Intelligent people are more trusting of others than their less smart counterparts, researchers have claimed – because they are better judges of character.

Bright individuals may also be more trusting because they are better at weighing up situations, according to researchers from Oxford University.

It also found that people who are more trusting are more likely to have better health and greater happiness.

But the links between trust and health, and between trust and happiness, are not explained by intelligence, they added.

The academics analysed data from the General Social Survey, which is conducted every one or two years.

The survey, which has been running since the early 1970s, examines peoples’ social status, their behaviours and social attitudes as well as intelligence.

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