Sometimes, depression and intelligence feel directly linked. And if you have depression then you know what I mean.
You know the saying, “Ignorance is bliss“?
If you struggle with depression then you might have responded to this saying with, “trust me, I would know.”
You’re definitely familiar with the drawbacks your intelligence brings. Overprocessing your situation, your surroundings, the emotions of others, yourself, and…yeah, I could on.
All this information you’re painfully made aware of, that can easily cripple you on a bad day, becomes factual. Concrete.
It’s understandable to wish you didn’t know so much. That you didn’t have so much to think about. You didn’t care so much. Despite the emptiness in your stomach or chest, you’ve gotta care at least a little about this “knowledge” for it to affect you, right?
But does that mean those of us with depression struggle because we know too much, as the phrase insinuates? Is depression a sign of intelligence?
Let’s do deep dive into the relationship between depression and intelligence.
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The Statistics On
Depression and Intelligence
I’m referencing 3 different studies in this post. Each one investigates different “factors” within the relationship between depression and intelligence. This is to give you a better understanding of:
- How People With Depression Are Smart
- In What Ways Are They Are Not Smart
- Who’s More Affected By The Link Between Depression And Intelligence
Let’s Get Into The Stats!
IQ Test Results Breakdown
One study measured the IQ (intelligence quotient) of people with depression to see how they performed on the IQ test. There are two types of intelligence that are measured on the test; verbal IQ and performance IQ.
Verbal IQ is a measurement of your verbal-linguistic intelligence, or your ability to understand, use reasoning, and communicate through speech and writing.
Performance IQ is the measurement of your nonverbal skills, or your ability to understand and problem solve through action and attention to detail.
The study shows that people with depression tested pretty consistently for verbal IQ but received lower scores for performance IQ. This didn’t change after the same group of people received treatment over a period of time, even though their IQ scores increased.
Based on this study, depressed people can have lower performance intelligence. This is probably due to cognitive distortion and the inability to do much of anything during a depressive episode. It’s harder to make decisions that benefit you or your situation when your perception of reality isn’t reliable in the given moment.
Basically, this study shows that people with depression have a deficit in performance IQ, no matter how higher their overall IQ is.
Depression & Intelligence: The “OE” Factor
There’s this study published in 2017 that concluded people with higher IQs are more at risk for psychological and physiological “overexciteabilites,” or OE.
Psychological OE (Mental)
These are the intense emotional responses people have to their surroundings. It can cause excessive rumination and worry within a person. Being highly ruminative is known to make people vulnerable to depression and anxiety.
Physiological OE (Physical)
These are the physical responses to distress in a person’s surroundings. Think panic + anxiety attacks. When the sympathetic nervous system is constantly triggered, it can negatively impact your immune system. You can become physically ill to this cycle of stress.
This study comes up with a theory called high mind/high body theory. Highly intelligent people tend to experience psychological (high mind) and physiological (high body) OE.
Due to the distress of OE, highly intelligent people are more likely to be neurotic or show symptoms of neurosis than those with a lower IQ.
The Neurosis Factor
This brings us to neurosis!
Intelligence doesn’t have much impact on depression on its own, but when neuroticism is accounted for, there is a higher risk of depression. This is because intelligence and neuroticism actually have a relationship.
Neuroticism can be dangerous. Like the text boxes above explain, your mental and physical health are easily compromised with these overexciteabilities.
So how does intelligence play a part? The higher your intelligence, the lower the distress of neurosis causes.
According to this study, intelligence can act as a protective factor on the effects of neuroticism in people with self-reported depression. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have the same effect on people with clinically diagnosed.
The Verdict: Intelligence can make you more likely to seek help for your depression. It may also protect you from high levels of neurosis. This is *not* the case for people with MDD.
The Gender Factor
Now, the relationship between depression and intelligence doesn’t stop at verbal and nonverbal. There are so many types of intelligence, but I specifically want to talk about Emotional Intelligence(EI).
Now, this factor is surprising to me. Not the factor itself, but that it was studied at all!
This study defines two types of EI; trait (think personality; people who are naturally emotionally intelligent) and ability (think action; the ability to practice emotional intelligence).
Apparently, there’s a stronger link between depression and EI trait than depression and EI ability. And they determined gender plays a part in this link.
The study found that men have decreased levels of depression the higher their EI ability is. This didn’t extend to the women, however. They found higher levels of depression in women across the board.
Meaning, women who are more emotionally intelligent, whether by trait or ability, suffer from depression at higher rates than emotionally intelligent men.
Sigh…can’t say I’m surprised. Now let’s do a recap.
The Recap
So, to answer the three bullet points above and more…
- People with depression generally have high Verbal IQs.
- People with depression have lower Performance IQs, no matter how high their overall IQs are.
- Highly intelligent people are more neurotic and are at a higher risk of depression (as well as other depressive, anxious, and attention disorders!)
- Women with higher Emotional Intelligence, whether by trait or ability, are more likely to have depression than men with the same intelligence.
- Intelligence can protect people from high levels of neuroticism, but increase the chance of depression.
This was a breakdown of the relationship between depression and intelligence. In trying to fully understand your depression and how it affects you, I hope this information aids in that discovery. Gaining knowledge on how depression shows up for me is what allows me to properly show up for myself.
If you want to utilize this information to get a better sense of what symptoms impact you, check out my posts on growing up with depression and dealing with depression and anxiety. Both articles provide coping strategies that can help you with your symptoms and shed some light on truths you haven’t yet considered.
Until next time.
There is no great genius without some touch of madness.
Aristotle
