Reading Tops 1 Hobby for Highly Intelligent People, Backed by 500,000-Reader Study
Updated
Updated · Forbes · Aug 15
Reading Tops 1 Hobby for Highly Intelligent People, Backed by 500,000-Reader Study
2 articles · Updated · Forbes · Aug 15
Summary
Reading emerged as the hobby most consistently linked with highly intelligent people, not because it trains raw reasoning directly but because it steadily builds language and knowledge.
Nearly 500,000 readers in a 2025 Review of Educational Research study showed leisure print reading had a moderate link to comprehension, while screen reading showed only a small association.
Psychologists frame the benefit as growth in crystallized intelligence—durable knowledge accumulated over time—rather than gains in fluid intelligence, which tends to peak earlier and resists training transfer.
A 2023 PNAS synthesis of more than 1,300 studies tied need for cognition more strongly to knowledge-based intelligence, helping explain why people who enjoy effortful thinking often gravitate to reading.
The broader takeaway is modest: reading is not a shortcut to higher reasoning scores, but a reliable long-term habit for expanding vocabulary, background knowledge and future learning capacity.