Study Finds The Exact Age You Become The Smartest & Most Emotionally Intelligent You’ll Ever Be
Don't throw in the towel quite yet.
Timothy Dykes | Unsplash Most of us assume that our "peak" arrives in our 20s, and even if we don't think so, our culture insists it's true. It's when we're theoretically our most beautiful, desirable, and potent, and we have the energy for life to match. (Never mind, of course, that most of us are a full-tilt mess until we're at least 30.)
But in recent years, it's become fashionable to say that life "begins" at 40 or 50, and it turns out that's much closer to the truth according to science. A study found that the peak of our mental, emotional, and intellectual functions comes much later than most would assume.
The study found that 60 is when we reach the peak of our intellectual and emotional intelligence.
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The study, recently published in the academic journal Intelligence, was conducted by researchers at the University of Western Australia and the University of Warsaw. They dug into the question by observing intellectual abilities and qualities in a more cohesive manner, rather than independently, and doing so put the lie to the idea that we're all at our best in our youth.
That is: While things like mental processing speed and memory begin an immediate decline after our mid-20s, taking together psychological features like intelligence, emotional intelligence, and decision-making skills reveals that we hit our peak just before we enter our golden years.
Call it the age that "wisdom" sets in if you like. The researchers found that our late 50s to early 60s is when our intellectual capacity truly hits its stride, and it has major implications for the way we view not only cognitive decline but age itself.
Scientists believe our brains compensate for other forms of decline by making us more intelligent later in life.
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In a way, this study isn't at all surprising. Not only have we gained a lot of experience and perspective by this time, by the late 50s and early 60s are typically when people's lives finally calm down and settle into a comfortable rhythm.
That is to say, it's really, REALLY hard to be smart and wise when you're stumbling over yourself trying to figure out who you are in your 20s, and probably even harder when you're in the throes of child-rearing and career stress in your 30s and 40s. Your 50s and 60s seem like a natural time for "wisdom" to truly come to fruition.
But there's another factor at play: Our brains may be compensating for our decline in skills like memory and processing speed — so-called "fluid intelligence" — by boosting these "wisdom" areas just before you enter the end stage of our lives.
Fluid intelligence's late-in-life counterpart, crystallized intelligence, or our accumulated knowledge and vocabulary, peaks in late middle age. So do skills like financial literacy, moral reasoning, and emotional intelligence. Personality, conscientiousness, and emotional stability all do too.
When observing all of this together, researchers determined that our overall mental functioning peaks between 55 and 60 and begins making clear declines after about 65 to 70, all much later than the conventional wisdom.
The study shows we need to re-examine our attitudes about aging.
It's impossible to get a job nowadays for pretty much anybody. But for those over 50, it's a whole other story. An AARP survey found that 74% of over-50s feel their age is a barrier to finding a new job, and plenty of studies back that perception up. A UK survey found that 24% of employers think hiring over-50s is "unwise," and another determined that 57 is the age employers consider "too old" when hiring.
Fifty-seven is, of course, smack dab in the middle of the age range researchers' established for our peak mental performance, showing just how absurdly out of whack our perceptions of aging really are. Accordingly, they determined that jobs involving high-stakes decision-making aren't best filled by 27-year-old go-getters but rather those no younger than 40 and no older than 65. Tell that to your nearest hiring manager, and they'll probably blanch.
But the research also paints a giant red underline beneath another out-of-control problem in America: Our political "gerontocracy," or rule by the elderly. Eighty-three-year-old Mitch McConnell has now glitched and fallen on-camera more times than we can count, and 90-year-old Dianne Feinstein was still attending Congressional hearings right up until her death, despite very obviously having lost much of her cognitive ability.
Neither of these extremes is appropriate based on the research (and there's a reason the latter doesn't seem to be tolerated anywhere but government). There's likewise a reason, it seems, why most world leaders tend to be in their 50s and 60s, and why studies have found that even hunter-gatherers' hunting abilities tend to peak around 50. The science is clear. Here's hoping we can get the rest of the world on board.
John Sundholm is a writer, editor, and video personality with 20 years of experience in media and entertainment. He covers culture, mental health, and human interest topics.
