How to identify the smart people around you

The first thing to be clear is some basic principles.

First, having a specific field of expertise does not mean being smart. For example, a sewer worker and an excavator worker, each of whom is an expert in their respective professions, which is smarter? That's not a good thing to say. So the standard of discrimination should not be specific to the domain, but should be universal.

Again, such as the education, it is not necessarily reliable. We put aside gates, jobs, these dropouts, an undergraduate and a doctoral student which is smart? It is not good to say, maybe the undergraduate period has made a good scientific research, but the undergraduate did not continue to do scientific research and directly to work, then he must be more stupid or smarter than doctoral students?

Also, for example, look at birth, also not reliable. Because of personal experience and the relationship between the circle, many friends around me are famous, the North Qing resumption less venerable Hyps what many, many parties at the number of elite students far more than the non-elite, that case, the origin itself is not too much resolution. Although the popularity of prestigious schools will make people feel smart (for specific reasons, see below), even those who come out of the same school will have a very clever difference that can easily be identified.

I have six criteria, 221 groups are divided into basic indicators, realistic indicators, and high-level indicators of three categories. Basic, realistic, high-level classification is not to explain the severity and height, just for the convenience of everyone to understand.

First, the basic indicators

1. Meta-cognition (metacognition) ability

metacognitive ability is "cognition of cognition" and "knowledge about knowledge", which is simply to think about the process of self-cognition. On the meta-cognition, there are a lot of information on the Internet, we can find the popular materials through the search engine, interested can also find relevant psychological literature to read.

People with strong meta-cognitive abilities often demonstrate a strong ability to learn because they are well aware of their own cognitive and learning processes and can produce optimized learning strategies after rapid self-reflection and introspection.

They have a strong ability to control their cognitive abilities, to use their cognitive strengths and existing knowledge frameworks to regulate and evaluate the intake of new knowledge, who can quickly incorporate new knowledge into existing knowledge. In the words of Steve Jobs, the point is to connect the points that have been set aside, and the people with high metacognitive abilities are particularly quick.

2. Logical thinking Jumping ability

The general conversation process is usually a first, then the B, then the C, then the D ...

But I found that when chatting with some smarter people, or watching other wise men chatting, it is usually not a step-by-step, but a leap in stride, that is, to speak a, then D, then F, then J ... Such This adfj way of talking is logically the same as that of the ABCD in front of you, not random thinking jumps, but some intermediate logical steps, because both sides of the conversation have thought ahead of time, and an action on the eye is tacit, so don't need to say it every step of the way. Just say the next step.

For example, before I had a friend who was a doctor who I thought was smarter than me, I was cooking in the kitchen and the guests were chatting and talking about cancer. I thought of a joke and said, "riding a motorcycle helmet can also increase the probability of cancer." "This piece actually said is quite straightforward, I also feel that the other side must understand, so there is no supplement or continue to speak, and that doctor friend directly back to a sentence" Yes, the last time with the director to the rounds, the director said one of the elderly than other patients are more likely to get cancer, because she has the Syndrome of having too many birthdays. "Then everyone smiles."

Talking to someone with a similar level of intelligence, the rhythm of jumping is very comfortable and logically a natural transition. But if the rhythm of two people is too big, one should often say a after a to add B and C to continue to say D, even the middle also add a B1, B2, that is another situation.

Ii. Indicators of Reality

1, is the curiosity

In fact, the aforementioned meta-cognition and thinking jumps, are intelligent lower-level buildings, and the most intuitive embodiment of a person is the standard of intelligence is curiosity.

A wise man, often full of curiosity about all sorts of things in life, is precisely this curiosity that gives him more opportunities to gain new knowledge.

Curiosity and cleverness are a condition of chickens and eggs. A person's ability to learn is strong, if curiosity is not enough, he will not go to understand the new things, and if a person lacks a broad understanding of things, he is difficult to see those who do not understand things, it is not easy to produce a strong curiosity.

