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Why a High IQ Doesn't Mean You're Smart
D1gital_Prob3 writes "How can a 'smart' person act foolishly? Keith Stanovich, professor of human development and applied psychology at the University of Toronto, Canada, has grappled with this apparent incongruity for 15 years. He says it applies to more people than you might think. To Stanovich, however, there is nothing incongruous about it. IQ tests are very good at measuring certain mental faculties, he says, including logic, abstract reasoning, learning ability and working-memory capacity — how much information you can hold in mind."
When the GM at my first AD&D game explained the difference between INT and WIS....
I'm a fiscal conservative, it's a pity we don't have a political party anymore
An 'IQ' is quantitative. The term 'smart' is qualitative. Comparing them at all is like comparing ones 'income' with how 'rich' they are.
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
For some reason, people have associated high IQs with knowing a lot about everything. Unfortunately, knowledge and IQ is different, as is wisdom and IQ. Sheesh, first year D&D players can tell you this.
Corollary: just because you're smart and know a lot about one subject doesn't mean you're opinion on another subject matters. I'm always astounded by how many smart developers think that because they know ASP inside out that they also know which economic system is better.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Just like computers, people are susceptible to the Garbage in, Garbage out phenomenon. If you learn the wrong stuff, you're still smart, but you will make bad decisions.
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
Intelligence is a tool to be used toward a goal, and goals are not always chosen intelligently. -Larry Niven
IQ measures raw mental abilities. It's a bit like measuring raw CPU power and memory in a computer.
EQ (Emotional Quotient) measures things like self-motivation abilities (including things like optimism), self-control and inter-personal abilities. They're a bit like measuring the quality of the software that runs in a computer and how well it works together with other programs in the network.
[Sorry, no car metaphors]
In real life, even though a large IQ will allow you to solve incredibly complex problems, if you have a low EQ, you might actually be incapable of doing so because, for example:
In the end, a high EQ is much more highly correlated with success than a high IQ.
Simply put, being optimistic means you're more willing to take chances (which might eventually result in a big payout), being self-motivated means that you can keep going even when things are though, having self-control means you can deny yourself a small reward now for a much bigger one later and being good with people means you can more easily find the chances and convince others to work with you.
That said, the good news is that one can change one's own EQ over one's life - most of its component are behavioral traits that can be learned.
Sounds more like poor organization skills and probably a bad work ethic. This is not evidence of stupidity. My IQ is in the top 0.1%. Yet until mid-20's, I was lazy as hell. Once I turned that around, life has become very easy. If I had to choose between IQ and work ethic, the work ethic would win out every time.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
It's not news that it's the case. The article isn't "A High IQ Doesn't Mean You're Smart", it's "Why a High IQ Doesn't Mean You're Smart".
This is research into explaining the disparity, not proving or demonstrating that it exists.
I read about this recently, tried it with several of my coworkers, and it really works. Simply lift your keyboard over your head while defocusing your eyes so the G and H keys overlap.
What do you see there?
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
No need to insult the superior people just because you were rejected...
It's annoying how Mensa people feel such a strong need to defend themselves against even the smallest accusations of Mensa not being all it's cracked up to be. (I am assuming you are in Mensa since you seem to be defending it for personal reasons.) It's kind of ugly to attack someone like that, and assume they are even interested in joining Mensa, while at the same time referring to yourself as "superior." This is the second time in the last week or so that I have seen such a reaction.
Visit a boarding school in Connecticut and then a public school on the south side of Chicago, then try to make the 'same culture' argument.
