This is Part 4 in a four-part series.

Earlier in this series, we looked at why some Mensans (who score in the top 98th percentile for IQ) enjoy the reality show The Real Housewives of Orange County (RHOC). In Part 1, we explored how RHOC appeals to our love of cognitive challenge and complex problem-solving, and in Part 2, we explored how RHOC gives us the novelty we crave, as well as content for intellectual exploration and pondering life’s big questions. In Part 3, we looked at the narrative complexity and novelty that RHOC provides. Here we’ll examine a few final reasons the intellectually advanced often enjoy the show.

No Mensa gathering is complete without an area to play with puzzles and strategy games. That’s because strategy-heavy, rule-complex games are especially appealing and rewarding to those with high IQs (Burgoyne et al., 2016). In fact, studying strategy actually strengthens IQ: Studies on children who take extra chess classes show higher intelligence scores, stronger visual-spatial ability, and better math problem solving and mental arithmetic than peers without that training, and the researchers argue that chess practice and cognitive ability feed each other (i.e., it’s not just that chess attracts cognitively advanced kids—it also sharpens their higher-order skills even more) (Yakushina et al., 2025).

It stands to reason, then, that those with IQs over 130 enjoy the kind of onscreen entertainment that offers the opportunity........

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