Do you have to be intelligent to be wealthy?
The answer is yes, according to Jay L. Zagorskya, a researcher at Center for Human Resource Research, The Ohio State University,who conducted a study which tracks a large group of young US baby boomers, but only if all other factors are held constant. But regression results suggest that statistically, there is really no distinguishable relationship between IQ scores and wealth.
Figure 1: IQ vs Income
Figure 1 shows an almost linear correlation, but this is because factors such as education, age, race and profession are held constant.
Are intelligent people more immune to financial woes? The answer is again yes, but not in a linear way. The relationship between income and measures of financial distress is a quadratic one.
Figure 2: IQ vs Financial Distress
Figure 2 shows that as IQ increases the chance of getting into financial distress increases for individuals below-average IQ score. The probability diminishes once the IQ increases above the par score.
"Being more intelligent does not confer any advantage along two of the three key dimensions of financial success," writes Zagorskya. "Since intelligence is not a factor for explaining wealth, individuals with low intelligence should not believe they are handicapped in achieving financial success, nor should high intelligence people believe they have an advantage."
He suggests that future research should investigate factors such as a person's desire for immediate or deferred satisfaction, tolerance or intolerance for taking risks, and ability to reject or accept social influence for the role they play in driving material wealth accumulation.
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