In the words of Socrates, "The only thing I know is that I have no clue." ”

2. Ability to explain complex problems in simple language

Often in the network community including the knowledge, see some professionals to explain the professional or technical issues, they will be very enthusiastic to spend a lot of time to talk about the principle behind the problem, lists a variety of layman's difficult to understand the formula, the derivation process and professional terminology, their own solution is very hard, most readers do not understand, both sides are unhappy--" I've spent so much time talking about how you can still not understand "and" you say such a lot of unknown, I still do not understand. ”

Some of the very smart people I have come into contact with are in-depth research in their field of expertise, and the common feature of these wise men is that they deliberately avoid using big words, slang and jargon that others may not understand when explaining professional issues.

Deliberately choose a simple language, at least two questions, one is that the speaker know how to think, can analyze and evaluate their own expression from the perspective of each other, is the embodiment of the assessment of knowledge learning; Secondly, a lot of professional language and big words is actually a tool for direct communication of experts, when you face the audience is not an expert, You can not use these tools "lazy", so that the speaker's request is higher, the knowledge of the level of demand is higher. Know some of the more famous psychology, statistics, fitness and other professional areas of the user, answer questions often have such characteristics.

There's an interesting annual science event called the Flame Challenge (Flame challenge), which organizes a topic each year, and then asks the contestants to make a video that explains the topic in a 11-year-old's understanding. Sounds interesting, but it is still difficult to do, over the years the topic has "what is the Flame", "What color is" and so on. You can try to explain what the flame is, and then think about whether your explanation can make a 11-year-old understand. There is a similar problem, you can go to see the answer to those questions is not in simple language to say clearly.

Iii. High-level indicators

1, attitude towards the point of view

Specific performance in several aspects, such as the areas of their own do not know the point of view, this is actually said to understand the more the more curiosity of a side embodiment, there is the ability to accommodate different points of view, or even the opposite point of view, this is actually the above mentioned in the perspective of the transposition of thinking, and there is no superstition, Not to be stubborn, when new information and evidence to prove that their original point of view is wrong, can change their views.

These points are not difficult to say, in fact, we will say, but it is really difficult for them to do, because this also involves emotional intelligence, face and other social attributes.

2. Attitude towards others

A person is not good, is very important a standard. Of course, to be exact, goodness does not mean smart, clever bad guys more go, in fact, want to be a successful villain, but also need to be smart, not smart words are not too big bad.

But "good people" and "bad guys" are very subjective judgments. Usually, everyone is a good person in their own hearts, even the terrorists do not treat themselves as bad people, they are in their own eyes is the freedom fighter and the Defender of truth, is very "noble".

Therefore, I say that kindness, in fact, is the attitude of others, that is, whether he can through sharing, coaching, lead by example and other ways to help others improve and improve, to achieve a common win situation. To help others improve, think is extremely difficult, probably to the previous five standards are completed almost to achieve.

Of course, there are those who are very smart, but insist "not only I want to succeed, and I want others to fail," but I am really not interested in such a person is not smart, I always try to avoid.

Everyone is talking about how to tell a wise man. I think I might as well talk about the characteristics of people who are not smart enough in my eyes:

1, love shaking clever, too infatuated with the language art.

Smart people can also be clever, but they will be careful to let themselves not addicted to it. A clever addict is probably too obsessed with his own language. All day shaking clever, again to say the plain vernacular, will not speak. Therefore, the love shakes the clever person, is afraid writes the long article. Writing long articles requires structural ability, and the chattering person is usually just writing short sentences, because it is not a good thing. But a wise man can build a long, simple language, and be able to shake a clever hand in some fine places. The construction of a long need to engineer a simple and powerful work, with a simple-based, sharp and clever to have a mutually reinforcing place.

2, Love bubble circle, easy to restricting.

The person who is not clever enough, always nostalgia the main, regard small change as perilous undertaking. The new crowd, the new work way, means the risk and the opportunity coexist, but the nostalgia person always sees the risk, the bubble small circle is more comfortable, the old elder brother elder sister's way of speaking is familiar, "the friend" every day staged not too bored. However, the TV series "Friends" in the old friends, but often run out of a small circle to find new people new excitement, so, the small circle is not let people tired.

How to identify the smart people around you