A genius’s approach to thinking can look a little unusual from the outside, and that’s mostly because very intelligent people can’t stop thinking about something once they’ve started thinking about it.
The question keeps going
Most people think getting an answer is the end of the job. Not for someone with very high intelligence. No, for them, the answer’s often the start of things, as it tends to create three more questions. They want to know why the answer works and what’d happen if one part changed.
They want to assess whether the accepted explanation is actually complete. It’s a kind of curiosity that goes beyond the norm and has way more depth to it. Yes, a very intelligent person will spend an odd amount of time chasing one tiny loose end. It’s for no other reason than the fact it’s loose.
Uncertainty gets more room
Most people like a clean answer. You know, like yes or no, right or wrong, simple as that. But people with stronger reasoning ability avoid all that. They’ve got more tolerance for ambiguity, and they’re better at sitting with incomplete information without immediately choosing a side.
Two or three explanations can exist at the same time for them. It might be very exhausting for other people, sure, but highly intelligent people know the dangers of deciding too early. They’ll let both ideas exist together.
Being wrong stays possible
One of the strangest things about highly intelligent people is their ability to admit when they’re wrong. Yes, they have a trait known as intellectual humility. They reconsider opinions and listen to opposing views, without being stubborn.
Highly intelligent people don’t really care about protecting an answer once they see the evidence is against it. They’ll drop it. Then they’ll move on. Smart people know the difference between something they believe and something that is true. They know the limits of their intelligence.
Certainty becomes a percentage
Try asking the average person whether something’s going to happen. You’ll likely hear ‘yes,’ or ‘no,’ maybe a ‘probably.’ But highly intelligent people are a little different. They’re more specific with probabilities, and they’ll talk more about the likelihood of things happening.
They’ll say there’s a ‘sixty percent chance’ of something happening, and they’ll compare it to similar situations. It’s not because they don’t know the answer. It’s just that they’d rather say they’re ‘70% sure’ something’s going to happen.Â
The assigned route isn’t sacred
It’s no secret that smart people are good at following instructions. But what really sets them apart is that they’ll recognize there’s a better way to follow the instructions. They have a kind of intellectual independence.
That means they may skip ahead and use a different source, perhaps rebuild the method, too. It sometimes looks like impatience from the outside. But really, these gifted learners are willing to stop treating the official method like it’s the only method. It’s not.
Nobody has to offer a reward
There are those who study because they have a test coming up or because they need a qualification. Then there are the others. They’re usually very intelligent, and they’re the ones who continue learning just for the sake of it.
These people usually have higher levels of intrinsic motivation, so the activity of learning itself is more rewarding to them. No grades, no prizes, not even any praise, just a love for learning. They do still get bored sometimes, but they’re motivated to know more.
Hard thinking can feel enjoyable
We all have to solve complicated problems sometimes, and some of us manage to actually do that. It doesn’t make us highly intelligent, though. No, very smart people have an unusually high need for cognition that makes them go looking for another one.
They genuinely enjoy putting their brain to work, even when there’s no prize at the end. They like putting in sustained effort in their work. The truth is, no problem ever truly fulfills them, so they keep looking for more to solve.
An unanswered question starts nagging
Highly intelligent people also have a trait known as deprivation sensitivity. It sounds complicated, but it’s not. It mainly refers to how they feel deeply uncomfortable when they lack the answer to something, and they’ll try hard to find it.
For them, curiosity is less like a hobby. It’s more like an itch that encourages them to search again and check another explanation. They won’t abandon the original question until they know they’ve tried their hardest to find the answer.
The answer is only the beginning
What matters more to highly intelligent people is the mechanism, more than the fact. For example, try telling them that a bridge collapsed because a support failed. They won’t leave it there. They’ll want to know which support failed and why.
They’ll want to know why it happened at that moment, and what was carrying the load before that happened. It’s more than simple curiosity. It’s strong causal reasoning that encourages them to look at the chain of events behind a fact. They mentally pull the thing apart to see what made it happen in the first place.
Sources: Please see here for a complete listing of all sources that were consulted in the preparation of this article.
