Intelligent men are more committed in relationships: study

With great intelligence comes great responsibility.

It takes a fool to fall in love, but it takes a smart partner to make it last, new research suggests.

General intelligence is a strong indicator of an individual’s likelihood of success in life; because those with the right qualifications are more likely to experience the kind of academic and professional success that will move them forward socially and economically.

In terms of romance, previous studies have also found that divorce rates are lower and middle-age marriage rates are higher among the intelligent sect.

Taking the research a step further, evolutionary psychologist Gavin S. Vance and his colleagues at Oakland University in Michigan set out to investigate what factors in a relationship were linked to good or bad intelligence or lack thereof.

For new reports published in Personality and Individual DifferencesThey chose to narrow their experiment to heterosexual men and included 202 participants who were between the ages of 18 and 65, had been in a relationship for six months or more, and had an average duration of just over three and a half years.

The study group was asked to take a cognitive test to assess general intelligence skills, such as the ability to solve problems or apply logic, and took another survey that revealed positive and negative relationship behaviors.

The results show that the smarter the man, the more positive his relationship yields. Smart men exhibited higher levels of relationship satisfaction and prioritization while being less exposed to harmful relationship burdens such as verbal abuse, manipulation, and sexual coercion.

In particular, high scores on pattern recognition and sequential reasoning were strongly linked to men who were more invested in their relationships and, conversely, exhibited less problem behavior overall. This finding suggests that these skills may facilitate impulse control by helping men consider the consequences of habitual bad behavior, the researchers say.

However, researchers did not find a significant link between male intelligence and some behaviors, such as jealousy, physical abuse, and desire to dominate.

More research exploring the relationship between romantic success and women’s general intelligence, and its impact on other types of relationships, could help us get to the root of what makes love last.