Danika

I only know what I've seen so I will stick to that and not comment on other people's experiences. When I look around at my friends and people I see regularly I struggle to choose those I’d define as “intelligent” in the sense I feel it is being used in this thread.

I know some people that are very well rounded; they can do a variety of skills and handle most situations adequately.  For example they get average marks, can handle social situations as well as the next person, can learn a sport, and are capable of learning different skills.

Now if I compare this to some people who excel in one particular area I cannot choose who I think is smarter. I have a friend who is an extraordinary mathematician, although I don’t have an IB mark share he was in the top few percent of our countries math courses and is now in university and excelling in mathematics.  However he could hardly write a sentence that sounded intelligible and his friends constantly had to enable him in any social interaction.

Now I’m left wondering which of these two groups is genuinely more intelligent. Is it the ones who are well balanced and capable of many forms of thought or the ones who excel incredibly in one type of thought?

Curiously I know another student, he is obviously smart but in a different way. He has an uncanny knack for understanding people and their psychology; he is great with people, can make them see anything his way and in general gets along with everyone.  Is he less intelligent than the math whiz? I’m hesitant to say that as I feel they are both smart just in different ways.

Now back to the original question regarding introversion; I would not lay down a blanket statement that intelligent people are more introverted. Not do to any statistic about number of friends versus IQ but because I am a firm believer in many types of intelligence. Of course some who suffer from a complete lack of social skills will be more introverted (or simply like their space, there are more than one reason to be an introvert) than those who excel with people, but this has very little to do with intelligence and is simple what one is good at. Some people are excellent at abstract thought; some people are incredible artists, some great at math and others excel with people, but they can all be equally intelligent and still have different degrees of introversion/extroversion.