谈恋爱真的会降智吗？

近日，#谈恋爱 降智#、#如何理解智者不入爱河#等关于恋爱的话题频频登上微博热搜，今天我们就来看看一项有意思的研究。

研究发现，人们往往会高估伴侣的智商。

无注释原文：

Your romantic partner is probably less intelligent than you think

Business Insider

Aug 4, 2019

It's now well known that many of us over-estimate our own brainpower. In one study, more than 90% of US college professors famously claimed to be better than average at teaching, for instance — which would be highly unlikely. Our egos blind us to our own flaws.

But do we have an even more inflated view of our nearest and dearest? It seems we do — that's the conclusion of a new paper published in Intelligence journal, which has shown that we consistently view our romantic partners as being much smarter than they really are. 

The researchers, Gilles Gignac at the University of Western Australia and Marcin Zajenkowski at the University of Warsaw, also tested whether the couples' actual IQs influenced their relationship satisfaction — with surprising results.

There had been some previous signs that we are especially optimistic about our loved ones' attributes. When it comes to physical attractiveness, for instance, we tend to think that we have managed to attract someone who is even hotter than us — an effect sometimes called the "love is blind bias". But past studies had failed to find a similar optimism for estimates of partners' intelligence. Overall, people seemed to judge their partners' intelligence as equal to their own — rather than thinking that they were especially clever. 

For the new study, the researchers recruited 218 heterosexual couples, who had been together for an average of six years, and around a quarter were married. Rather that guessing IQ scores — which might be confusing for participants who have little knowledge of IQ tests and their scoring — the participants had to estimate their own intelligence and their partner's intelligence using a more intuitive, graphical scale (see below). The researchers then converted those estimates to IQ points according to the known statistical distribution of intelligence — the famous bell curve. To find the participants' actual, objective IQ scores, the researchers also asked them to take a standard test of non-verbal intelligence known as the Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices.

As the previous research on individual overconfidence had found, most participants over-estimated their own intelligence by a huge margin — the equivalent of around 30 IQ points on average. Overall, only 0.9% of women and 1.8% of men assessed their own intelligence as being below average (even though 68.8% of the women and 55% of the men in this study scored below 100 — the mean IQ of the population as a whole). 

The participants' estimates of their partners' intelligence were even more skewed. The men thought their wives and girlfriends' IQs were around 36 points higher than they really were; the women thought their husbands and boyfriends' IQs were 38 points higher than the reality. In other words, if you are like the majority of people in this sample, your partner is probably much less clever than you believe.

Besides this eye-catching result, Gignac and Zajenkowski's paper is rich with other findings. They were interested, for instance, in whether people tend to hook up with someone of similar cognitive ability — and whether that "intellectual compatibility" is important for their happiness together. As previous research has found, there was a moderate correlation between the partners' actual IQ scores — so in general people do seem to pick partners who roughly match their intelligence. 

Maybe we have a slight preference for people with similar smarts to ourselves, or maybe it's due to the fact that we have more opportunity to get romantically involved with people of roughly similar intelligence — in education or at work. Whatever the reasons, the degree of similarity of couples' IQs didn't seem to influence their relationship satisfaction — overall, couples with lower "intellectual compatibility" appeared to be just as happy as the couples who were more closely matched.

Gignac and Zajenkowski also examined whether the men or the women in their sample were better at estimating their partners' intelligence. According to some evolutionary psychologists, because the responsibility of pregnancy, childbirth, and usually childrearing, falls more directly on women, they should be pickier than men about the kind of person they choose to reproduce with. If true, it would make sense for women to have evolved to be more perceptive than men of differences in other people's intelligence. Yet the researchers found no evidence of this. 

As the researchers admit, there are some limitations to their study. They only used a non-verbal IQ test, for instance, and it's possible you would see different results if you also looked at verbal questions. After all, the size of someone's vocabulary and their linguistic fluency may be easier for a partner to judge accurately. 

But overall, the findings help extend our understanding of our self-serving biases, showing our egotism and self-confidence can sometimes spill-over to our loved ones. Maybe we like to think we're with a partner who reflects an even better version of ourselves.

