rouzbeh knows my past fetish for the IQ. 
i took two psychologist administered iq tests, once when i was around 9 the other when i was around 16. on the WISC i received a score of 148, on the stanford binet test my score was 156. i took these tests because i was sent to the psychologist for âbehaviouralâ problems in school. this air of superiority i used to have has diminished over the years, i havenât learned any new languages for more than 10 years, i barely finished high school(my grades were âgoodâ), and this semester i failed statistics( natural as i didnât attend the class)
on the other hand, people with clearly less âabilitiesâ were and still are academically more accomplished than i am
iâm 19 but iâve accomplished much less from the prognosis by paedagogues had for me. therefore my âIQâ hasnât been anything more than legitimizing my superiority in my mind over others, and that has had a negative impact on my life in general. that is why i advise parents who have supposedly gifted children not to blow their abilities out of proportion. and also i want to point out that itâs not an indicator of success
does IQ and accomplishment correlate in real life?
IQ tests can be inaccurate because the nature of intelligence is pretty complex, never-the-less certain IQ tests predict how well people do in comparison to their peers.
maybe because iâm jewish through my motherâs motherâs mother and because iâm euroasiatic i was just genetically predisposed to a high score
seriously though,i have another query iâve seen predictions of Goetheâs and Platoâs scores. how is it possible to predict someoneâs score?
There are a number of people I know with high IQs that have mundane lives. Myself included. Drive is important, finding something that excites you is important and most of all trying to settle on one thing to do when you have so many interesting choices. You might fall into that last 2 parts, as do many with High IQs. You may just not have settled for that one thing, because you have so many interests and the beginnings of multiple skills. Try to narrow things down for yourself if you are concerned about accomplishing something.
IQ just shows us a persons ability to deal with Logic according to the westernised syle of thinking. Of course it has a relationship with overall intellegance but it is not everything, for example I know alot of people with higher IQs than me who have absolutly no common sense. Another common side effect of high IQ is what you described above. It tends to give people an arrogant sense of superiority. This can be very detrimental to your life, it alienates people and can make you extreemly lazy. Alot of my friends who got Aâs in school quit college because it actually meant that they would have to do some work. Then theres emotional intellegance to consider. The ability to form relationships is a skill that comes from the brain and so must be a form of intelect, yet the higher the IQ the more likely that you wont have a very high emotional intellegance, often because feelings and understanding them are not totally logical processes, and can sometimes even seem to be in conflict with each other.
I would say that the best way to measure intelegance is through how much success you have in life, as thats the reason we eveolved brains in the first place
Not to mention the fact that you can get better at IQ tests
spot on!
Sure was but you of all peoples should know that itâs more than a cultural test
i donât understand what ur trying to say exactly,rouzbeh,
i was saying that the guy is right that it gives you a false sense of accomplishment and makes you lazy( he nailed me 100%)
yarrr matey and i said it was a good point but i disputed its necessarily cultural ties
i didnât say anything about culture. i highlighted the 3 lines the guy said what i just said. i canât decide at the moment if itâs âwesternâ or âeasternâ thinking because frankly iâm not an expert and because i believe that orientalism is an imperialist social science created by the west to discredit the east in itself 
it canât be only culture, iâm sure you can learn to count in your head, memorize sequences and put together puzzles(literally or not) if youâre born in North Korea
The reason why I mentioned culture is because you cannot give someone in africa an IQ test and expect to get an accurate result. This is based on studies that I observed in my years as a psychology student. People of different cultures virtually always score lower on IQ tests than people in the western world? Is this because they have a lower IQ, that would seem very doubtfull, more likely it is because the types of questions asked are not relevant to a tribes person. Another interesting twist, is that it seemed that children in africa have a completely different way of answering the questions. For example in spatial awareness tests where as virtually every child in England seemd to respond in a more linier fashion, chilren in africa took the pictures as a whole in there mind. It was one of the only areas where they scored higher on average.
