Intelligence ‘determines success’

Intelligence leads to greater success than personality traits such as being nice, conscientious and generous, a study has found.

Researchers at the Universities of Bristol, Minnesota and Heidelberg devised a series of games to discover which factors lead to co-operative behaviour.

They discovered that people with a higher IQ displayed “significantly higher” levels of cooperation, which led to them earning more money as part of the game.

Those with lower intelligence failed to follow a consistent strategy and did not estimate the future consequences of their actions.

Personality traits such as trust, generosity and agreeableness affected behaviour but in a smaller measure. The researchers concluded that a society is cohesive if people are smart enough to be consistent in their strategies and to foresee the social consequences of their actions.

Professor Eugenio Proto, of the University of Bristol, said: “We find overwhelming support for the idea that intelligence is the primary condition for a socially cohesive, co-operative society.”