Are Intelligent People More Likely to Abuse Drugs?

Lisa HW Hub Author 6 months ago

Fitnezz Jim, I'm responding to the easiest (and most fun) of the comments here first: Now that you've mentioned it, I realize I didn't know how to spell "highfalutin" either. It's not a word I've really ever thought of using, maybe because I've assumed it's more of a stereotypical Western-US kind of word (you know - cowboy-hat wearing people who talk about things like "rootin' tootin" and "highfalutin". I guess I've just assumed that if I were to use the word, "highfalutin", I'd have made sure I spelled it, "highfaluting".

Live and learn. LOL (I'm sure glad now that I've never used "highfaluting".) LOL

Lisa HW Hub Author 6 months ago

jaywigz311, thank you.

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I think you may be right about people valuing learning more, and maybe that's because learning is associated with both acquiring actual, useful, knowledge and with putting in the effort (or in the case of quick learners, at least the focus and interest) into learning.

Most people are well aware that intelligence, alone, isn't enough to amount to success; so they don't like too much emphasis on it. It's almost as if people can't quite feel comfortable acknowledging/valuing intelligence in a balanced way, without worrying that they, or others, won't understand that even if they value and acknowledge high intelligence, they can do it without over-valuing it or having an unbalanced perspective.

Also, there was a lot of horrific ignorance in the past about intelligence. I was born not all that long after WWII and people had come to see Hitler as "a genius". Between that and the stereotype about the "mad scientist", I really think a certain amount of fear was generated about kids who are particularly "smart". You can still see hints of hostility and/or fear about exceptional intelligence in children (or others, for that matter).

Independent of any fear or hostility, though; I think one problem can be that a parent who is a "checker player" doesn't understand a child who is a "chess player". When a parent doesn't understand, or identify with, the ways a child thinks or does things, that can the child seem "odd" or "different" to some (not all) parents.

Maybe, too, because societies do tend to value learning so much, there can be a tendency to send the message to kids (or anyone) that "being intelligent doesn't matter". All that matters is academic achievement. Or, another message is that exceptional academic IS exceptional intelligence, which, of course, isn't necessarily true. As a result, a lot of people who may be extremely intelligent but who haven't accomplished high academic achievement may feel that whatever their intelligence is, it isn't "the real kind" of intelligence.

So, by valuing learning as highly as we so often do, the messages are either that anyone without exceptional academic achievement is not as intelligent as someone with it; or else "whatever brand of intelligence" someone has (but in the absence of high academic achievement), it doesn't count because it isn't accompanied by that achievement. That doesn't do much for the sense of security of a lot of perfectly intelligent people, and I suspect a certain amount of insecurity may also be at the root of intelligence often seeming almost like the "final tabu" in society, when it comes to having open discussions about it.

Either way, a whole lot of people may be, I think, resentful about the "sore subject" of intelligence.

You're right. Intelligence tests don't measure all types of abilities; but even when it comes to the kinds of abilities tests "give a reading on", some kids don't exhibit their highest level of abilities on tests (for one reason or another).

US schools are losing kids left and right because they still so often don't even recognized or understand that the measure of intelligence is not the report card, and that intelligence isn't exclusive only to honor students (particularly of the math-wiz variety).

This is only my viewpoint, but I've watched this happening since the 1960's when technology was first "the big-bucks career" and "the next big thing", and it has only gotten worse as what is valued in schools and in people have continued to move away from all the aspects of human nature and abilities and more toward a very narrow set of false standards of what intelligence is. The most commonly known figure among even the youngest and/or least educated of people may be Albert Einstein, know, of course, for his intelligence.