- ◆ -

注：中文文本为机器翻译仅供参考，并非一一对应

含注释全文：

Your romantic partner is probably less intelligent than you think

Business Insider

Aug 4, 2019

It's now well known that many of us over-estimate our own brainpower. In one study, more than 90% of US college professors famously claimed to be better than average at teaching, for instance — which would be highly unlikely. Our egos blind us to our own flaws.

众所周知，我们中的许多人高估了自己的智力。例如，在一项研究中，超过90%的美国大学教授声称自己在教学方面优于平均水平——这是极不可能的。我们以自我为中心让我们看不到自己的缺陷。

表示“过高估计；过高评价”，英文解释为“to think that something is or will be greater, more extreme, or more important than it really is”举个🌰：

The benefits of nuclear technology had been grossly overestimated.

核技术的好处被大大高估了。

表示“脑力，智能，智力”，英文解释为“your intelligence or your ability to think”举个🌰：

Solving this problem has taken all my brainpower.

解决这个问题令我绞尽了脑汁。

ego /ˈiːɡəʊ, ˈɛgəʊ/ 表示“自我价值感；自我，自我意识；自我评价；自我中心；自负；自尊心”，英文解释为“Someone's ego is their sense of their own worth. For example, if someone has a large ego, they think they are very important and valuable.”举个🌰：

He had a massive ego, never would he admit he was wrong.

他有极强的自我价值感，从来不会承认他错了。

作动词，1）表示“使变瞎；使失明”，英文解释为“to make someone unable to see, permanently or for a short time”；

2）表示“蒙蔽；使无辨别力”，英文解释为“to make someone unable to notice or understand something”举个🌰：

We shouldn't let our prejudices blind us to the facts of the situation.

我们一定不能让偏见蒙蔽自己而看不清实际形势。

But do we have an even more inflated view of our nearest and dearest? It seems we do — that's the conclusion of a new paper published in Intelligence journal, which has shown that we consistently view our romantic partners as being much smarter than they really are. 

但是我们对自己最亲近的人是否有更夸大的看法呢？似乎是的——这是发表在《智力》（Intelligence）杂志上一篇新论文的结论，该论文表明，我们一直认为我们的浪漫伴侣比他们实际要聪明得多。 

inflated 表示“（价格、成本、数目等）过高的，过多的”，英文解释为“Inflated prices, costs, numbers, etc. are higher than they should be, or higher than people think is reasonable.”

The researchers, Gilles Gignac at the University of Western Australia and Marcin Zajenkowski at the University of Warsaw, also tested whether the couples' actual IQs influenced their relationship satisfaction — with surprising results.

研究人员西澳大利亚大学（University of Western Australia）的吉勒·吉纳克（Gilles Gignac）和华沙大学（University of Warsaw）的马辛·扎根科夫斯基（Marcin Zajenkowski）也测试了对象之间的实际智商是否会影响他们的关系满意度——结果令人惊讶。

📍IQ：intelligence quotient的缩写，表示“智商”，英文解释为“abbreviation for intelligence quotient: a measure of someone's intelligence found from special tests”举个🌰：

Children with very low/high IQs often have problems at school.

低/高智商的孩子在学校常常会不顺利。

📍EQ：emotional quotient的缩写，表示“情商”，英文解释为“a measurement of a person's emotional intelligence (= their ability to understand their own feelings and the feelings of others)”

There had been some previous signs that we are especially optimistic about our loved ones' attributes. When it comes to physical attractiveness, for instance, we tend to think that we have managed to attract someone who is even hotter than us — an effect sometimes called the "love is blind bias". But past studies had failed to find a similar optimism for estimates of partners' intelligence. Overall, people seemed to judge their partners' intelligence as equal to their own — rather than thinking that they were especially clever. 

以前曾有迹象表明，我们对所爱之人的品质特别乐观。例如，当谈到外表吸引力时，我们倾向于认为我们成功地吸引了比我们更性感的人——这种效应有时被称为“爱情是盲目偏见”。但过去的研究未能在对伴侣智力的估计中发现类似的乐观情绪。总体而言，人们似乎认为伴侣的智力与自己相当，而不是认为他们更聪明。 

表示“乐观的”，英文解释为“hoping or believing that good things will happen in the future”举个🌰：

She is optimistic about her chances of winning a gold medal.