Well all of the IQ tests that Iâve taken, as opposed to knowledge tests, have been pattern recognition tests. I believe that is what defines intelligence, the ability to recognize patterns. Hence the ability of a more âintelligentâ child to be able to grasp mathematical/linguistic concepts at an earlier age or the presence of patterns in that message they sent into space looking for âintelligentâ life in the 40âs/50âs(?). Iâm not quite certain why a given culture would be more adept at recognizing patterns than another, unless the test sample was either small, the patterns were cultural references, or those people would generally be considered âless intelligentâ, based on that criteria; small fluctutations shouldnât mean much. I couldnât say that education would have any large impact on these tests. Do you have any sources for this claim?
If somebody spends much of their time looking for Waldo, perhaps the tests lose some of their credibility but I think generally speaking, they are fairly reliable.
Theyâre not reliable at all. Firstly IQ tests dont measure intellegnace they dont even claim to anymore, as I have explained above there is a hell of alot more to it than that (emotional intellegance etc). Secondly you can learn to get better at IQ tests with practice. Thirdly the tests do reflect our cultures, As Im sure your aware IQ tests have alot of different areas. Some have word association tests, which are irrelevant to people with dyselxia and also to cultures where reading and writing are not as well implemented into everyday life. Again the same goes for the mental arritmatic sections. Though not complex mathmatics, you can learn to get better at doing simple sums, some of the harder questions will take mental arrithmatic to levels that alot of people will not be educated to.
I didnât say intelligence is absolute but based on the criteria of pattern recognition and the fact that those who recognize complex patterns generally have a higher ability for mathematic/linguistic concepts, and since these patterns arenât cultural references, these people can be judged to be âmore intelligentâ. Word associations tests are still a learned concept which is specific to a particular area; the pattern tests Iâve mentioned are tests of logic by images, not language.
As for getting better at things, as I mentioned, if you spend alot of time looking for Waldo, itâs quite possible that youâll score higher on these tests but then again, that can only mean that you werenât that good to begin with. Itâs also notable that a number of these revised tests are aimed at children for these reasons. If someone wants to get good at IQ tests and brag about it, I donât think that necessarily takes away from their credibility.
But then again, I donât do nor have done any psychology so my credibility may be suspect.
An Iq test involves more than just the spatial awareness tests that you are refering to, spatial awareness is not the same as IQ, IQ encompasses many more areas. Im sure that an equivilant test could be devised for different countries but the truth is that if this happened it would mean that there would be no universal IQ scoring system. Alot of IQ tests are unfortuanately learnable to an extent and they were divised to test a mind in a western culture.
Alright then, but is it incorrect that people who show a significant ability in pattern recognition (or spatial awareness, though I believe that excessively restricts the boundaries of the term), are generally better than those who donât score as well in general skills that we take to mean intelligence? Like mathematical or linguistic skills?
As for learning them, again, everything can be learned but I donât believe taking them knowing that youâve done something to specifically enhance your score takes away from their credibility, but yours.
These things arenât uncommon in gifted kids! You may find it interesting reading about gifted kids, from your perspective as as an adult⌠I have!Iâve also found it interesting tutoring gifted kids - itâs interesting the number of âbehavioural problemsâ that Donât Show, when these kids are getting what they need. (Like minds & appropriately pitched & paced information)
One of the difficulties in defining âgiftedâ kids is that completely opposite traits (ie High Risk- averision OR High Risk taking) can be âCommonâ Traits. Children with a similar IQ may achieve âmilestonesâ at quite different times. Side note: I believe that there have been studies that show that children with the same biological parents, tend to have IQâs within 5-10 points of each other. In my experience this certainly seems to be the probability. However, Iâve come across lots of parents that have had one of their children âdiagnosedâ but donât think their other children are âgiftedâ, usually because the other childrenâs abilities/ potential or temperament is manifest in quite different ways.
There is lots of discussion around IQ testing⌠it is what it is⌠potentially a useful indicator of some of the needs a child make have in their future, not the be-all-and-end-all. This is particularly the case when thereâs clearly asynchronous development (Significant differences in the scoring between subsections in the psychometric testing)
This can be an indicator of âTwice Exceptionallyâ - gifted kids with other exceptionalities (eg learning difficulties) - and no, this is not meant to be a contradiction in terms!
