like to be alone. If you buy through links on this page, we may earn a small commission. We sometimes include products we think are useful for our readers.

Walking papers alone in a place like this