A lot of people know little about intelligence beyond the fact that Einstein was someone who was known for it, and was someone with a quirky and odd appearance. This may seem silly or extreme, but - really - I kind of blame Einstein for the stereotype of intelligent people that so many people actually kind of go with. LOL Einstein is said to actually have affected his own image, presumably as a way of coming across as someone who had "more important things to think about" than appearance. In the meantime, we have people who associated exceptional intelligence with either Hitler or Einstein (which doesn't particularly lend itself to seeing the exceptional intelligence in an adorable four-year-old; or more sobering, in an ordinary looking/acting teen who lost interest in school back in third grade. :/

I'd agree that intelligence can be slippery. Better understanding by experts would help (not that a lot of them don't already have a fairly good understanding, of course). I suspect, though, that when studies of highly intelligent children (or people in general) are being done, a whole lot of kids have fallen so far between the cracks that they don't get to be studied among those "established" as "highly intelligent". Maybe that accounts for why a lot of "info" doesn't get into study results. :/

Lisa HW Hub Author 6 months ago

Fitnezz Jim (on your "main" comment, not the one about "highfalutin"): One of the biggest things that gets done is what you've described. People do dig up whatever they can dig up in order to push whatever their agenda is. Also, there's a cycle of "garbage in/garbage out" that can happen (formerly of ABC, John Stossel once did a good piece on this) when it comes to how studies may/may not be well executed in the first place; but how either way, the news reports them out of context or in parts, and then how people see things in the news, see that reference is made to a study, and things can be incredibly misinterpreted/twisted/taken out of context as they're passed along.

I can see how the British study referred to in the article in question may well be a "legitimate" study with "legitimate" results. What I don't like in the article is the jump to the idea about how parents once told kids that smart kids didn't use drugs, but how now it may seem as if those parents were wrong. Basically, the way that particular comment is made in the article, it hints that kids who don't use drugs are likely to be less smart than those who do - and THAT is absolutely baloney. I've known far too many very intelligent people who have never touched drugs. Anecdotal, yes; but enough to prove that the belief/suspicion that drug use is "reserved" for only the smarter people is balony.

Lisa HW Hub Author 6 months ago

Laura in Denver, thank you for contributing thoughts here. I'd agree that parents (but also other adults who deal with children) don't want to make children who struggle in some way feel bad. This is only my opinion too; but I think where that can backfire is that adults can go in the other direction and make kids who find things easy feel bad in subtle ways that a lot of people don't realize.

Sometimes adults think "smart" kids don't particularly need anyone to acknowledge what they are. Sometimes people worry that a particularly intelligent child will "get a big head".

Between a lot of adults' believing they have to particularly watch out for a struggling child or sometimes working hard to prevent that "big head" (or even "take the intelligent child down a peg), and kids at school who don't relate to, or who may resent, other kids who do particularly well in school; kids with high intelligence have often lived through quite a bit of "emotional battering" before they even get to high school.

Another way aiming to protect struggling children can backfire is that so often children who struggle in one way or another may actually be of exceptional abilities (including cognitive abilities), rather than of limited abilities. One area of struggling can make parents or teachers draw conclusions about a child that are incorrect.

There are so many differences and different situations/cases when it comes to different kids, different cognitive abilities, etc.; it's easy to understand why parents or teachers can't always figure out what's right for what kid.

It would help, though, if the general awareness (of some of the kinds of things that can go on when it comes to kids and intelligence) could be dramatically increased among the general population.

Lisa HW Hub Author 6 months ago

Mighty Mom, thanks for the tome. (I love a good tome, as you may have noticed somewhere along the way. LOL ).

I think your points about substance abuse are right on the money. People who get into trouble with alcohol or drugs are individuals - just like intelligent people, average people, and people who may fall in the "below-average" category are.

If there's one thing that may be at the root of a lot of what I write, it's that it drives me crazy that in our "study-happy" world (which I suspect may have gotten the way it has as a result of my own generation's tending to get better educations than a lot of our WWII-generation parents did). Nobody values education more than I do; but I think our culture has gotten to where the latest study has become "God", and too few people dare to trust their own good heads, and instead just "run with the ball" when it comes to the latest study (or article that reports on the results).