I remember some comment here on Slashdot a while back (I foget who it was or what the story was about) where somebody was complaining that, as a person in the 99th intelligence percentile, it was simply impossible to be friends with people of mediocre intelligence. The comment struck me as amazingly arrogant and short-sighted. I didn't say anything at the time, but I thought exactly what you are saying. This guy's problem, in my not-so-humble opinion, was that he was letting his score on an IQ test define himself and his potential friends. As long as people who score well on IQ tests go around wearing it like a badge and looking down on everybody else, they are going to be outcasts, because even if you don't say it out loud, people will pick up on it, and then they don't want to be around you. Nobody wants to hang out with the guy who's always subtly reminding everybody of how smart he is. At that point, it's the natural human reaction to soothe your ego by thinking "average people just can't handle being around smart people like me. They're jealous of my vast intelligence." But it's just not true. I have plenty of friends who would probably score lower than I would on an IQ test (I say "would" because the last time I took an IQ test I was around eight years old). I also have friends who would probably score higher. You can be friends with anybody as long as you're mutually willing to accept each other as equals. And when you do that, you find that there's something to learn from everybody. Because I guarantee that even the homeless guy you pass on the street who sleeps on a park bench and pees on himself knows something that you don't. He has acquired some skill, knowledge or wisdom from his life experience that you haven't. As long as we define ourselves and others strictly in terms of a single, nearly meaningless number, we close ourselves off from a wealth of potential knowledge and experience.
Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e.
Apparently you are poor, becuase most of the rich people I know are very intelligent. They earned their money (ie not "Old Money") legitimately (ie not "Celebrity Money") and are not connected with hollywood (ie not actors, directors or writters).
Some rich people are stupid, but so are most of the poor people I know so unless you've got a couple of citations to back up your obviously prejudiced opinions your just a troll.
Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde
Are you asserting that the rich people you know represent the majority of the rich population? Parent didn't state that all rich people were dumb, only the majority. My life echoes his stance as well. I too know some smart rich people but they are by far in the minority. At least in my experience.
It's a simple fact (at least in the United States) that MOST millionaires are NOT millionaires through inheritance.
What it takes to become rich is not some sort of global all-around, jack-of-all-trades smartness; it's expertise in a single area.
So it seems quite logical that these wealthy people who have focuses so much on one particular thing are not particularly knowledgeable about other things.
Stupid, sexy Flanders.
That's a pretty good analogy. And, taking it further, IQ measures the kinetic energy of electrons ejected from a metal with red light shining directly on it. If you use red light, your IQ measurement is accurate. If you use green, your IQ number is irrelevant. If you don't shine the light directly on the metal, but instead approach from a different angle, your IQ number becomes much less relevant.
Perhaps when people who don't have PhDs can't work a remote or leave their keys in their car, you don't notice as much because there's nothing in particular about them that creates the expectation of intelligence? The idea that there's an inverse correlation is a very common defensive reaction on the part of people who don't have much of any kind of intelligence, but there's precious little evidence for it in real life. It's more a matter of selection bias: we notice when smart people do stupid things. When stupid people do stupid things, it's business as usual.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Sometimes when you're smart, and things come easy to you, when you have to do something challenging it seems impossible. Not necessarily because you are incapable of the task, but because you are not used to being challenged. Like having to lift with muscles you've been neglecting.
Buckle your ROFL belt, we're in for some LOLs.
How can you proven something as arbitrary as common sense is a poor decision making tool?
Do you have any links to these studies?
Common sense is just a term used to describe using the most obvious, sensible solution that may have been overlooked in the face of alternative, more stupid solutions. Quite how you can prove that is a poor decision making tool I'd love to know.
It's not exactly a mystery. You tend to mimic the lifestyle of your parents, and they mimic the lifestyle of their parents and so on. So if your parents placed a high priority on schooling, learning, education etc then you are likely to pass that lifestyle onto your kids. So... you might have many generations which have been too busy putting food on the table with multiple jobs or dealing with gangs or drugs or a dangerous neighbourhood and had more things to worry about than making sure their child focuses on school, gets help with homework and stays out of trouble.
And vice-versa. My parents were big on school so I was very limited in my TV/video game time. I had to read a novel each night for an hour and my homework was priority #1 after school. My sister struggled and they got her a tutor. As a result I did well in school and will pass that on to my kids.
