Humans peak in midlife: A combined cognitive and personality trait perspective(sciencedirect.com)
sciencedirect.com
Humans peak in midlife: A combined cognitive and personality trait perspective
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289625000649
72 comments
> "Crystallized intelligence" and "emotional intelligence" are the consolation prizes no one really wants.
Strongly disagree.
Crystallized intelligence lets me see analogies and relations between disparate domains, abstract patterns that repeat everywhere, broadening my vision from a blinkered must-finish-this-task to a broader what-the-hell-is-this-world-I'm-in. I'm old enough to realise life is finite. Nothing satisfies like understanding.
Emotional intelligence lets me actually behave more like what I know a sane person should behave like. It lets me see I don't have to act on every passing whim and fancy, which are more like external noise than something of an essential expression from my inner self (which is a culturally-instigated fantasy). It lets me see how I'm connected to everyone else and everything in the world. Why I shouldn't stuff my own pockets at everyone else's expense. Why making other people unhappy ultimately makes myself unhappy. It wouldn't have been that hard to spot if I hadn't been caught up in fluid intelligence feats of strength.
These are the real rewards of middle age, not anyone's consolation prizes.
That said, I respect your right to disagree. But I feel this particular way.
Strongly disagree.
Crystallized intelligence lets me see analogies and relations between disparate domains, abstract patterns that repeat everywhere, broadening my vision from a blinkered must-finish-this-task to a broader what-the-hell-is-this-world-I'm-in. I'm old enough to realise life is finite. Nothing satisfies like understanding.
Emotional intelligence lets me actually behave more like what I know a sane person should behave like. It lets me see I don't have to act on every passing whim and fancy, which are more like external noise than something of an essential expression from my inner self (which is a culturally-instigated fantasy). It lets me see how I'm connected to everyone else and everything in the world. Why I shouldn't stuff my own pockets at everyone else's expense. Why making other people unhappy ultimately makes myself unhappy. It wouldn't have been that hard to spot if I hadn't been caught up in fluid intelligence feats of strength.
These are the real rewards of middle age, not anyone's consolation prizes.
That said, I respect your right to disagree. But I feel this particular way.
> are the consolation prizes no one really wants.
If you can't figure out how to use accumulated knowledge and advanced people skills by your late 30s, then maybe you weren't so rational or adaptable to new situations in the first place. Things may not click for me like they did when I was 25, but I usually see right away when I have relevant knowledge to solve a problem or when I know someone who can help.
If you can't figure out how to use accumulated knowledge and advanced people skills by your late 30s, then maybe you weren't so rational or adaptable to new situations in the first place. Things may not click for me like they did when I was 25, but I usually see right away when I have relevant knowledge to solve a problem or when I know someone who can help.
That was harsh. So in addition to declining fluid intelligence there is no consolation prize in store for op or myself?
YMMV, but I was too horny to actually make use of my superior fluid intelligence in my 20s, so I’m content with the tradeoff here.
I guess it depends on your definition of "fluid" intelligence, though I was bad with both of them in my 20s.
Those of us that grew up stupid have the advantage here - our coping mechanisms never stop working! Everyone else has to relearn how to make it work.
Both of you take your well-deserved upvotes and scram.
Damn, we've got people out here playing out Krapp's Last Tape in the comments section.
Don't knock crystallized intelligence.
In my 20s, I could learn a programming language in a weekend by reading a book. I could write code fast. I could figure out bugs. I felt so fast and so smart.
In my 40s and 50s, I looked back at that guy with some amusement. Sure, I didn't type as fast. But I spent a lot less time debugging because I wrote it right the first time, because I could just see what the right thing do to was. Net result was that I produced working code in less time. 48 might have been my peak year.
In my 20s, I could learn a programming language in a weekend by reading a book. I could write code fast. I could figure out bugs. I felt so fast and so smart.
