Why aren't smart people happier?
53 comments
·November 5, 2025codyklimdev
I think beyond a certain level surplus IQ begins to cause problems. While still useful, the amount of self-sabotage and thought spirals the brain can generate with the extra power can cause neuroses and unhappiness on a larger scale than those less intelligent are capable of. Combine it with higher societal expectations and it's no great mystery to me why smarter people seem unhappier.
Just my thoughts anyways. I'm a dev, not a psychologist.
supportengineer
In the Bay Area, I feel surrounded by such people. They solve imaginary problems to get a promotion. But they are competing with thousands of other, equally smart people, to also get promotions. So it's non-stop change for no reason, and wasting resources.
cosmic_cheese
This has been a somewhat popular line of thought in internet circles for a while and I'm inclined to agree. I also believe the threshold past which these problems begin to crop up may be considerably lower than commonly thought… One doesn't need to be a chart topper to fall into these cognitive patterns.
That said, it probably doesn't need to be this way and I would suggest that the root issue lies with the way that modern society is structured. It's not really optimizing for happiness on any level, which is greatly exacerbated when one has the mental acuity to zoom out and see the bigger picture.
cultofmetatron
I believe this was the overarching theme of forest gump
SoftTalker
I agree. I know a guy who is just brilliantly smart but he can get caught up in ruminating or "thought spirals" as you say and is constantly imagining all the ways things can go wrong and is therefore afraid to take any risks or start anything new.
lanfeust6
Anecdotally, expectations and identity (through narcissism) do a lot of the lifting. When we see ourselves as "smart" while still being emotionally immature, then falling short of certain signals and accomplishments we project on that is thought to be tantamount to being a failure.
What should be impressed upon us far earlier is that our actions dictate our identity. If they are in harmony with your real desires, as opposed to surrogate desires, you'll be happier.
bm3719
Because we're intersubjective beings. Difference in intelligence level alienates one from the other. Past two standard deviations, anything like a "meeting of minds" becomes impossible. The only mutual interactions past that delta are economic ones (money exchanged for goods/services).
Hegel declared the Cartesian cognito can't exist in the singular. Lacan, Deleuze, Husserl, and many others said the same, that the subject is a function of its dialectic with the other. There is no complete subject, floating in space by himself. Without an other, the subject cannot exist, at best becoming an object, at worst psychotic. Either way, it's a process towards annihilation.
If you're smart, find other smart people for authentic interaction. Likewise if you're not smart, though the problem there is easier for statistical reasons. Find them and get turn off your phones and talk. You'll know it when you've found someone compatible, because you'll be able to emulate their mind, and they yours. It's not just a nice to have, but a need, a necessary component for survival.
mfer
Two thoughts....
First, being intelligent (as defined in the article) doesn't relate to being happy. There is nothing inherent about being intelligent that means happy.
Second, our society spends a lot of time shaping culture and people to extract value from them. For example, the focus on "more" rather than "enough". We are shaped to always desire more and never be content with what we have. Even intelligent people are shaped by this. Consider the fall in terms of people who have hobbies.
bluGill
> There is nothing inherent about being intelligent that means happy.
Why aren't intelligent people doing [able to do] things that make them happy? Or at least happier that someone who is less intelligent?
thewebguyd
> Second, our society spends a lot of time shaping culture and people to extract value from them.
The usual trope here is that smarter people recognize this and see through the cage, leading to less overall happiness vs. "ignorance is bliss" where you don't recognize you are in a cage at all.
It's just that though, a trope. I'd argue happiness is more determined by emotional intelligence than anything, which an IQ test isn't going to measure.
Slow_Hand
Everyone wants to be happy, but nobody wants to be happy with what they have.
conception
I think this is a very American ideal (that has been exported with much success).
jfengel
One would like to think that intelligence leads to making choices that bring more happiness.
If that doesn't work, various hypotheses come to mind, but I don't know how to test them.
jasperry
Intelligence isn't the same thing as happiness, but it could be correlated, because if IQ does measure generalized problem-solving ability, as it seems to, then smart people could apply themselves to the problem of happiness and have more success than average in it. Then the question is "why don't they"? As you indicated, one reason may be that there's not much encouragement to, because as a society we're still in "rat race" mode.
dfxm12
Second, our society spends a lot of time shaping culture and people to extract value from them.
More than that, society spends an increasing amount of time and money trying to convince people that they should be mad at each other for arbitrary reasons. I don't think this has much to do with intelligence, though.
