Name: People who social distance may be more intelligent, study says
Brand: fastcompany.com
SKU: fastcompany-com-68
Availability: OnlineOnly

critic

People who social distance may be more intelligent, study says

preview

advertisementadvertisementA in the&nbsp;Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences&nbsp;indicates that people who comply with social distancing guidelines have better working memory capacity, which is an indicator of intelligence.advertisement“This suggests policy makers will need to consider individuals’ general cognitive abilities when promoting compliance behaviors such as wearing a mask or engaging in physical distancing,” WeiWei Zhang, an associate professor of psychology at the University of California at Riverside, in a release.Working memory capacity measures how much information can be held in the mind for brief moments, and is strongly correlated with smarts, comprehension, and problem solving. “We propose that this [failure to social distance] may be associated with the limitation in one’s mental capacity to simultaneously retain multiple pieces of information in working memory,” write the authors, who say that people with more working memory have increased awareness of the benefits (versus the costs) of social distancing.The research was carried out in late March on 850 participants, who filled out questionnaires on demographics and social distancing practices, and completed testing on personality and cognitive capacity. The correlation between working memory and social distancing behavior is so strong that individuals’ working memory predicts their social distancing behavior—even when controlling for education, moods, personality, and income levels.advertisementadvertisementInterestingly, the research highlights that social distancing is still an effortful decision that involves working memory, as opposed to a societal habit that does not depend on in-the-moment cognition.The researchers’ aim was not to IQ-shame—quite the contrary. The aim is to identify why some people do not social distance, and to facilitate strategies to improve overall social distancing compliance. Zhang that public campaigns should be “succinct, concise and brief” to avoid information overload.advertisementadvertisementadvertisementadvertisementadvertisement

advertisementadvertisementA in the&nbsp;Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences&nbsp;indicates that people who comply with social distancing guidelines have better working memory capacity, which is an indicator of intelligence.advertisement“This suggests policy makers will need to consider individuals’ general cognitive abilities when promoting compliance behaviors such as wearing a mask or engaging in physical distancing,” WeiWei Zhang, an associate professor of psychology at the University of California at Riverside, in a release.Working memory capacity measures how much...

public

Arianne Cohen

Fast Company is a monthly American business magazine published in print and online that focuses on technology, business, and design. It publishes eight print issues per year. Fast Company was launched in November 1995 by Alan Webber and Bill Taylor, two former Harvard Business Review editors, and publisher Mortimer Zuckerman.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_Company

fastcompany.com

Credible

Speculation

Anecdotal Evidence

Generalization

Stacking the Deck

Appeal to Authority

Straw Man

Slippery Slope

Emotional Appeal

Red Herring

False Dilemma

Illogical

Moral Equivalency

Ad Hominem

Correlation w/o Causation

Semantics

Begging the Question

Faulty Analogy

Non Sequitur

Bandwagon

Dogmatism

Failing Occam's Razor

Biased

Pure Opinion

Hit Piece

Racial Bias

National Bias

Religious Bias

Financial Incentive

Political Agenda

Gender Bias

Misused Image/Video

Study Misinterpreted

Mistake

Misused Term

Science Misrepresented

Factual Error

Satire

Surface Level

Lack of Reliable Sources

Sensational

Not Credible

Investigative

Balanced

Well Sourced

Great Context

sports

entertainment

U.S.

international

business

technology

science

culture

politics

media

health

People who social distance may be more intelligent, study says

No article scores yet.

CRITIC REVIEWS

PUBLIC REVIEWS