In my 40s and 50s, I looked back at that guy with some amusement. Sure, I didn't type as fast. But I spent a lot less time debugging because I wrote it right the first time, because I could just see what the right thing do to was. Net result was that I produced working code in less time. 48 might have been my peak year.
Are you sure you really learn slower in your 40s due to biological decline? I have the feeling my lower speed is mostly due to circumstances: too many life responsibilities and too little focus time.
agreed, I may learn slower as I age... but I spend a lot less time making stupid mistakes as I do it
Crystallized intelligence sounds like “wisdom” to me, and emotional intelligence sounds like “charisma + tact + empathy.” Those are all things a person should definitely want, probably even more than raw intelligence itself.
Crystallized intelligence makes you good at solving problems, emotional intelligence makes you good at life, fluid intelligence makes you good at solving puzzles.
I'd gladly trade in some of the fluid intelligence I have left for more emotional intelligence.
I'd gladly trade in some of the fluid intelligence I have left for more emotional intelligence.
Or you could just join me and be in denial of it.
I'm only half joking. I think it's notable that chess players tend to peak in their mid to late thirties. But that's only looking at world class players who have reached something relatively close to their genetic potential for the understanding we have today. It's entirely possible for 'regular' humans to continue seeing major improvement well past 40. I know that some players have achieved the GM title in their 50s and 60s. These were already strong players beforehand, but maintaining the level of play to get those norms and ratings is a very significant task for anybody.
It's entirely possible that these observations are 100% consistent with the reported observations and analyses, but if so then those analyses don't really matter in the way that we intuitively think they'd matter.
I'm only half joking. I think it's notable that chess players tend to peak in their mid to late thirties. But that's only looking at world class players who have reached something relatively close to their genetic potential for the understanding we have today. It's entirely possible for 'regular' humans to continue seeing major improvement well past 40. I know that some players have achieved the GM title in their 50s and 60s. These were already strong players beforehand, but maintaining the level of play to get those norms and ratings is a very significant task for anybody.
It's entirely possible that these observations are 100% consistent with the reported observations and analyses, but if so then those analyses don't really matter in the way that we intuitively think they'd matter.
The paper actually argues we peak in our 50s.
”Across both model weightings, humans appear to reach their peak in cognitive–personality functioning between the ages of 55 and 60.”
”Across both model weightings, humans appear to reach their peak in cognitive–personality functioning between the ages of 55 and 60.”
An individual can improve their fluid intelligence (“variance”) through a variety of means well into adulthood. Yes, more research is needed (and I’m sure a lot of research is being done), but I can guarantee you can already do this reliably right now.
Which approaches do you think work well?
I’m not a medical professional. I know nothing about your biopharmacological profile and I don’t know what I am talking about in general.
Micro-dose (sub-threshold) 5-MEO-DMT for a couple of days then solidify during re-integration with something that increases BDNF like intranasal Semax. Can mix and match substances, but I found principle that works well is similar to training a muscle (break and rebuild)
The most important is to stay grounded, always keep learning and engaging in mentally challenging tasks, don’t completely isolate socially, and watch hard biological limits like nutrition and sleep. Otherwise you might go psychotic.
Micro-dose (sub-threshold) 5-MEO-DMT for a couple of days then solidify during re-integration with something that increases BDNF like intranasal Semax. Can mix and match substances, but I found principle that works well is similar to training a muscle (break and rebuild)
The most important is to stay grounded, always keep learning and engaging in mentally challenging tasks, don’t completely isolate socially, and watch hard biological limits like nutrition and sleep. Otherwise you might go psychotic.
> "Crystallized intelligence" and "emotional intelligence" are the consolation prizes no one really wants.
Speak for yourself. I'd happily retroactively trade a dozen IQ points back in my 20s for emotional intelligence. I'd be much happier.
Speak for yourself. I'd happily retroactively trade a dozen IQ points back in my 20s for emotional intelligence. I'd be much happier.
"Fluid intelligence" is not very valuable when it comes to long-term decision making.
