So, it seems that the supposed link between higher intelligence and depression, though intuitively correct, doesn't seem to be supported by the evidence. In fact, the only relation seems to be going in the opposite direction. Apparently, intelligence is always good, even if it paints a more realistic (and therefore bleaker) view of the world.
Some quotes from the abstracts:
"Theorists have speculated that intelligence is positively associated with the capacity to benefit from cognitive-behavioral therapies. This notion was evaluated by relating pretreatment measures of fluid and crystallized intelligence (the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS)-Clarke for vocabulary and the Shipley Institute of Living Scale for Measuring Intellectual Impairment) to self-reported symptom reduction in a naturalistic study of cognitive therapy for 106 outpatients with principal diagnoses of major depression, dysthymia, or generalized anxiety disorder. Intelligence measures did not significantly predict outcome, and nonsignificant relationships were in the opposite direction from the theoretical prediction."
"IQ does not relate significantly to depressive symptoms."
"For children of mothers with no or less chronic depression, higher IQ was associated with a lower likelihood of depression; in contrast, for children of mothers with a history of more chronic depression, higher levels of IQ were significantly associated with a greater likelihood of depression."
Interesting, no?
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2 comments:
yes it is interesting but where are your references to back it up?? i'm going to conduct a slight variation of this study and if already done then i want to see it...
Hey Paul,
I wrote this year ago. Any references that I once had are long lost. And honestly, I wouldn't go looking at informal blogs for legit research...I clearly didn't put much thought into this post.
The subject, however, does still intrigue me, and I would be interested to learn about your results after you conduct your study. Let me know what you find!
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