Want to look smarter? Here are some tips from the latest studies.
1. Communicate clearly
If you use a thesaurus when composing e-mails, you may be guilty of trying to boost your intelligence perception.
“Smart people have good vocabularies,” says Daniel Oppenheimer, professor of cognitive psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles. “People think: If I can show that I have a good vocabulary, I’ll sound smarter.” (Here’s how to improve your own vocabulary in just one day.)
“People associate intelligence with clarity of expression,” Oppenheimer says, adding that smarter people do use longer words in their writing, but their aim is to write clearly.
2. Wearing glasses may help
According to a survey by the U.K.-based College of Optometrists, 43 percent of people think that glasses make people look smarter, and 40 percent of people consider wearing clear lenses to seem intelligent.
“Many people considered wise—like professors, judges and mature statesmen—wear glasses more frequently than fools. So, any cue associated with wisdom—thick books, fluent speech, even gray hair—may give rise to the impression of smartness.”
3. Men: Tell some jokes!
“Persons having a good sense of humor show really higher intelligence,” Wojciszke says. “So, men can use humor as an easy and honest—hard to fake—cue of intelligence.”
4. Smile authentically
“The so-called ‘halo’ effect: If they have a spontaneously favorable impression of a person—and authentic smiles can elicit a rapid favorable response—they tend to judge other characteristics, like intelligence of the person, also more positively. And the ‘what’s beautiful is good’ effect: If people find someone else attractive—and an authentic smile tends to enhance attractiveness—they are inclined to assign other good qualities to them, like intelligence.”
5. Read up!
“Most of our daily interactions with others are very short and superficial,” Wojciszke says. “However, we are less easily fooled during prolonged or repeated interactions.”
6. Make eye contact
“Good eye contact means the other person is responsive to what you are doing or saying,” Wojciszke says. “If he is not responsive, this means that either you are dull or he is dumb. No wonder that having such a choice, most of us prefer to think that he is dumb.”
7. Pass on the booze
“We frequently see some degree of cognitive impairment following alcohol consumption,” says study author Scott Rick, professor of marketing at the University of Michigan. “That can act as a lens through which we view people who drink.”
8. Being nice counts, too
“People will like you not because of your smartness, but because of your warmth and kindness,” he says. “However, besides liking, there is also respecting, and this is based on intelligence, indeed. So, when you want others to like you, present yourself as a person who is nice rather than smart. But if you want others to respect you, present yourself as intelligent rather than nice.”
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