她对赢得金牌很乐观。

作名词，表示“特性；特质；属性”，英文解释为“a quality or characteristic that someone or something has”举个🌰：

Organizational ability is an essential attribute for a good manager.

组织能力是一个优秀经理必备的素质。

作动词，表示“认为是…所为（或说、写、作）”，英文解释为“to say or believe that sb is responsible for doing sth, especially for saying, writing or painting sth”举个🌰：

This play is usually attributed to Shakespeare.

人们通常认为这出戏剧是莎士比亚所写。

表示“偏见；偏心；偏向”，英文解释为“a strong feeling in favour of or against one group of people, or one side in an argument, often not based on fair judgement”举个🌰：

Employers must consider all candidates impartially and without bias.

雇主必须公平而毫无成见地考虑所有求职者。

For the new study, the researchers recruited 218 heterosexual couples, who had been together for an average of six years, and around a quarter were married. Rather that guessing IQ scores — which might be confusing for participants who have little knowledge of IQ tests and their scoring — the participants had to estimate their own intelligence and their partner's intelligence using a more intuitive, graphical scale (see below). The researchers then converted those estimates to IQ points according to the known statistical distribution of intelligence — the famous bell curve. To find the participants' actual, objective IQ scores, the researchers also asked them to take a standard test of non-verbal intelligence known as the Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices.

在这项新研究中，研究人员招募了218对异性恋，他们平均在一起六年，大约四分之一的人已婚。与其猜测智商分数——对于对智商测试及其评分知之甚少的参与者来说，这可能会令人困惑——参与者要做的是利用更直观的图形量表（见下文）来估计自己和伴侣的智力。然后，研究人员根据已知的智力统计分布——著名的钟形曲线（bell curve）——将这些估计转换为智商分数。为了找到参与者实际、客观的智商分数，研究人员还要求他们参加一项被称为“瑞文高级推理测验”（The Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices）的非言语智力标准测试。

heterosexual /ˌhet.ər.əˈsek.ʃu.əl/ 表示“异性恋者”，英文解释为“a person who is sexually attracted to people of the opposite sex”

表示“直觉的；凭直觉的”，英文解释为“based on feelings rather than facts or proof”如：an intuitive approach/judgment 凭直觉的方法/判断。

1）表示“标度，刻度；等级”，英文解释为“a set of numbers, amounts, etc., used to measure or compare the level of something”如：the Centigrade/Fahrenheit scale 摄氏/华氏温标。

2）表示“比例；比例尺”，英文解释为“the relation between the real size of something and its size on a map, model, or diagram”如：a scale of 1:10,000 比例尺为1:10000。

表示“非言语的”，英文解释为“not using spoken language”举个🌰：

Body language is a potent form of non-verbal communication.

肢体语言是一种有效的非言语交流方式。

As the previous research on individual overconfidence had found, most participants over-estimated their own intelligence by a huge margin — the equivalent of around 30 IQ points on average. Overall, only 0.9% of women and 1.8% of men assessed their own intelligence as being below average (even though 68.8% of the women and 55% of the men in this study scored below 100 — the mean IQ of the population as a whole).

正如之前关于个人过度自信的研究发现的那样，大多数参与者高估了自己的智力——智商平均约高估30分。总体而言，只有0.9%的女性和1.8%的男性认为自己的智力低于平均水平（尽管这项研究中68.8%的女性和55%的男性得分低于100分——整个人群的平均智商）。 

1）作形容词，表示“（价值、数量、意义、重要性等）相等的，相同的”，英文解释为“equal in value, amount, meaning, importance, etc.”举个🌰：

Eight kilometres is roughly equivalent to five miles.

八公里约等于五英里。

2）作名词，表示“相等的东西；等量；对应词”，英文解释为“a thing, amount, word, etc. that is equivalent to sth else”。

比如，提到Weibo时候会介绍为中国版的Twitter，常见的有几种说法：

🧣Weibo, China's Twitter-like service (SCMP)

🧣Weibo, the Chinese equivalent to Twitter (NPR NEWS)

🧣Twitter-like Weibo (Reuters)

🧣Weibo, a Twitter-like platform (NYT)

The participants' estimates of their partners' intelligence were even more skewed. The men thought their wives and girlfriends' IQs were around 36 points higher than they really were; the women thought their husbands and boyfriends' IQs were 38 points higher than the reality. In other words, if you are like the majority of people in this sample, your partner is probably much less clever than you believe.

