November 5, 2025
Brainy but bummed?
Why aren't smart people happier?
Smart but sad? Readers blame bad surveys, society’s grind, and jealous haters
TLDR: A psychologist says intelligence barely ties to happiness, with one dataset showing a tiny negative link. Commenters erupted, blaming bad happiness surveys, jealous haters, and an “always more” culture, while others argued we define “smart” wrong—suggesting happiness is messier than test scores and why this debate hits home.
Harvard-trained psychologist Adam Mastroianni drops a brainy bomb: smarter people aren’t clearly happier, and in a huge data set, folks with higher vocab scores were actually a tiny bit less happy. Cue the comments going full courtroom drama. One crowd charges the world with crimes against geniuses: smart people are surrounded by chaos, said one user, basically writing their take before reading anything. Another faction insists we’ve got “smart” all wrong—being good at tests doesn’t equal life wisdom or emotional balance. Meanwhile, the conspiracy theorists of the thread point a finger at the “happiness” side of the math, wondering if surveys are junk and brainy people just answer differently.
The jealousy subplot stole the show: commenters claim there are haters who actively try to drag smart folks down, turning every meeting into an escape room (minus the fun). Others go big-picture, saying our “always more, never enough” culture squeezes joy out of everyone—especially overthinkers who can’t stop analyzing the grind. A few tossed memes about Spearman’s century-old “general intelligence” idea and jokes about paying people to do better on IQ tests, while linking to the General Social Survey. The vibe? It’s not your IQ, it’s the vibes, the system, and possibly the survey. Internet court is adjourned, no one’s happier, everyone’s louder.
Key Points
- •A widely accepted definition of intelligence emphasizes broad capabilities like reasoning, planning, abstract thinking, and learning, which are measurable by tests.
- •Meta-analyses report no or only very small positive correlations between intelligence and happiness.
- •A large UK study finds only the lowest scorers on an intelligence test are slightly less happy; otherwise intelligence does not predict greater happiness.
- •Analysis of 50 years of General Social Survey data (n=30,346) shows a small negative correlation between vocabulary test scores and happiness (r = -0.06, p < .001).
- •Despite criticisms and potential biases, intelligence measures still predict educational and occupational outcomes, intensifying the puzzle given their weak link to happiness; the article references Spearman’s g theory as background.