Having smart friends makes us smarter, research shows

A study reveals the power over our minds that the influence of friends has on our youth.

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 with the title: Can our friends makes us smarter? (in conjunction with the Federal Bureau of Criminology and the International School of Public Affairs of the same state. This document shows the results of a research project led by Professor Ryan Charles Meldrum, which yields very interesting results. But let's start with the basics.

What is intelligence?

Intelligence is the capacity or faculty that people have to act correctly depending on their objectives and available options. Beyond the IQ and other measures of cognitive potential, an intelligent person will be the one who knows how to choose the best option among the possible ones, who is able to do what he/she wants to do.and who is capable of doing what is best for him/her in each situation and moment. It can also be understood as the capacity of individuals to absorb data, process it, understand it and use this knowledge in the best possible way.

Does having smart friends make us smarter?

From the time we begin to have conscience and 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", "hang out with Pepito who is smart", etc. are some of the phrases that we most identify with when remembering part of the education we have received from our family. It is evident that, depending on the group we belong to, this will have a direct influence on our behavior and personal development.

Interpersonal relationships with friends are largely determined by our family environment, the social stratum and the 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 childhood.

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

Puberty, a key moment

A large body of research is based on the subject of the influence of the the influence of the environment on our cognitive abilities.. The groups or individuals with whom we associate will have a special impact on our behavior. Work carried out by Florida International University reveals the impact of our environment on a personal level: our behavior, cultural feeling and professional outlook.

An exceptional example of this is the children of immigrant relatives in most Western countries. The family nucleus is very hermetic, given the use of the native language and its cultural values. If the first-born child of this family joins, associates and develops with local people, it will also end up adopting the same behaviors, regardless of how deeply rooted it is with its parents.

With these precedents in mind, Ryan Charles and his counterparts decided to delve deeper. They took as their starting point nearly 10,000 high school students, adolescent-ageThey measured their intelligence against that of their peers. The IQ of each individual was correlated with the IQ of his or her friend or group to which he or she belonged.

However, what was striking was that this fact corresponded to a very striking phenomenon: people who were related to more highly intelligent peers had a higher IQ than would be expected taking as parameters their results in intelligence tests taken years before.

Thus, what has been recorded in this study is not simply that people with higher IQs tend to relate more to each other. It has been shown that being part of these social circles has a positive effect on one's own intelligence. social circles has a positive effect on one's own intelligence, at least during childhood and adolescence.at least during childhood and adolescence.

In the course of the research, the results were further refined. Another 7,000 pupils 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 for higher education.

Conclusions

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

In addition, relationships with a healthy environment not only provide intellectual benefits, but also ensure a good development of social behavior. Among other advantages, having a high IQ allows access to a support network with greater resources.