Kids can be cruel. If you’ve got any physical difference, they’ll tease you about it. The size of your head is no exception. But isn’t it awesome when that physical difference turns out to be the thing that gives you a leg up in life? Big-headed babies unite, because it’s your time to shine.
Chances are good that at least some mothers out there know about having to shove their kid’s giant cranium out during childbirth. Chances are also good that those kids are now doing quite well in life, so they can pay their moms back for that trouble. Turns out, if your little one had a bigger-than-normal skull, they probably grew up to be quite smart and have very successful careers.
A charity group called UK Biobank did some research published in the Molecular Psychiatry Journal, and found a very strong link between intelligence and having a larger-than-average head — probably because of all that extra room for your brain to stretch out and make itself at home. So if you got picked on in school for having a large head, or you’re the source of your mother’s woeful cries of how difficult labor was, you’re probably smart and successful enough to wipe your tears with spare money you use as tissues now.
Researchers collected data from more than 100,000 people and found that those born with larger-than-average noggins were more likely to earn a college degree and to score higher on verbal-numerical reasoning tests.
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The researchers noted, “Highly significant associations were observed between the cognitive test scores in the UK Biobank sample and many polygenic profile scores, including… intracranial volume, infant head circumference, and childhood cognitive ability.”
Which basically means bigger brain, bigger head, bigger smarts. The evidence was so accurate that they were even able to determine which children would go to university based on the size of their heads. Yes, they could actually judge how successful specific big-headed kids would be, and they were right.
If you’re wondering just how big a kid’s head has to be to see these benefits, researchers specified that the cranium must be larger than the average of 13.5-14 inches. At least those were the head sizes most likely to exhibit greater intelligence later in life.
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A 2018 study seemed to back up this theory as well. Researchers concluded that brain size was linked not only to better information processing but also to more efficient functioning. The researchers explained, “The brains of intelligent people demonstrated less neuronal activity during an IQ test than the brains of less intelligent individuals. Intelligent brains possess lean, yet efficient neuronal connections. Thus, they boast high mental performance at low neuronal activity.”
What that means is that a big brain uses less energy to compute more. Essentially, they are more efficient. At this point, I kind of suspect that some of those researchers may themselves have been overly blessed in the cranium department and conducted all this research in order to give a proper one-finger salute to all the people who used to make fun of them for it.
So next time you see someone with a really large head on their shoulders, don’t pick on them; they’re probably off to their private yacht to spend some of the money they earned at the awesome job they got by being naturally smarter than everyone else.
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Merethe Najjar is a professional writer, editor, and award-winning fiction author. Her articles have been featured in The Aviator Magazine, Infinite Press, Yahoo, BRIDES, and more.