What they call "fluid intelligence" is just intelligence and the rest are skills/aptitudes.
"Crystallized intelligence" is more plainly: efficacy/productivity and it's common knowledge that people are most productive during the middle of their lives. When they have the best balance of knowledge accumulated and raw intelligence.
In humans, intelligence manifests as memory, spatial and verbal reasoning, pattern recognition, etc. What is so interesting about IQ and g (the general factor) is that all of these abilities trend together. A score in one area is a good prediction of the score in another area. There is no reason why that must be the case a priori, and LLMs are a great example of an intelligent system which is much better at recalling information than it is at reasoning.
Human aging doesn't seem to affect all of these abilities uniformly. e.g. Everyone seems to complain about memory the most (and that matches my experience), but I've been pleasantly surprised how well neuroplasticity and pattern recognition have held.
In humans, intelligence manifests as memory, spatial and verbal reasoning, pattern recognition, etc. What is so interesting about IQ and g (the general factor) is that all of these abilities trend together. A score in one area is a good prediction of the score in another area. There is no reason why that must be the case a priori, and LLMs are a great example of an intelligent system which is much better at recalling information than it is at reasoning.
Human aging doesn't seem to affect all of these abilities uniformly. e.g. Everyone seems to complain about memory the most (and that matches my experience), but I've been pleasantly surprised how well neuroplasticity and pattern recognition have held.
LLMs in my opinion is pattern recognition of text sequences at an almost infinite scale. My understanding is that "world models" is an attempt to replace the text sequences with more realistic approximations of the world. But they still plan to use pattern recognition.
In the meantime, humans would still need to do the reasoning.
In the meantime, humans would still need to do the reasoning.
We do pattern recognition at an unconscious level all the time. When we perform a task using "system 2" of our mind we are rational and conscious, but when we perform a task using system 1 we do it automatically, intuitively and witu no effort. System 1 often relies on unconscious patterns matching
For example, a chess grandmaster can instinctively tell a good move when seeing a board during a real game. But if they see a random chess board that was not part of a real game, they regress to almost novice level at this task, because there are no patterns to recognize
(patterns such as tactics like pins and skews, or common mating patterns like backrank mate, or common pawn structures and corresponding pawn breaks, things like that - all those patterns can get recognized unconsciously)
For example, a chess grandmaster can instinctively tell a good move when seeing a board during a real game. But if they see a random chess board that was not part of a real game, they regress to almost novice level at this task, because there are no patterns to recognize
(patterns such as tactics like pins and skews, or common mating patterns like backrank mate, or common pawn structures and corresponding pawn breaks, things like that - all those patterns can get recognized unconsciously)
Then perhaps the peak identification is wrong -- surely they haven't tested solid comparison groups for such claims, like individuals that didn't receive education later in life.
Really? What did you achieve in those times of high fluid low emotional intelligence?
I played a whole lot of video games myself. It’s nice to look back at would i could have achieved with my current perspective but that’s kind of the point of this.
I played a whole lot of video games myself. It’s nice to look back at would i could have achieved with my current perspective but that’s kind of the point of this.
Emotional intelligence is pretty useless (not really, especially since it’s important for career progression) but crystallized intelligence seems pretty solid.
> As someone well past "peak" fluid intelligence at this point, I always hate reading research like this. "Crystallized intelligence" and "emotional intelligence" are the consolation prizes no one really wants.
At the end, I agree with you, but for a different reason. My fluid intelligence is still doing well, but my newly acquired “crystallized” and “emotional” intelligence are just good to let me understand why people want to write existential horror stories. Hell, I now realize that some of the dark stuff I didn’t want to touch with a long pole three years ago are in fact escapism to a rosier parallel universe. I liked myself better when I was sixteen years old and I couldn’t understand that boy one year older than me who said he despised our prisons of flesh. May you be doing well Y.P., and if you happen to stumble upon this paragraph, know it took me 25 years to see what you saw so clearly.
