Cognitive Complexity and Communicative Context: Reflection of User Intelligence in Social Media Texts

Abstract

The focus of this article is the reflection of intelligence as ability in social media texts. The authors have developed a model of communicative environments according to which the manifestation of intelligence in a message depends on the communicative situation in which the information is transmitted. Thus, the cognitive complexity of texts is a consequence not only of the author's intellectual capacity, but also of his willingness and ability to adapt the complexity of messages to the characteristics of the recipient. This paper analyses data from individual social media profiles in relation to user intelligence test scores, as well as similar data obtained at a regional level. The study involved 438 subjects who took an intelligence test and provided access to their social media profiles. Facebook users were found to be, on average, more intelligent than VKontakte users, posting more posts containing text, posting less often overall. No significant differences in post characteristics were found between the two social networks. However, differences in the nature of the relationship between intelligence and cognitive complexity of messages were demonstrated for different social networks and for male and female subsamples of users. Correlations were found to be higher at the regional level compared to the individual level, higher for Facebook compared to VKontakte and higher for men compared to women. It is concluded that indicators of texts’ cognitive complexity from social media do reflect the intelligence of their authors, but the extent of this reflection depends on the characteristics of the communicative situation