Intelligence can be defined as a person’s general mental abilities to reason, solve problems, and learn. Someone’s level of intelligence includes their cognitive abilities, like perception, language, planning, and memory.
There’s a difference between being book-smart and street-smart, yet people with low intelligence may struggle with both. Because reasoning, learning, and solving problems are essential aspects of intelligence, someone with low intelligence will have difficulty mastering those areas.
Here are 8 subtle traits of people who have a low IQ
1. They’re not very curious
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People with low IQs show little interest in learning new things or digging deeper into topics they already understand. They’re content to have a shallow conceptualization of issues, without thinking about the underlying causes.
They also tend to have smaller vocabularies and lower intellectual curiosity overall. They don’t think outside of their own worldview, and have a limited ability to see other people’s perspectives, which can make them fairly close-minded.
The Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania defines open-mindedness as the “willingness to search actively for evidence against one’s favored beliefs, plans, or goals, and to weigh such evidence fairly when it is available.” They define the opposite of open-mindedness as “the myside bias,” in which people search and evaluate evidence in ways that favor their initial belief systems.
The Center notes that people who are open-minded score higher on tests that measure cognitive ability, which supports the association between lower intelligence and closed-mindedness.
2. They struggle to adapt to new situations
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Oftentimes, people with low IQs have a hard time in new environments. They can have trouble with planning and problem-solving, which translates into difficulty getting used to new places or new roles.
While someone with a low IQ might have skills that look good on paper, they’re often challenged by being thrown into real life situations, and don’t have the mental capacity to find a way out.
3. They don’t know what they don’t know
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People who have low IQs might think they’re actually very intelligent, which is called the Dunning-Kruger effect. According to the Dunning-Kruger effect, people who actually know very little on a certain topic assume they’re very knowledgeable about it.
Psychologist David Dunning wrote that “The scope of people’s ignorance is often invisible to them.” He referred to that lack of understanding of one’s own mental limitations as “meta-ignorance,” or being ignorant of “the multitude of ways they demonstrate gaps in knowledge.”
Whereas high intelligence performers openly recognize what they don’t know, people with low intelligence go the opposite route. They lack intellectual humility, which means they don’t acknowledge that they struggle to understand certain topics. This creates a level of low-self awareness and, oftentimes, an inflated sense of self or ego.
4. They see the world in black and white
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Having a low IQ usually means that someone sees the world around them in very black and white terms. They define society in rigid ways, and have trouble seeing that gray space or ambiguity exists.
The American Psychological Association refers to the thought process as “dichotomous thinking” or “polarized thinking,” and it’s defined by thinking in terms of polar opposites, without acknowledging that there are other possible outcomes besides the two extremes of good and bad.
People who display dichotomous thinking have a tendency to use words like “always,” “never,” and “impossible,” when describing themselves or their situation in life. This kind of thinking can cause stress in relationships, as people see others as falling firmly on one side of the spectrum and can’t recognize their inherent nuances.
A Japanese study published in 2021 found a connection between dichotomous thinking and low cognitive abilities, along with low pursuit of educational attainment. The study posited that there are distinct characteristics of polarized thinking, such as pursuing simplifications and short-term benefits.
People who exhibit dichotomous thinking don’t work to expand their worldview or try to learn new things. They’re content to exist in their rigidly-defined box, without accepting the complexity of the human experience.
5. They don’t change their minds often
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People with low IQ lack cognitive flexibility, or the ability to be open-minded. As a result, they’re hardlined in their thinking, and they don’t shift their opinions very often, if ever. Even when presented with new information, they refuse to change their opinions.
These people also don’t take well to being challenged intellectually, and can become prickly or abrasive if their stance is questioned. This trait is connected to having very little curiosity, as they’re unwilling or unable to see that other ways of being exist.
6. They have a hard time thinking in hypothetical terms
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By virtue of having a low IQ, people like this tend not to think outside of absolutes. They have a very difficult time thinking of possibilities outside of what they know and can visually see or understand.
For example, if you present them with a hypothetical situation, they might struggle to understand what you mean, because the information you’re giving them is conceptual as opposed to tangible.
7. They lack empathy
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According to a 2019 research study out of China, highly intelligent people are more empathic than people with low intelligence. The study defined intelligence as the ability to “reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend complex ideas, learn quickly, and learn from experience.”
People with higher intelligence have higher emotional sensitivity and more concern for others, as opposed to people with low intelligence. Therefore, people with a low IQ might show less empathy for other people around them.
8. They’re self-centered
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Seeing the world from someone else’s point of view takes a certain amount of practical and emotional intelligence. Having a low IQ can make someone overly focused on their own experience of the world, and unable to see outside the outlines of their own life. They might question why someone else needs help or challenge the fact that multiple truths can exist in one lived reality.
A 2023 research study assessed worldviews and placed them into five categories: Localized, Orthodox, Pragmatist, Reward, and Survivor.
The Localized worldview seeks to address social inequities, whereas the Orthodox worldview wants to preserve the status-quo, and the Pragmatist worldview centers around protecting one’s self-interest. The Reward worldview focuses on working hard to achieve one’s goal, and the Survivor worldview maintains a fatalistic attitude and distrust in other people.
The study posits that having a Localized worldview translates into a level of open-mindedness and flexibility, over the other worldviews. It also presented the idea that the higher the level of education a person has, the more likely they are to have a Localized worldview, as education “is known to act as a catalyst for expanding knowledge, engaging in critical thinking, increasing tolerance towards diverse others, and facilitation of political and civic engagement.”
The researchers make a connection between accessing education and information, and having an open worldview, as opposed to those with more limited worldviews, where people tend to think only of themselves and how they benefit.
Alexandra Blogier is a writer on YourTango’s news and entertainment team. She covers social issues, pop culture analysis and all things to do with the entertainment industry.
