Study says intelligence is more important than personality when it comes to getting a well-paid job

Some people think personality gets you further in life, while others believe it is best to rely on brains or looks.

Now a new study seeks to answer the question once and for all, and has found that despite previous research suggesting charm is the key to success, intelligence is actually more important.

That is because being smart is more predictive of getting a well-paid job, while in education it also leads to higher grades.

The research by experts at Tel Aviv University in Israel contradicts a previous study led by the University of Chicago, which found that personality was the more important indicator in predicting important life outcomes. 

Personality is not as important as intelligence when it comes to getting good grades and a well-paid job, a new study suggests (stock image)

Using a number of datasets on personality, intelligence and success, the researchers analysed correlations between positive life outcomes and innate traits. 

They found that intelligence predicted double the rate of pay, in comparison to personality.

Unsurprisingly, in educational attainment, intelligence also predicted higher grades than personality. 

‘It is clear…that the predictive validity of intelligence, both with regard to educational success and with regard to occupational success, far exceed the predictive validity of personality,’ the researchers wrote. 

‘These findings are consistent with previous studies which demonstrated that intelligence is the most dominant predictor of academic and job performance.’

However, the researchers said their study did not compare the roles of intelligence and personality in predicting depression, physical health, mental health and life satisfaction, which could be the subject of future research. 

Authors Chen Zismana and Yoav Ganzachb also stressed that their findings do not suggest that intelligence will guarantee you success – only that it is a better indicator of whether or not you will be successful than any particular personality trait.  

‘Although the analyses reported in this paper clearly suggest that educational and occupational success is better predicted by measures of intelligence than by measures of the big five personality dimensions, they do not necessarily imply that intelligence is more important for success than personality,’ they wrote in their paper. 

However, the study authors stressed that despite their findings, it does not mean that intelligence rather than charm guarantees a person will have more success (stock image) 

‘They may simply imply that it is difficult to assess those aspects of one’s personality that lead to educational and occupational success based on a trait approach to personality because self-characterisations used by personality tests are not be as accurate measures of “true” personality as scores in intelligence test are of “true” intelligence, or because the accuracy of self-characterisations depends on the accuracy of self-monitoring and self-representation whereas the accuracy of intelligence tests does not depend on these factors.’

The study has been published in the journal Intelligence.