Through the representation of academia, Olive’s difficulty to parse her emotions, and the differences between Olive and Malcolm, The Love Hypothesis shows how there are different types of intelligence. Olive, Adam, and others within the Stanford community possess intelligence, as evidenced by the fact they work in academia. Many of Olive’s thoughts about her experiment show how she understands the material and is always seeking new information with which to supplement what she already believes. Tom’s insults in later chapters reveal just how intelligent Olive is. While Tom also possesses a level of intelligence to remain in the field, even if that intelligence is only enough for him to copy and add to the work of others, his jealousy and view of Olive as a threat shows just how intelligent her thought processes are.

While Olive possesses academic intelligence, she struggles with emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence is the ability to manage one’s own emotions, as well as understand the emotions of others. As shown through her frequent babbling and lengthy paragraphs of rambling thoughts, Olive doesn’t have a strong understanding of her emotions. She gets caught up in thinking about her research and studies that she lets other types of intelligence fall by the wayside.