Of course, you can have within individual families a radical shift. One parent decides they want 'a better life' for their child and makes a big shift resulting in that family breaking the cycle. But when you are looking at entire societies or segments of the population that kind of change is much slower.
Race or any other 'trait' has nothing at all to do with it other than historically. The "such and such race is inherently smarter than such and such other race" argument is nonsense, and horrendously hard to test because family and societal factors creep into your study if you are looking at a large enough study group (ie - student performance across a state or country).
If it wasn't for obsessive compulsive people, we'd still be living in the Dark Ages. Take Newton for example. He spent almost 20 years plotting, calculating, and theorizing until he arrived at his Gravitational Laws. It's these kinds of people who find discoveries and enrich human knowledge.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
How can you proven something as arbitrary [...]
Easy. You call yourself a psychologist.
There is something to be said about being an intellectual among a bunch of people who actually care about what happened on "Dancing with the Stars" last night, though. If you don't have anything in common to discuss, you won't make friends with someone very easily. I agree that the comment you're referencing is exceptionally arrogant, but there's always a nugget of truth in most things like that.
That said, I'm an "intellectual" with a fairly high IQ last time I checked, yet I still get along with most people. It's just that I don't have very strong friendships with people who are mostly "normal" and I tend to drift away from them. And I mean "normal" as in, they don't have any strong opinions or knowledge about anything but recent TV shows and celebrity gossip.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
1) Because having a lot of money isn't the same as being rich _enough_. You feel rich when you can afford most of the stuff you want. You feel poor when you can't. This is not as highly correlated with the amount of money you have, as many would believe.
:).
2) And a fair number of smart people are more interested in spending their time on other things than spending it on making a lot of money. Life is short after all[1].
Not that having a lot of money is bad - I'd love to have a lot of money too
[1] As for people who believe there's some sort of heaven[2] and eternal life, it would be more logical for them to accumulate good friends (with eternal life) than money.
Eternity is a long time to spend, counting your billions (trillions?) over and over again without any good friends.
[2] But in that heaven somehow the people would have to be made perfect (voluntarily - not against their will) so that they won't get on each other's nerves and make it seem like hell. Eternity is a very long time for the imperfect. Too long.
Apparently you must be a very successful man then, because you seem to not know the dilemma of the intelligent human:
We can predict every bad outcome that our actions could take. A dozen a minute. Hundreds though the day.
The dumb man just walks up to the hot girl, talking to her, thinking he is the greatest guy on earth. Which funnily draws others, including the girl, into that reality too.
While we just stand around, playing through all the horrible ways that it could go wrong. Oh boy, and do we know many of those! ^^
So I congratulate you on your success and bow to you in envy! :P
P.S.:
That's why alcohol is even better for intelligent people. Seriously.
Of course, just assuming you're great (and then automatically trying to live up to that, celebrating the successes, and not getting pulled down by the failures), is much better in the long run.
I recommend this: If you go out to pick up a girl, plan on the first dozen times you talk to a girl going horribly bad. Make jokes about it. Try to make them even worse, just for the fun of it. Until you simply stop caring. It's all just fun anyway. And then suddenly, you will notice, how, because you just want to have fun, and walk up to girls with that idea, and all your glow of having all that fun, you will get very new, much nicer reactions. Before you know it, you're talking to a really hot girl, and she's the one trying to pick up you! ^^ (Of course: Be realistic though. This will not happen the first time you go out. ^^)
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
When a smart person does something stupid, it's because he lacks common sense. When a stupid person does something stupid, it's because he's stupid.
As I don't have the book in question (and even if I ordered it from Amazon it wouldn't get here before this discussion would get locked) I'll just ask you: Should I take it that the book defines "first generation rich" as "parents weren't millionaires but they may very well have been upper middle class with a few smart investments, $500k in the bank and an extended family with similar finances"? What I'm implying here is that there's a bit of difference between a "self-made man" who's from a family with a total yearly income of $25k, who's the first person in his/her family with a college education etc. and a "self-made man" from a family with a yearly income in excess of $300k who think it's only natural to pay for college for their children (and of course the mandatory "travel in europe for a few months before going to college", paid for by mommy and daddy).