At the end, I agree with you, but for a different reason. My fluid intelligence is still doing well, but my newly acquired “crystallized” and “emotional” intelligence are just good to let me understand why people want to write existential horror stories. Hell, I now realize that some of the dark stuff I didn’t want to touch with a long pole three years ago are in fact escapism to a rosier parallel universe. I liked myself better when I was sixteen years old and I couldn’t understand that boy one year older than me who said he despised our prisons of flesh. May you be doing well Y.P., and if you happen to stumble upon this paragraph, know it took me 25 years to see what you saw so clearly.
Emotional intelligence is what allows you to actually raise kids. Having it at midlife is a benefit, not a downside.
Do you believe anything would be different for you if your fluid intelligence would have not declined?
Isn't fluid intelligence learning? and crystallized intelligence stuff you already know?
> Yet, human achievement in domains such as career success tends to peak much later, typically between the ages of 55 and 60. This discrepancy may reflect the fact that, while fluid intelligence may decline with age, other dimensions improve (e.g., crystallized intelligence, emotional intelligence).
Isn't it about accumulated human capital (aka social networks) and experience more than anything else?
Isn't it about accumulated human capital (aka social networks) and experience more than anything else?
Yes, and that’s also why “career success” here really only means “modern era white collar career success”. In other times and other fields it can look very different.
This definitely is not true, outside of physical domains.
I chose a random domain (philosophers writing their seminal work) and found that most wrote them in their 40s. Kant wrote the critique of pure reason at 57 years old!
I chose a random domain (philosophers writing their seminal work) and found that most wrote them in their 40s. Kant wrote the critique of pure reason at 57 years old!
Hobbes was 63 when he wrote Leviathan.
This is a pointless discussion though without talking about testosterone and dopamine levels. Doesn't really matter what your IQ is at 60, if your testosterone and dopamine system is that of the average old man you are not going to have the desire to write Leviathan or Critique of Pure Reason.
This is a pointless discussion though without talking about testosterone and dopamine levels. Doesn't really matter what your IQ is at 60, if your testosterone and dopamine system is that of the average old man you are not going to have the desire to write Leviathan or Critique of Pure Reason.
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Yes - I suspect this doesn't apply to blue collar or fields like art and sports.
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Experience hardens crystallized intelligence.
Reading the abstract it would seem a good reason for positions in government like the President to be restricted to ages 40-65.
that's before you even look at medically-related and late age cognitive decline, but unfortunately there are massive socio-economic effects that work against this
More than socio-economic, the chief factor that advances US political candidates is, simply, fame. These days fame is achieved by somehow becoming an outlier: loud extremism, incessant self promotion, and spending truly insane amounts of money. Intelligence of any kind is irrelevant.
Yeah. The right hasn't been able to repeat Trump, other candidates following his playbook have usually failed. And I think it's because they don't have his three-plus decades of lowest common denominator fame and enough money to buy himself out of repeated business failure and corruption. It's a perfect storm.
If fluid intelligence is based on the ability to recognize new patterns (unsupervised learning) and crystallized intelligence on recognizing known patterns (supervised learning), then more than physiology, age alone may differentiate the two.
Youngsters know no patterns so they can't match new events to known ones. Oldsters know that most seemingly new stuff is not really new, it's just the same old stuff, so they reduce the cost of thinking and reject the noise by adding the new unlabeled event to an existing cluster rather than creating a new noisy one. That's wisdom. But that's also a behavior that will inevitably increase as we age and our clusters establish themselves and prove their worth.
So aren't those two forms of intelligence less about a difference in brain physiology and more about having learned to employ common sense?
Youngsters know no patterns so they can't match new events to known ones. Oldsters know that most seemingly new stuff is not really new, it's just the same old stuff, so they reduce the cost of thinking and reject the noise by adding the new unlabeled event to an existing cluster rather than creating a new noisy one. That's wisdom. But that's also a behavior that will inevitably increase as we age and our clusters establish themselves and prove their worth.
