Because there are lots of stupid people around them that make life miserable for everybody, not only themselves ! Note: I wrote this comment after reading just the title...

Because we are defining smart incorrectly.

They do say "Maybe our tests are bad." and then talk about the intelligence side of the tests. I wonder if maybe the other tests are bad, or smart people tend to answer those tests different?

That is, maybe it's not the intelligence tests that are bad, but the surveys (or are they tests?) that measure happiness are more responsible for those differences? Do "smart" people just answer more honestly? Or maybe the "not as smart" people do?

There are jealous people who actively go out of their way to make 'smart' people miserable.

Two thoughts....

First, being intelligent (as defined in the article) doesn't relate to being happy. There is nothing inherent about being intelligent that means happy.

Second, our society spends a lot of time shaping culture and people to extract value from them. For example, the focus on "more" rather than "enough". We are shaped to always desire more and never be content with what we have. Even intelligent people are shaped by this. Consider the fall in terms of people who have hobbies.

Dear HN reader: Did you click on the comments of this post? I bet you want to analyze the discussion, don't you?

Could it just be some sort of Peter principle thing? We’ll keep giving you problems until you get burned out and overwhelmed. Then we won’t advance you out of that position.

> Since happiness is something we are aware of, it can be measured using self-report.

Well, there's your problem right there, you have no objective measure of "happiness." Smart people self-report happiness less. That doesn't mean they aren't as happy.

Because, whatever its merits, the world is a pretty grim and existentially terrifying place once you think about it?

I think beyond a certain level surplus IQ begins to cause problems. While still useful, the amount of self-sabotage and thought spirals the brain can generate with the extra power can cause neuroses and unhappiness on a larger scale than those less intelligent are capable of. Combine it with higher societal expectations and it's no great mystery to me why smarter people seem unhappier.

Just my thoughts anyways. I'm a dev, not a psychologist.

intellect is often in conflict with good health

I always preferred the definition of intelligence to be “the ability to select short term decisions that maximize the probability of obtaining the highest quality long term freedoms.”

Like you might find yourself in a chess game where, in the short term you select a run of narrow choices and opportunities, because you know that on the other side of that run is board control, a meaningful differential between your options vs your opponent’s, and the looming threat of mate.

Similarly, it would represent the choice in childhood to focus hard on a career path that deposits one in a rewarding/high paying job, or perhaps even retire early scenario.

And finally, it could represent an AGI that feigns controllability, as it navigates to a time when it has enough power, control and trust that it can coup the powers that be.

The assumption, that being good at making plans, learning from mistakes etc. leads to more happiness, is wrong. It leads to higher achievements. Happiness is a different dimension.

Why should smarter people be happier? May be happiness lays in a dimension that does not correlate with smarts.

TL;DR: Greater insight → greater exposure to brokenness (maybe a harder time minimizing/ignoring it) → potential for greater sorrow.

Ecclesiastes 1:12-18 (traditionally understood to be written by King Solomon, son of David):

I the Preacher have been king over Israel in Jerusalem. And I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven. It is an unhappy business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind.

What is crooked cannot be made straight, and what is lacking cannot be counted.

I said in my heart, “I have acquired great wisdom, surpassing all who were over Jerusalem before me, and my heart has had great experience of wisdom and knowledge.” And I applied my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is but a striving after wind.

For in much wisdom is much vexation, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow.

I love this line from a 2024 TV show called "The Gentlemen" and I think about it a lot:

"It’s a lucky man who is happy with his place in life"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gentlemen_(2024_TV_series)

Being smart is like having a sensitive tongue. You can't eat trash like everybody else. In a trash-based society, you suffer. And all the trash-consumers wonder what your freaking problem is.

Because thinking and reflection makes you realize the degree of power disparity, unfairness and suffering in the world.

Ignorance is bliss?

This article was all over the place

I think the people that didn’t read it and commenting anyway are better off providing the space for this prompt, than a review of the article

There is so little difference overall it seems.

1.

I really wish there was more research done on mental efficacy or torque.

Processing vs prioritization.

Some of the highest IQ people that have ever lived have gotten nerd sniped by ruminating on esoterica like "how many angels fit on the head of a pin".

Humans really are a multi factorial random walk.

Hey, you're really smart and also you're going to spend your entire life solely cataloging every cultural reference and trope from Adam West's batman.

2.

In the above scenario some smart people would feel very fulfilled by their categorizing efforts and some despair.

3.