I'm not saying all studies are useless or bad. The trouble is they deal with groups of people and "draw correlations" which can get overblown. Besides, anything and anyone who is too free to make assertions about any group of people bug me.

Whether the group is women, men, young people, old people, people of one race of another, intelligent people, big people, small people (and on and on and on); people are individuals.

While studies obviously don't conclude "everyone in this group is or does x", they can encourage that kind of thinking, particularly among the general population. While the people doing the studies (or reporting on them) may be careful not to make wild, blanket, statements about one group or another; there are too many people in the "general population" who will keep those studies in mind and have a tendency to think in "blanket terms", no matter how many times the point is made that it's "only a correlation".

I don't know... I often think it may be better if theories, correlations, etc. weren't reported at all in bits and pieces; and if the only reports that ever came out were once something had been proven.

I "love" this about studies too: Not long ago I saw some "big news" thing about some "new fact" that was discovered; and it was something that I thought everyone had already figured out a long time ago. All of a sudden, someone did a new study, and it was reported as if it was big news.

It's one thing to be irked by "the study thing". It's another, though, to see children being hurt by some of the misguided beliefs that have been accepted as a result of "policy by correlation".

Lisa HW Hub Author 6 months ago

Zoolot, thanks for contributing to the discussion here. In terms of balance on a subject this serious/important, I really do appreciate ideas from all angles for any readers.

I'm not necessarily disputing things you've said, but I think there are too many dynamics to this particular subject (smart kids who grow up to use/abuse drugs) to zero in on any one root thing.

A good number of adult substance abuse cases begin in late childhood or teens when kids experiment. Some kids know where to draw the line. Some don't. Some do, but because they're already accustomed to what something like drugs can do, they may then turn to them later if/when they're unhappy or depressed. The ones who don't know how or where to draw the line will go into adulthood with a full-blown problem or a growing one. So drug use doesn't always start with depression.

Not all kids thrive on, like, or even get "good chemicals" when they get attention. I was one of those kids who hated attention, mostly because adults either didn't know how to offer attention in a way that made me feel happy (most often because they either were too "smothery" or else underestimated me, or else because attention could lead to something like being expected to do something like get an aware or speak to a crowd (which was always something that would make me feel like my brain was short-circuiting, and I couldn't speak - I've since learned this can be an inherited form of shyness that has nothing to do self-esteem or overall psychology). In any case, not all kids like/want attention or to be singled out.

Also, there are lot of kids who have bad experiences (for other reasons) if they are singled out. Too, a lot of very bright kids aren't even singled out at all, because they aren't particularly noticed as being "special".

Another factor can be how easily a kid is influenced by others. For example, kids with even mild cases of fetal alcohol syndrome can be kids who are particularly easily influenced by whoever/whatever is around them.

Even in adulthood, it can take incredible strength to stand up in the face of peers and go against the crowd. Even some of the strongest minded kids don't usually have the kind of maturity to be able to muster up the kind of strength it can take to be different from "everyone else".

All kids have their insecurities, but also some kids want/need to feel like they're part of the crowd more than others do. Kids with learning problems, or kids who feel awkward and different, can live with the pain of feeling like an outsider. Kids who are shy and haven't made peace with it by hanging out with other quieter kids can wish they were "cool".

A lot of kids, even happy ones with great families, desperately want to be grown up. Too the immature person, drugs can look "cool" or "grown-up".

Aside from kids who start dabbling or get in trouble with drugs in their earliest years, the adult in his twenties or later can be someone who was "lost" (in ways not related to teen drug use at all) somewhere along the way, often as early as in grade school.

Even the "it-won't-happen-to-me" thinking that's associated with kids is still there for, I think, most people in their twenties (or even beyond) if nothing has happened to knock that kind of thinking out of their heads.

In any event, I think that with all the differences between individuals (include intelligent ones), situations, issues, events, etc. etc.; there are too many sets of dynamics for anyone to address without writing "an encyclopedia".