Whoever wins a lot is not a genius at all! “I knew it!” – the reader of this article will think, remembering a person with an exorbitantly high income.

“Of course, it cannot be that minds alone make some people receive such salaries!” People who make an incredible amount of money do not automatically mean that they are very smart, as the article claims. german wave.

A new study published in the scientific journal European Sociological Review, involving researchers from various European universities, was able to confirm what many of you suspect. Up to a certain point, intelligence and money earnings are indeed correlated. But besides this, there are other factors that determine the financial success of a person.

In this study, researchers looked at data from 60,000 Swedish men who had access to the income they declared to the tax office, as well as the results of a special intelligence test at the time of their enlistment in the army.

“The data we got is incredible,” says Mark Koisnig, one of the authors of the study. He is Professor of Sociology at the University of Leipzig and Associate Professor at the Institute for Analytical Sociology at Lindköping University in Sweden.

While annual income is easier to record, intelligence scoring is more complex. All participants took the same test between the ages of 18 and 19. This is the so-called Armed Forces Proficiency Test (AFQT), an Armed Forces Proficiency Test used by the Swedish military to assess the cognitive abilities of young people.

Professor Koisnig regrets that women were not part of his study due to the lack of relevant data. To ensure objectivity, the researchers looked at data only for the years when all Swedish men were required to take the test.

“We linked intelligence scores on this particular test to their performance in the labor market later in life,” explains Professor Koisnig. In practice, this means that the researchers track the annual income of men for 10 years, when the participants are aged 35 to 45, and from this they calculate the average value of the corresponding annual income.

“The results showed that there are three different levels in the labor market,” notes the professor. Up to a certain level of income, wages are not related to cognitive ability. People start making money, and researchers do not notice an increase in cognitive abilities. “In the top 50%, we see a very strong relationship between income and cognitive skills.”

However, this clear correlation disappears when income exceeds 60,000 euros, the professor says, stating that a further increase in income is not accompanied by a corresponding increase in cognitive abilities. However, the highest percentage of study participants are not intellectual “monsters” either.

According to Koisnig’s research, participants with the highest income of €200,000 in the top 1% can earn twice as much as the next percentile in the rankings, but they are also “one idea less smart”, according to DW.