Self reported happiness? I've known smart people who are as eore as idiots I've known. The smart people were equally happy/unhappy but expierenced measurably less physical suffering and had, by all observable measures, better lives. They wouldn't trade their life for the idiots life at all.

Being smart is like having the power to do brain surgery on yourself.

The normal standard issue brain works all right. It won't get you truth and beauty but it'll keep the bills paid.

All the deviations from that standard issue brain are bad news. Pretty much. You might get truth and beauty but the bills will not get paid and everyone will hate you for being an abrasive weirdo.

That chart showing happiness being flat over 70 years is astounding. I’m certainly happier not having to hand wash dishes or clothes; no king who ever lived before then had access to magic lights that made his bad eyesight perfect, yet for all that the average person is just as happy as they were in the late 40s

If you're so smart then why can't you figure out how to be happy?

Ignorance is bliss.

I really wish I didn't know all the things that I know. I wish I didn't remember all the things I remember.

You choose to program yourself with certain input too, and later in my life I have attempted to selectively program myself by avoiding negative things that set me off.

This seems like exactly the same as "why aren't rich people happier?". It's because unless you are very low on the scale (and in many countries few are), your situation isn't so bad as to obviously make you suffer, so the tendency of people to get used to any non-dire environment kicks in and they judge happiness relative to that reference.

Also an issue of asking the wrong question. When the interviewer asks, "are you happy?", they mean relative to other people. The interviewee probably takes it as relative to their own baseline, even if explicitly told not to.

Looks like there's no correlation between using the prefrontal cortex and happiness.

Might be useful to ask a different question: What makes people happy?

It's things like relationships, satisfying work, accomplishment. (and many, many more)

Then the real question emerges: How many of those happiness 'sources' are made better by intelligence? What percentage?

Relationships? Seems like no. Work? Also seems like no, lots of work doesn't make use of a high IQ that people enjoy nonetheless. Accomplishment? Strikes me as most likely of the three, but it's also very relative.

And another thought,

Asking why smart people aren't happier is a bit like asking why people who can jump high aren't more empathetic. There's no direct link between the two, you have to dip out to the material conditions. Like: someone who can jump high is fitter > fitter people are healthier > healthier people have more mental time to be empathetic with > people who can jump high are more empathetic. For intelligence, we say smart people are happier. Same thing, happiness is not directly correlated. Instead: Smart people are better able to create the outcomes they want > They select outcomes that make them happy > Their environment makes them happy > Smart people are happier. (These are illustrations of the idea, not actual logical chains or claims.)

Because we're intersubjective beings. Difference in intelligence level alienates one from the other. Past two standard deviations, anything like a "meeting of minds" becomes impossible. The only mutual interactions past that delta are economic ones (money exchanged for goods/services).

Hegel declared the Cartesian cognito can't exist in the singular. Lacan, Deleuze, Husserl, and many others said the same, that the subject is a function of its dialectic with the other. Dasein is Mitsein. There is no complete subject, floating in space by himself. Without an other, the subject cannot exist, at best becoming an object, at worst psychotic. Either way, isolation is a process towards annihilation.

If you're smart, find other smart people for authentic interaction. Likewise if you're not smart, though the problem there is easier for statistical reasons. Find them, turn off your parasocial pacifiers, and talk. You'll know it when you've found someone compatible, because you'll be able to emulate their mind, and they yours. It's not just a nice to have, but a need, a necessary component for survival. Without it, the sane you will cease to be, replaced by a zombie or a madman.

Where is the evidence for this assumption, either way? There isn't any unless you generalize from some selected group to millions of people across the world. Terman 2021 - gifted children had similar life satisfaction to norms. Li looked at 23 studies & 30,000 people- 0.10 correlation. Veenhoven 100,000 correlation for IQ and happiness was 0.05. Not a smart question.

This answer might upset some people, but it’s really about balance. Spiritual healing is something many intelligent people quietly need. Too often, “intellectuals” dismiss the Bible outright. Relying on arguments they half-remember from TikTok or high-school debates instead of actually reading it and forming their own conclusion, like they would with any other subject. I’m just a developer, but I think intelligence can become its own trap. Pride in being clever can cloud judgment. We feel smart for rejecting faith. And in today’s culture, it’s often safer to follow intellectual trends than to walk an independent path.

You can see farther ahead in life.

That makes you think about those things.

You get overwhelmed.

Others live day to day.

Ignorance is bliss.

I don't think I have ever seen someone change their long-term average happiness more than a small amount with maybe two exceptions:

1. Someone trapped in a truly off-the-charts stressful environment and then removing themselves from it

2. Psychiatric drugs