参与者对伴侣智力的估计更加偏颇。男性认为他们的妻子和女朋友的智商比实际高36分左右；女性认为他们的丈夫和男朋友的智商比实际高38分。换句话说，如果你和这个样本中的大多数人一样，你的伴侣可能没有你想象的那么聪明。

skewed /skjuːd/ 1）表示“不准确的，不确切的”，英文解释为“not accurate or exact”举个🌰：

Maybe your world view is a little skewed.

也许你对世界的认知有点不准确。

2）表示“不直的；不直接了当的”，英文解释为“not straight”举个🌰：

Her smile is slightly skewed.

他的微笑有点让人琢磨不透。

Besides this eye-catching result, Gignac and Zajenkowski's paper is rich with other findings. They were interested, for instance, in whether people tend to hook up with someone of similar cognitive ability — and whether that "intellectual compatibility" is important for their happiness together. As previous research has found, there was a moderate correlation between the partners' actual IQ scores — so in general people do seem to pick partners who roughly match their intelligence. 

除了这个引人注目的结果，吉纳克和扎根科夫斯基的论文还有很多其他发现。例如，他们感兴趣的是，人们是否倾向于与认知能力相近的人交往，以及这种“智力兼容性”对他们在一起的幸福感是否重要。正如之前研究发现的那样，伴侣的实际智商分数之间存在中度相关性——因此一般来说，人们似乎确实会选择与他们智力大致匹配的伴侣。 

表示“引人注目的，抢眼的，惹人注意的”，英文解释为“very attractive or noticeable”如：an eye-catching poster 引人注目的海报。

表示“（与某人）相恋；（与某人）结交”，英文解释为“If someone hooks up with another person, they begin a sexual or romantic relationship with that person. You can also say that two people hook up.”举个🌰：We haven't exactly hooked up yet.

我们还没有真正相恋。

表示“认知的；感知的；认识的”，英文解释为“Cognitive means relating to the mental process involved in knowing, learning, and understanding things.”举个🌰：

As children grow older, their cognitive processes become sharper. 

随着孩子们长大，他们的认知过程也变得越来越敏锐了。

compatibility /kəmˌpætəˈbɪləti/ 表示“（尤指计算机及程序的）兼容性，相容性”，英文解释为“the ability of machines, especially computers, and computer programs to be used together”。

Maybe we have a slight preference for people with similar smarts to ourselves, or maybe it's due to the fact that we have more opportunity to get romantically involved with people of roughly similar intelligence — in education or at work. Whatever the reasons, the degree of similarity of couples' IQs didn't seem to influence their relationship satisfaction — overall, couples with lower "intellectual compatibility" appeared to be just as happy as the couples who were more closely matched.

也许我们对与自己智力相近的人有一点偏好，或者这是因为我们有更多的机会与智力大致相近的人恋爱——在求学或工作过程中。不管是什么原因，对象之间智商的相似程度似乎并没有影响他们的关系满意度——总的来说，“智力兼容性”较低的对象之间似乎和智力更接近的对象之间一样幸福。

Gignac and Zajenkowski also examined whether the men or the women in their sample were better at estimating their partners' intelligence. According to some evolutionary psychologists, because the responsibility of pregnancy, childbirth, and usually childrearing, falls more directly on women, they should be pickier than men about the kind of person they choose to reproduce with. If true, it would make sense for women to have evolved to be more perceptive than men of differences in other people's intelligence. Yet the researchers found no evidence of this.

吉纳克和扎根科夫斯基还研究了他们样本中的男性或女性是否更擅长估计伴侣的智力。根据一些进化心理学家的说法，由于怀孕、分娩以及通常抚养孩子的责任更直接地落在女性身上，因此对于与谁一起生育，她们应该比男性更有选择权。如果是真的，女性进化到比男性更能洞悉他人智力差异是有道理的。然而研究人员没有发现这方面的证据。

1）表示“进化的”，英文解释为“relating to the way in which living things develop over millions of years”

2）表示“演变的；逐步发展的”，英文解释为“involving a gradual process of change and development”

psychologist /saɪˈkɒl.ə.dʒɪst/ 表示“心理学家”，英文解释为“someone who studies the human mind and human emotions and behaviour, and how different situations have an effect on people”如：a child psychologist 儿童心理学家。

表示“生殖；生育；繁殖”，英文解释为“When living things reproduce, they produce young plants, animals, etc.”举个🌰：

These plants can reproduce sexually and asexually.