So aren't those two forms of intelligence less about a difference in brain physiology and more about having learned to employ common sense?
This is pretty silly. Your memory obviously gets a little worse as you age, with most of the noticeable decline coming in very late age. But the artificial measures/definitions of things like "fluid" intelligence are mostly useless. Just pulling up one of the studies cited in the article which is supposed to measure the "reasoning" aspect of "fluid" intelligence, presents a huge host issues immediately [1].
Aside from the lack of randomization, you have obvious validity problems. The interpretation of nebulous words like "reasoning" as being accurately measured by e.g. accuracy on Raven matrices (construct validity?) and younger participants having been primed by recent test-taking experience while real-world reasoning skills aren't really reflected - it's all quite specious.
Real-world decisions are value-laden and constraint-laden! "Intelligence" does not mean "maximizing abstract pattern detection". If you keep your brain active with a wide range of creative, interesting problems, you will be fine apart from neurodegenerative diseases, which have real effects.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30211596/
Aside from the lack of randomization, you have obvious validity problems. The interpretation of nebulous words like "reasoning" as being accurately measured by e.g. accuracy on Raven matrices (construct validity?) and younger participants having been primed by recent test-taking experience while real-world reasoning skills aren't really reflected - it's all quite specious.
Real-world decisions are value-laden and constraint-laden! "Intelligence" does not mean "maximizing abstract pattern detection". If you keep your brain active with a wide range of creative, interesting problems, you will be fine apart from neurodegenerative diseases, which have real effects.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30211596/
> accuracy on Raven matrices
That's exactly how intelligence in measurement setting is defined. That's how the word is defined. What's interesting is that it correlates with so many unrelated real world outcomes. And other definitions and measurements do not.
That's exactly how intelligence in measurement setting is defined. That's how the word is defined. What's interesting is that it correlates with so many unrelated real world outcomes. And other definitions and measurements do not.
You're apparently alluding to "IQ" without saying it. But once you get above "low IQ" performance on these tests, their predictive value trends to zero. The correlation is very one sided (as explained by people like Nassim Taleb). Also, when I say "real world problem solving", that doesn't mean "income". A predictor can look powerful even if it's not measuring real-world skills, as long as institutions use it to distribute opportunities and labels that later show up as "job success".
I never heard of the institution that distributes opportunities based on the result of IQ test. I only heard about IQ test for police and for military.
I'm not sure if that's what you mean by "one sided", but while you can find high IQ people in all walks of life it's very easy to find them in high achievers. And it goes way beyond lack of low IQ people. Even average IQ people are rare there.
I'm not sure if that's what you mean by "one sided", but while you can find high IQ people in all walks of life it's very easy to find them in high achievers. And it goes way beyond lack of low IQ people. Even average IQ people are rare there.
I'm a layman to this jargon, but are 'crystallized intelligence' and 'emotional intelligence' in any actual sense 'intelligence'? I can't see how these terms mean anything other than judgement, experience, maturity etc, which are already good enough labels for this stuff. Can anyone explain what these flashier new terms offer over them?
Intelligence is a vague concept anyway.
One way to look at this is that "fluid intelligence" represents potential intelligence or raw processing power. "Crystallized intelligence" and "emotional intelligence" are then actual intelligence, or the intelligence another person can see.
Or maybe a bit less seriously: In my experience, fluid intelligence often manifests as stupidity in young people, for whatever reason. Crystallized intelligence and emotional intelligence then represent intelligence as a lack of stupidity.
One way to look at this is that "fluid intelligence" represents potential intelligence or raw processing power. "Crystallized intelligence" and "emotional intelligence" are then actual intelligence, or the intelligence another person can see.
Or maybe a bit less seriously: In my experience, fluid intelligence often manifests as stupidity in young people, for whatever reason. Crystallized intelligence and emotional intelligence then represent intelligence as a lack of stupidity.
