In a roundabout way, worry could just mean you’re intelligent. What’s so roundabout about it…? Despite having nothing to do with general intelligence, the case has now been made for the correlation between worrying and… verbal intelligence.
Credit the team studying undergrads at Ontario’s Lakehead University for the find after hitting the students with surveys and questionnaires pertaining not just to stress, but also their intelligence.
It seems that “the verbally intelligent are tormented by their memory for detail” — they worry.
It is possible that more verbally intelligent individuals are able to consider past and future events in greater detail, leading to more intense rumination and worry.
Contrast that with those considered to be non-verbal:
Individuals with higher non-verbal intelligence may be stronger at processing the non-verbal signals from individuals they interact with in the moment, leading to a decreased need to re-process past social encounters. [They do not worry.]
So if you do worry, consider the plus side of it. You’ll worry less that way.
News to Share Brief source: NYMag Science of Us — “Worrying About Stuff Is a Sign of Intelligence” by Melissa Dahl
