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Scientists have recently discovered how the charisma, that unique quality that makes you stand out from the crowd, works. As per the latest research, charisma comes from quick thinking. Simply put, the people who are able to think on their feet, respond to general knowledge questions quickly and tend to finish speedily ae treated as a charismatic personality by their friends, reports Association for Psychological Sciences.

"We had expected mental speed to predict charisma, as speed seemed like a critical underlying component to people's capacity to be interesting -- and even a little unpredictable -- in social interaction," Dr. Bill von Hippel, the lead researcher and a professor of psychology at the University of Queensland in Australia, told the Huffington Post in an email. "But we were surprised to find that speed was more important than IQ in predicting charisma."

The researchers conducted an experiment by recruiting group of friends making a total of 147 people. These participants were asked to take the rapid-answer test that can measure their thinking abilities and mental speed. Then all the particpants were asked to rate their friends in how charismatic they are. After that they took the IQ test. The comparison of the mental speed, IQ and charisma ratings reveal that mental speed was the single component that accurately predicted the charisma. Whereas, the IQ failed to make an impact. According to the researchers, the mental speed allowed the people to shield their inappropriate reactions by being humorus in awkward situations and thus seeming more charismatic. "Social intelligence is more than just knowing the right thing to say," Hippel said. "It's also the capacity to say it in a timely fashion." The research was published on November 30^th in the journal Psychological Science.