Having smart friends makes us smarter

Can our friends make us smarter through their influence on us? A pioneering study in human behavior analyzes this premise, and establishes a strong relationship between classmates who socialize with more or less intelligent people.

Florida International University has produced a report entitled: Can our friends make us smarter? (Can our friends make us smarter?) in conjunction with the Federal Department of Criminology and the International School of Public Relations of the same state. This document shows the results of an investigation led by Professor Ryan Charles Meldrum, which yields very interesting results. But let's start with the basics.

• Related article: "theories of human intelligence"
• You may be interested in this article by psychologist Bertrand Regader: "Howard Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences"

What is intelligence?

Intelligence is the capacity or faculty that people have to act correctly depending on their objectives and the available options. Beyond IQ and other measures of cognitive potential,

An intelligent person will be one who knows how to choose the best option from among the possible ones., who is able to do what is best for him in each situation and moment. It can also be understood as the ability of individuals to absorb data, process it, understand it and use this knowledge in the best possible way.

• You may be interested in: "This is how education and training influence your intelligence"

Does having smart friends make us smarter?

From the time we become conscious until we enter the circle of social development, our parents influence us to surround ourselves with the right friends. "Don't go with this friend", "get together with Pepito, he's smart", etc. These are some of the phrases that we identify the most when it comes to remembering part of the education we have received from our family. It is evident that, depending on the group to which we belong, this will directly influence our behavior and personal development.

Interpersonal relationships with friends are largely determined by our family environment, social stratum and aspirations for the future that are instilled in us or that, on a personal level, we intend to achieve, even if these are different from those acquired during the childhood.

But... Does the fact of relating to one type of person or another really influence us so much? In many aspects yes, and now it is known that this could even affect our level of intelligence, at least if certain conditions are met.

Puberty, key moment

An extensive base of studies is based on the subject of the influence of the environment on our cognitive abilities. The groups or individuals with whom we get together will have a special impact on our behavior. Work done by Florida International University reveals the impact of our environment on a personal level: our behavior, cultural sentiment, and professional outlook.

An exceptional example in this matter are the children of immigrant relatives in a large part of Western countries. The family nucleus is very hermetic, since the native language and its cultural values ​​are used. If the eldest son of this family gets together, associates and develops with local people, he will end up equally adopting the same behaviors, regardless of the roots they have with their parents.

Given these precedents, Ryan Charles and his counterparts decided to dig deeper. They took almost 10,000 high school students as a starting point, adolescent age, and measured their degree of intelligence with that of their peers. The IQ of each individual was correlated with the IQ of his friend or group to which he belonged.

However, what was striking is that this fact corresponded to a very striking phenomenon: the people who related to more very intelligent classmates, they had an IQ higher than what would be expected taking as parameters their results in intelligence tests taken years back.

So what has been recorded in this study is not simply that people with higher IQs tend to associate more with each other. It has been seen that the fact becoming part of these social circles has a positive effect on one's own intelligenceat least during childhood and adolescence.

During the investigation, they wanted to clarify the results even more. Another 7,000 students between the ages of 8 and 16 were taken, and the conclusions were similar. Those children who had grown up in groups with better academic grades had obtained better records to access higher education.

conclusions

It seems that the adolescent age is the key to the study. Some previous experiments confirmed in the same way the effects of "good or bad companies" between the periods of primary and secondary education, effects that lost strength and consistency when these data were compared with the university period. According to the latest results, there is a missing link that does not correlate adolescent friendships with adulthood.

As if that were not enough, relationships with a healthy environment do not only provide intellectual benefits, but also provide a good development of social behavior. Among other advantages, having a high IQ allows access to a support network with more resources.