Albert Einstein reportedly said, "I have no special talents, I am only passionately curious."
据称,爱因斯坦曾说过这样一句话:“我并非天赋异禀,我只是对世界充满了好奇心。”
Or, as Keyzurbur Alas puts it, "intelligent people let themselves become fascinated by things others take for granted."
或者如凯伊祖布尔·阿拉斯所说:“高智商的人会迷上那些其他人觉得理所当然的事物。”
A study published in 2016, in the Journal of Individual Differences, suggests that there's a link between childhood intelligence and openness to experience — which encompasses intellectual curiosity — in adulthood.
Scientists followed thousands of people born in the UK for 50 years and learned that 11-year-olds who'd scored higher on an IQ test turned out to be more open to experience at 50.
The smartest folks are able to admit when they aren't familiar with a particular concept. As Jim Winer writes, intelligent people "are not afraid to say: 'I don't know.' If they don't know it, they can learn it".
Winer's observation is backed up by a classic study by Justin Kruger and David Dunning, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, which found that the less intelligent you are, the more you overestimate your cognitive abilities.
Several Quora users noted that intelligent people are flexible and able to thrive in different settings. As Donna F Hammett writes, intelligent people adapt by "showing what can be done regardless of the complications or restrictions placed upon them".
Recent psychological research supports this idea. Intelligence depends on being able to change your own behaviors in order to cope more effectively with your environment, or make changes to the environment you're in.