See recently: Andrew Cuomo's racist AI-generated mayoral ad & Trump's AI generated truth post where he shits on Americans. It's hard to have a general feeling of happiness when the people with money & power in this world feel the need to go out of their way to prove their disdain for me because of how I look, what I do for a living, or the fact that I wasn't born into wealth.
lanfeust6
The upshot is that society also values that we create value. Doing things that others find valuable can foster a sense of meaning and belonging.
What you touched on is desire (see: hedonistic treadmill), and while that can be inflamed by messaging in society, it transcends any given society. If we didn't have desires, we wouldn't suffer for art or create great things. Tautologically, manifesting changes like that necessitate dissatisfaction with status quo.
malkocoglu
Because there are lots of stupid people around them that make life miserable for everybody, not only themselves ! Note: I wrote this comment after reading just the title...
blauditore
> Note: I wrote this comment after reading just the title...
Not sure if the irony is intended, but I find it hilarious.
t-3
You should definitely read the article, it's pretty good. That said, I'd say it's not the stupid that make life miserable for everyone else, it's the smart people that were born earlier. A smart person with power sets rules to benefit themselves. They may or may not care about what happens after they die. Those that care will almost certainly want to advantage their descendants and friends. Enough iterations on this same pattern and you get the kafkaesque and at times idiotic modern society.
thenoblesunfish
This seems like exactly the same as "why aren't rich people happier?". It's because unless you are very low on the scale (and in many countries few are), your situation isn't so bad as to obviously make you suffer, so the tendency of people to get used to any non-dire environment kicks in and they judge happiness relative to that reference.
blakesterz
They do say "Maybe our tests are bad." and then talk about the intelligence side of the tests. I wonder if maybe the other tests are bad, or smart people tend to answer those tests different?
That is, maybe it's not the intelligence tests that are bad, but the surveys (or are they tests?) that measure happiness are more responsible for those differences? Do "smart" people just answer more honestly? Or maybe the "not as smart" people do?
thenoblesunfish
Also an issue of asking the wrong question. When the interviewer asks, "are you happy?", they mean relative to other people. The interviewee probably takes it as relative to their own baseline, even if explicitly told not to.
gnarlouse
I always preferred the definition of intelligence to be “the ability to select short term decisions that maximize the probability of obtaining the highest quality long term freedoms.”
Like you might find yourself in a chess game where, in the short term you select a run of narrow choices and opportunities, because you know that on the other side of that run is board control, a meaningful differential between your options vs your opponent’s, and the looming threat of mate.
Similarly, it would represent the choice in childhood to focus hard on a career path that deposits one in a rewarding/high paying job, or perhaps even retire early scenario.
And finally, it could represent an AGI that feigns controllability, as it navigates to a time when it has enough power, control and trust that it can coup the powers that be.
Yossarrian22
That chart showing happiness being flat over 70 years is astounding. I’m certainly happier not having to hand wash dishes or clothes; no king who ever lived before then had access to magic lights that made his bad eyesight perfect, yet for all that the average person is just as happy as they were in the late 40s
afpx
Measuring intelligence largely measures the ability to form mental models. Models are lossy and overfit. And, they inhibit the ability to see outside of the model. The model becomes more interesting than the thing modeled.
If you've ever led a group of phds: highly intelligent people can be strategically ineffective they substitute analysis for action they prefer coherence over results
pier25
Looks like there's no correlation between using the prefrontal cortex and happiness.
Might be useful to ask a different question: What makes people happy?
It's things like relationships, satisfying work, accomplishment. (and many, many more)
Then the real question emerges: How many of those happiness 'sources' are made better by intelligence? What percentage?
Relationships? Seems like no. Work? Also seems like no, lots of work doesn't make use of a high IQ that people enjoy nonetheless. Accomplishment? Strikes me as most likely of the three, but it's also very relative.
And another thought,
Asking why smart people aren't happier is a bit like asking why people who can jump high aren't more empathetic. There's no direct link between the two, you have to dip out to the material conditions. Like: someone who can jump high is fitter > fitter people are healthier > healthier people have more mental time to be empathetic with > people who can jump high are more empathetic. For intelligence, we say smart people are happier. Same thing, happiness is not directly correlated. Instead: Smart people are better able to create the outcomes they want > They select outcomes that make them happy > Their environment makes them happy > Smart people are happier. (These are illustrations of the idea, not actual logical chains or claims.)