They offer the dilution of the word "intelligence" so that we can pretend ever more strongly that it doesn't really exist as a concept, and therefore eventually stop measuring it (especially across populations)
Is this a "How to lie with statistics" paper, where investigator-selected parameters for the weighted average determine the result?
Fluid intelligence must be the classical one that the IQ measures. Crystallized and emotional must be the experience, professional and social respectively.
In my case I was quite good with numbers in my 20s, not any more in my late 40s. But I believe now I know the world best in my life and that is increasing.
In my case I was quite good with numbers in my 20s, not any more in my late 40s. But I believe now I know the world best in my life and that is increasing.
Fluid intelligence is the confidence you feel at trivia night in the third round
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Perhaps fluid intelligence peaks at 20 because the drinking age is 21.
I quite like this paper. Does a great job laying out scientific support for things we already "knew" in our guts - like having retirement ages at around 65, for instance, being an ideal milestone to start transitioning folks from leading hard work to supporting activities.
Where I worry is that these papers will be used to justify ageism. Looking through these comments, there's quite a lot of positions being bandied around that I've heard justify some truly atrocious hiring/firing decisions before, and we need to be cognizant of the reality that age alone is not an indicator of success or failure for a given role or task. It's helpful to keep looking into this, but we also need to be aware of our own biases.
Where I worry is that these papers will be used to justify ageism. Looking through these comments, there's quite a lot of positions being bandied around that I've heard justify some truly atrocious hiring/firing decisions before, and we need to be cognizant of the reality that age alone is not an indicator of success or failure for a given role or task. It's helpful to keep looking into this, but we also need to be aware of our own biases.
I don't know that people are really looking for things to justify their ageism, just like I don't feel that racists are actually trying to justify their view.
As a seasoned citizen myself (55), what I've experienced is that ageism seems to be more about having common points of view and cultural references. It is similar to how several studies show that people tend to hire others just like themselves despite actual credentials. This is the challenge with age, race, culture, and even sex.
I do like that this paper shows that I will be just coming off my peak of power at 65 and that all I need to know is what 6-7 means so I can talk to my younger colleagues. :)
As a seasoned citizen myself (55), what I've experienced is that ageism seems to be more about having common points of view and cultural references. It is similar to how several studies show that people tend to hire others just like themselves despite actual credentials. This is the challenge with age, race, culture, and even sex.
I do like that this paper shows that I will be just coming off my peak of power at 65 and that all I need to know is what 6-7 means so I can talk to my younger colleagues. :)
The best is yet to come!
... says the HR rep, as you are cleaning out your desk.
Derf, I challenge your next comment to be the opposite of which what you want to respond.
Wait, what ? That made my brain hurt.
Whoop!
Still in the game :-)
Still in the game :-)
Do we peak or are there fewer patterns than we want to believe and eventually accept and just quit looking?
Sure we can generate syntactic and semantic descriptions endlessly but to use software as an example, we made a lot of the same things that look different only in the symbols used.
Ansible and Chef. Terraform and Pulumi. Ruby and Python. Windows and Linux. Burger shack 1, burger shack 2. They all solve the same problem.
Being able to generate semantics endlessly does not upend our daily patterns and routines. Life on Earth is pretty obvious.
Sure we can generate syntactic and semantic descriptions endlessly but to use software as an example, we made a lot of the same things that look different only in the symbols used.
Ansible and Chef. Terraform and Pulumi. Ruby and Python. Windows and Linux. Burger shack 1, burger shack 2. They all solve the same problem.
Being able to generate semantics endlessly does not upend our daily patterns and routines. Life on Earth is pretty obvious.
As someone well past "peak" fluid intelligence at this point, I always hate reading research like this. "Crystallized intelligence" and "emotional intelligence" are the consolation prizes no one really wants.
I'd rather we instead perform research to identify how one might reverse the decline of fluid intelligence...