这些植物既可以进行有性繁殖，也可以进行无性繁殖。

表示“（使）逐步发展；（使）逐步演变；（使）逐渐形成；（使）进化”，英文解释为“to develop gradually, or to cause something or someone to develop gradually”举个🌰：

The company has evolved over the years into a multi-million dollar organization.

该公司在数年内逐步发展成为一个拥有数百万美元资产的大企业。

perceptive /pəˈsep.tɪv/ 表示“感知能力强的；观察敏锐的；有洞察力的”，英文解释为“very good at noticing and understanding things that many people do not notice”举个🌰：

Her books are full of perceptive insights into the human condition.

她书里有很多对人类现状的深入洞见。

As the researchers admit, there are some limitations to their study. They only used a non-verbal IQ test, for instance, and it's possible you would see different results if you also looked at verbal questions. After all, the size of someone's vocabulary and their linguistic fluency may be easier for a partner to judge accurately. 

研究人员承认，他们的研究有一些局限性。例如，他们只使用了非言语智商测试，如果你还采用口头问题进行测试，你可能会看到不同的结果。毕竟，一个人词汇量的大小和语言流利程度可能更容易让伴侣准确判断。 

verbal /ˈvɜːbəl/ 1）表示“口头的”，英文解释为“You use verbal to indicate that something is expressed in speech rather than in writing or action.”举个🌰：

They were jostled and subjected to a torrent of verbal abuse.

他们被推来搡去，并受到了潮水般的辱骂。

2）表示“词语的；文字的”，英文解释为“You use verbal to indicate that something is connected with words and the use of words.”举个🌰：

The test has scores for verbal skills, mathematical skills, and abstract reasoning skills.

该项测试对文字表达技能、数学技能和抽象推理技能进行记分。

🎬电影《旗鼓相当》（Grudge Match）中的台词提到：And I say, "Well, women are more verbal than men." 然后我说“女人比男人更善于言辞。”

表示“语言的；语言学的”，英文解释为“connected with language or the scientific study of language”，如：linguistic and cultural barriers 语言和文化上的障碍。

But overall, the findings help extend our understanding of our self-serving biases, showing our egotism and self-confidence can sometimes spill-over to our loved ones. Maybe we like to think we're with a partner who reflects an even better version of ourselves.

但总的来说，这些发现有助于扩大我们对自利偏见的理解，表明我们的自我和自信有时会蔓延到我们所爱的人身上。也许我们喜欢认为我们和一个反映了更好的自己的伴侣在一起。

表示“追逐私利的；只为个人打算的；一心谋私利的”，英文解释为“working or acting for your own advantage”

egotism /ˈiː.ɡə.tɪ.zəm/ 表示“自我主义；自大；自负”，英文解释为“thinking only about yourself and considering yourself better and more important than other people”举个🌰：

Finding herself world-famous by the time she was 20 only encouraged the actress's egotism.

年仅20岁就闻名世界只是让这位女演员变得更加自负了。

1）表示“（尤指令人不快地）波及，扩散，影响”，英文解释为“If an activity or situation spills over, it begins to affect another situation or group of people, especially in an unpleasant or unwanted way.”举个🌰：

I try not to let my work spill over into my life outside the office.

我努力不让我的工作影响到办公室之外的生活。

2）表示“延续；延长”，英文解释为“to continue for a longer time than expected”举个🌰：

The talks between the two look likely to spill over into the weekend.

两位之间的会谈看来很可能会持续到这个周末。

🎬电影《天地无限》（Open Range）中的台词提到：They just hope it don't spill over to them. 他们只是希望不会殃及池鱼。

- 今日盘点 -

overestimate

brainpower

ego

blind

inflated

IQ

optimistic

attribute

bias

heterosexual

intuitive

scale

non-verbal

equivalent

skewed

eye-catching

hook up (with sb)

cognitive

compatibility

evolutionary

psychologist

reproduce

evolve

perceptive

verbal

linguistic

self-serving

egotism

spill over

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