/Mikael
Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4
That is because as I've said for years there is a difference between "book smarts" and "street smarts". I have known guys with a half dozen degrees after their names that were dumb as a stump when it came to common sense, and I've known guys that dropped out of HS that could run rings around somebody with a degree. It all comes down to having that right combo of book AND street smarts.
As you said the 419s prove that having too much of one and not enough of the other is just as bad as being a total dumbass, probably worse, as the "book smart" think that their book smarts will get them through any situation, which of course they don't.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
While I think that the argument that black people are intrinsically dumber than the rest of us is silly, I should point out that your counter-argument is just as silly.
There was an article recently describing the development of a "smart(er) rat" by the change of a single gene. Which pretty much refutes the notion that it requires much larger genetic changes to "think different" than to "look different".
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
If you can't live on $120k/year then you are/were financially irresponsible. Don't worry though, most Americans seem to be the same way these days.
My wife and I are living on less than a third of that and raising a child. I could probably pay off most of my debt in a 2 years if I had your salary and continued living with the budget I have now.
Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde
It's funny you cite all those slums and ghettoes. Where are the Italian slums and Irish ghettoes now? Every member of your list is a place. Those Irish, Italians, and people growing up in Appalachia have a significant, definite chance, however small it may be, to work their way out of the ghetto. Black people in America largely do not, or if they do, it is obviously a significantly smaller chance than do other groups of people.
We just elected a black man president.
Change isn't some magical thing where suddenly, one day, everything is completely different. Most people do not even recognize change as it is happening, they recognize it after it has already occurred. For a very, very long time, blacks in America have lived in a country which was either outwardly hostile to them or completely unsympathetic to their situation.
As you said, it's been about a generation "post civil rights and such". Eisenhower forced desegregation of schools in the South in the 50s; exactly what effect do you think that should have? Starting around 1960, blacks finally had an "equal" opportunity for education. I say "equal" because it still obviously isn't quite completely equal, even though it is no longer strict segregation. It's been about one generation, at most -- the people who could go to desegregated schools have grown into adults and have probably had children of their own.
One adult got the opportunity to receive a good education, and with this opportunity comes the potential to take advantage of it or waste it, just like any other. The rates for wasting it are probably slightly higher still because of the quality of education they may receive, as well as coming from a background where it may not be highly stressed, or where it may be completely unaffordable. One pair of adults have one set of children, who receive a similar opportunity. There's still a lot of work to be done, both by the people who sometimes unknowingly support discrimination against blacks, who must recognize their faults and their communities' faults in prolonging the poverty of blacks, and even moreso by the blacks themselves, who must work hard as individuals in order to take advantage of the opportunities presented.
One of the major problems is that the black subculture in America has been so shattered that it has no real ambition. There are very few role models. The role models they do have have often been forced into specific tracts of life. It should be obvious that the "success" achievable for a white man in America aren't as available to black men in America, for a variety of reasons. As such, the underclass tends to focus its skill, effort, and talents in other areas, especially ones which have an emphasis on individual abilities and personal distinction, in part to separate them from the negative stereotypes. Look at the histories of American music and writing in the 20th century, or at cultural phenomena, where many have a very profound impact from black people who managed to be successful and innovative. The blues, jazz, swing, and rock and roll all have very, very distinctive black roots. Blacks are commonly depicted as being better dancers or perhaps better singers. American literature abounds with black poets and writers, with a much greater proportion than could ever be expected normally. Look at sports, especially in the latter half of the 20th century and on to today, where black athletes have practically dominated. Why is this so?
It's one of the few avenues of life where they are allowed to be successful, and everything in their lives is practically constructed to shift them into having a focus in those areas. Remember how I said they are often lacking in role models? Many of the role models they do have succeeded in areas like this. Kids all over dreamt of