Scientists have figured out who is smarter — blondes or brunettes

Scientists say that jokes about stupid blondes are no longer relevant. Serious research has shown that we have always been biased against naturally blonde ladies. They were not only not stupider, but also smarter than some girls with a different hair color. How was the study of this serious issue conducted?

It is known for sure that the myth of stupid blonde girls has its roots in the 18th century. In 1775, the premiere of the theatrical production "Les Curiosités de la foire" took place in Paris. Her main character, the narrow—minded courtesan Rosalie Dute, was a canonical "dumb blonde".

Before this ill-fated play, no one noticed anything strange about blondes. Moreover, in ancient Rome and Greece, such women were literally idolized. Most of the goddesses of the ancient pantheon, including Aphrodite, were described as beauties with blonde curls.

For more than two centuries, everything remained as it is and blondes were mocked for no reason. For the first time, German scientists began studying the problem in 2000. They recruited two groups — blondes and brunettes and conducted an exam among them. Tricky questions were asked on various topics and logical tasks, and then the results were compared.

It turned out that the brunettes coped better with the exam. Their results were 4 percent better than the blondes. But serious study was required and larger groups were recruited, with a total of 5 thousand girls. They were already tested with the help of a completely scientific intelligence test from the leader of the biological direction in psychology, Hans Eysenck.

As a result, we learned that the average IQ of brunettes was 104 points, and blondes — 102. This is not at all an indicator that someone is smarter, but just a statistical error. But it didn't make it any easier for the blondes. Jokes and anecdotes continued to appear with enviable constancy, and at work, as before, they were looked at with suspicion.

But in 2016, another attempt was made to rehabilitate blondes, and it was crowned with success. The Americans, or rather a team of scientists led by a researcher at Ohio State University Jay Zagorski, took up the case. The world learned about the course of the experiment and its results from the Economics Bulletin magazine.

Zagorski took his work very seriously. Information was collected on 10,878 American women, accumulated since 1979. The scientist thought through everything to the smallest detail and even excluded all Afro- and Latin Americans from the control groups. His research showed that blondes have the highest intelligence. Although this time, most likely, the error played a role. As a result, fair—haired women had an IQ of 103.2 points, brown-haired women - 102.7, red-haired women - 101.2, and brunettes - 100.5.

Blondes were in the majority among those whose results were above average. They were the least among the owners of the lowest IQ. Summing up, Jay Zagorski was careful in the wording. He said so:

So it's likely that soon jokes about blondes will be a thing of the past. And not so long ago, scientists proved that smart people keep their youth longer.