Some People Really Are Attracted to Intelligence, Suggests Study On Sapiosexuality

When we usually say that we’re attracted to someone, we tell our friends something like how beautiful eyes the person has, hair, tall or short, what kind of smile the person has and so on. However, the word “sapiosexual” is getting really trendy this past period, and people seem to identificate with it. Sapiosexual is a person who is attracted to another person with a high level of intelligence. A new study in the journal Intelligence confirms the fact that people can be sexually excited by the intellect of someone else.

The study was made by a senior lecturer named Gilles Gignac from the University of Western Australia, and included 383 students that took a survey through questions that are related to whether they feel sexually attracted to people that are intelligent, and to help them precise their answers, there were other questions about intelligence and qualities that they look for in a love interest.

“We found that sapiosexuality can be measured psychometrically and that between 1 percent and 8 percent of relatively young people (18 to 35) may be sapiosexual. However, interestingly, how intelligent a person is (measured with an actual IQ test) does not appear to predict the degree to which people identify themselves as a sapiosexual.” shared Gignac to PsyPost. 

There were other traits that the students mentioned, such as kindness, interesting character, exciting personality, and on the top of the list was being kind and understanding. Intelligence took the second spot. While some of the participants were drawn to people that are with extremely IQ level, those who are more intelligent than 99% of the people were seen less desirable. The sweet spot took those who are more intelligent than 90% of the participants.

The survey also had some questions whether the participants get aroused when there’s an “intellectually stimulating” conversation or listening to someone speak intelligently turns them on.

The team noted that it’s not uncommon for people to see intelligence as a positive trait for long lasting relationships, for intellectual and sexual stimulation, and they eventually get more job offers and are better at decision making. The only limitation seen by Gignac was that “the study didn’t include people that are below-average levels of intelligence.  (i.e., IQ < 100).”