A person's tendency to drink alcohol is influenced by various factors, such as genetics, various social factors, and even blood type. For example, if a child's parents abuse alcohol, there is a high probability that he or she will also start drinking alcohol in large quantities as an adult. Recently, scientists have discovered another unexpected way to predict whether a person will regularly drink alcohol as an adult – this is to measure their IQ in high school. If you thought that a low level of intelligence is a sign of a tendency to alcoholism, then you are wrong.
A teenager's IQ can predict whether he will drink alcohol in middle age. Photo source: teletype.in
How a teenager's IQ predicts his tendency to drink alcohol
IQ is a quantitative assessment of a person's intelligence level, i.e. the mental development quotient. And although this method of assessing intelligence has recently been regularly subjected to serious criticism, it still gives some idea of a person's cognitive abilities.
According to a recent study by American scientists, the results of an IQ test, as already mentioned above, are able to predict with a high degree of probability whether a person will consume alcohol in large quantities in middle age or abstain from it.
It should be noted that moderate drinking in this study was defined as 1–29 drinks per month for women and 1–59 drinks per month for men. A drink in the United States is defined as 17.7 ml of pure ethyl alcohol. Excessive drinking was defined as anything above that limit.
Scientists compared the number of drinks consumed per month with the IQ of people in adolescence. Photo source: myfin.by
In their study, the researchers analyzed health, education, and financial data from 6,300 men and women who graduated from high school in 1957. They were predominantly white and had a bachelor's degree. Forty-eight years after graduation, in 2004, the participants reported how much alcohol they drank per month and how many times they drank more than five drinks at a time.
As it turned out, the higher the teenagers' IQ test scores in high school, the more alcohol they drank in middle age. For every one-point increase in IQ, there was a 1.6 percent increase in the number of people who consumed a lot of alcohol. Accordingly, the largest number of drinkers were among those who scored the highest on the IQ test in school, the authors of the study report in the journal Alcohol and Alcoholism.
It should be noted that this study is consistent with the results of another study in which scientists compared the intelligence level of Norwegian men with their drinking habits. The analysis showed that the higher the intelligence level of men, the more often they drink alcohol at the age of about 30. Incidentally, alcohol itself is more likely to lower a person's IQ and even destroy the brain.
People with a high IQ drink more alcohol, but suffer from binge drinking less often. Photo source: gkob1.ru
Do people with a high IQ become alcoholics
Despite the fact that people with a high IQ drink more alcohol, they report less frequent binge drinking. This suggests that they are no more likely than others, and perhaps even less likely, to suffer from alcoholism in the usual sense of the word. That is, people with a high level of intelligence are able to control their alcohol consumption. As the authors of the work report, this applies to both men and women.
Also, according to experts, one should not think that IQ in adolescence “controls your destiny.” Most likely, the obtained results indicate that there is a relationship between intelligence and social factors that, as was initially said, influence alcohol consumption in middle age. Employees of the University of Texas even found some relationship between IQ, household income and drinking habits. But, interestingly, this relationship has nothing to do with the level of education of people.
Scientists have found a link between alcohol consumption and a person's income. Photo source: realword.ru
How a person's income is related to alcohol consumption
So, according to a number of studies, a high level of intelligence correlates with a higher level of income. Scientists have also found a relationship between a high level of income and frequent alcohol consumption. Perhaps this is due to the fact that people with higher incomes have more opportunities to buy alcoholic beverages. But it should be taken into account that we are talking about the United States, where alcohol is quite expensive. This means that in other countries where you can buy cheap alcohol, the relationship between intelligence and alcohol consumption may not work.
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The authors themselves claim that a similar study among other groups of people may show different results. Perhaps the researchers could have obtained different results even if they had conducted a survey among people of other ages. For example, according to official data, young people have recently begun to consume less alcoholic beverages. It is quite possible that in middle age they will also consume less alcohol, regardless of their level of intelligence at a young age.