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Human Psychology

I've been doing a lot of thinking about a few different aspects of human psychology. Here's some of those thoughts.

The higher a person's IQ is, the more prone they are to depression. Why?

My theory is this: people with high IQ's look around the world and see the stupidity and selfishness of other people. They see the stupidity and selfishness in themselves. They are less able to believe excuses for these things that other people tell themselves. So they feel that the world is a shit place to live, and that people are shitty, and that it includes themselves.

People are inherently both selfish and giving.

All living organisms evolved from the initial protozoa. If you believe that, as I do, and most scientists do, then you believe that all organisms evolved from a creature whose only concern in life was it's own survival. This makes every living thing out there selfish. We have to be at least slightly selfish. After all, if no one is looking out for our needs, we will die. Who better to look out for your needs than you, yourself? The problem comes when people aren't taught to distinguish between need and want. Then, we say they are being selfish. But really, providing your own needs is also selfish, and it is also good. Selfishness is only bad when it hurts others needlessly, when it denies other people their right to life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness.

But, like many other warm-blooded creatures, we also evolved to help each other. To cooperate, share our strengths, and build something greater.

Random- have you ever noticed that someone who is incapable of empathy is called "cold-blooded"? Cold blooded creatures don't seem to cooperate as much as warm-blooded creatures do. Oh sure, they'll cooperate with a mate to raise their offspring, but beyond that they don't form communities and pool resources. The cold blooded creatures who do cooperate are much more rare.

Back on topic- so we have evolved to not only provide for our own needs, but also to share our resources with the group. You see that in how, when getting rid of something, even the most selfish person will look to give it to someone else before throwing it out. "I don't want this anymore, do you want it?"

Everyone craves connections to other humans.

Humans are social creatures. We want to connect to another living being. It's why people who live alone get pets. It's why, when you hear about a sociopathic killer, there's always that one person in their life that they would do anything to protect. The difference is in how many people we want to connect with, and how deeply. The more deeply a person tends to connect to others, the fewer people they tend to want to connect with. Thus, people who have a ton of friends tend to be "shallow". They connect with all those people, but they don't have a very deep connection with them.

How we connect also changes. Some of us feel connections by giving gifts. Others by physically touching. Others by saying positive things. Others by doing something for someone else. Still others, simply by being together, doing the same thing. We all do all five of these things to feel connections with others, and feel connections to others who do these things for us. When the connection is strong enough, we call it "love". And most people would agree that a working definition for the emotion of love is that you value the other person's happiness. So, we feel connections to other people when we do things that make that person happy, and when they do things for us which make us happy. Which is why, in English at least, the word love is usually a verb, and sometimes a noun, but almost never an adjective*. The other emotions are adjectives. But not love.

*I say "almost never", because while I can't think of any instance in which love is used as an adjective, I'm not confident that it doesn't exist.