You might also find it interesting to look at Howard Gardnerâs work around (8)multiple intelligences (given much kudos, but not with out critics).Certainly, there is also lots of research around Emotional Intelligence - often said to be be " the biggest predictor of success".
IM experience, the people Iâve know with the Highest IQâs (180+)have also had high EQ (particularly as adults).
EQ and philosophy should Definitely be âtaughtâ to gifted kids!!!
While âan air of superiorityâ maybe quite undesirable, and understanding of how you are different - and how you are similar- to others is useful! One of the most common themes I keep hearing, is difficulties people are having with others based upon the false assumptions that other people think the same way or have they same understandings that they do. Processing speed in people (and computers) can vary considerably.
Perfectionism (and unrealistic expectations of yourself) is a Really Common trait amongst gifted individuals. Risk aversion can often go alongside this too. What this means is that sometimes people donât âaccomplishâ what they they think they âshouldâ. Sometimes this is because they donât want to meet these expectationsâŚ(for various reasons).
Your expectations or the expectations (and Common Misunderstandings) of others about how your IQ âshouldâ influence your âoutcomesâ is perhaps more likely to be the source of difficulties than the potential /IQ itself. IQ is measure of potential - not achievement
There are a lot of misunderstanding around notions of âgiftedâ and what that means in terms of needs and potential outcomes. Itâs these misunderstandings that kids, adults and educators have, that cause a lot of difficulties, frustrations and unrealised potential.
For example, if you consider the top 5% of the population as âgiftedâ you are looking at quite a diverse group. Thereâ can be a huge difference between the needs of âmildlyâ gifted kids to that of âexceptionallyâ or âprofoundlyâ gifted kids.
Some parents deal with a âdiagnosisâ better than others. Parents of gifted kids need information and support just as much as the kids do⌠Some take it in their stride - others are almost inclined to pathologise it.
Certainly, âignoringâ it or thinking 'theyâll be right" doesnât tend to help. Here in NZ we still have somewhat of a âtall poppy syndromeâ when it comes to intelligence- except when it comes to sport, perhaps. (Americans Iâve met find this all very odd.)
Certainly there seems to be lots of anecdotal evidence about to support the notion that the higher your IQ is, the more prone you are towards âmental health issuesâ. This is perhaps most likely when the âspecial needsâ of gifted kids arenât met and they end up feeling isolated, misunderstood and frustrated
As for âindicatorsâ of success⌠the thing Iâve found about the Most âintelligentâ people I know, is that they tend to be prone to âfree-thinkingâ and define their own values and terms of âsuccessâ which maybe counter to âsocietiesâ common ideas about âsuccessâ. Theyâre not as inclined (particularly as adults)to âbuy inâ to what other people tell them is important - or the best goals to achieve, without considered analysis of whether they actually subscribe to these beliefs. Theyâve usually come to the conclusion that people are what is actually important in life.
Obviously, your values will determine what you want to accomplish IRL.
To be honest I dont know, it was a very long time that I read the studie. was 17 at the time, now 23
possibly, but what Im talking about is the fact that p[eople in cirtain countries are going to have learned these things more than others just through everyday living, so the IQ test though it can give us some understanding into one area of intellegnace. (What I personally call western academic intellegance.) It cannot be used to show us whole intellegance and is currently not accurate on a global scale.
But is there a culture in which pattern recognition is not as important? I see all members of any given culture in todayâs world forced to recognize patterns from the moment theyâre born. From making out the smells/feels/sounds/tastes/images to distinguish between safety and the absence of, to learning language so that he may convey his/her feelings and thoughts. This ability will help him/her in recognizing territory, the ripeness of crop and anything else. As long as they are familiar with these things and have the simplest grasp of logic through experience, they should have no problems guessing the next logical part in a set of arranged shapes. I have on more than one occasion heard the stories of parents on/in different continents/cultures who say their child learned the alphabet before every other kid, a child who spoke before every kid etc and this same child also seems to consistently score higher on these tests. Does this seem invalid?