There’s a good reason why single women should look for smart guys — and it has nothing to do with his career: the study of relationships

With great intellect comes great responsibility.

According to a new study, it takes a fool to fall in love, but an intelligent partner to succeed.

General intelligence is a strong indicator of an individual’s likelihood of success in life, as those with the right stuff are more likely to experience the kinds of academic and professional achievements that advance them socially and economically.

In terms of romance, previous studies have also found lower divorce rates and higher chances of midlife marriage among the intelligentsia.

Taking the research a step further, evolutionary psychologist Gavin S. Vance and his colleagues at Oakland University in Michigan set out to explore which factors in a relationship, good or bad, were associated with intelligence—or the lack of it. her.

For their new report, published in Personality and Individual Differences, they chose to limit their experiments to heterosexual men, including 202 participants aged 18-65 who had been in a relationship for six months or more. many, with an average length of just over three and a half years.

The study group was asked to take a cognitive test to assess general intelligence skills, such as the ability to solve problems or apply logic, and received another survey that revealed positive and negative relationship behaviors.

The results show that the more intelligent the man, the more positive his relationship. Smart men demonstrated lower levels of harmful relationship aggravators, such as verbal abuse, manipulation, and sexual coercion, and higher levels of relationship satisfaction and prioritization.

In particular, high scores on pattern recognition and sequential reasoning were strongly associated with men who invested more in their relationships and, conversely, exhibited less problem behavior overall. According to the researchers, this finding suggests that these skills may facilitate impulse control by helping men consider the consequences of habitual bad behavior.

However, the researchers did not find a significant relationship between male intelligence and certain behaviors, such as jealousy, physical abuse and the desire to dominate.

Further research to explore the relationship between romantic success and general female intelligence, as well as its impact on other types of relationships, may help us understand the root of what makes love last.