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What Does IQ Really Measure?
sciencehabit writes "Kids who score higher on IQ tests will, on average, go on to do better in conventional measures of success in life: academic achievement, economic success, even greater health, and longevity. Is that because they are more intelligent? Not necessarily. New research concludes that IQ scores are partly a measure of how motivated a child is to do well on the test. And harnessing that motivation might be as important to later success as so-called native intelligence."
Duh. Look it up.
I always thought it mainly measured the ability to solve problems.
I recommend Steven Jay Gould's "The Mismeasure of Man" for a thorough look at IQ tests over the ages and how that 99% of the time they are bogus.
Duh. #winning
Certainly there's a correlation between IQ and real intellect, but there's no causation between one and another one.
So, it's safe to say that IQ tests ... measure "IQ" (exactly these two letters) and nothing more.
Created by another monkey to rate you on a monkey scale.
What it really measures is pointless. Its only a made up monkey test.
...and my scores have varied by 40 IQ. I know it's slightly off topic, but I have a hard time trusting something that can't decide if my IQ should be "quite smart" or "genius".
It's the Prime Attribute for Magic Users; high levels give them a bonus for accumulating Experience Points.
What?
An IQ test measures your ability to perform those specific questions on your IQ test
Scientifically, in order to measure something and have a meaningful result you can compare across different samples, it has to have a strict and well understood definition
What, exactly, is the scientific definition of "human intelligence"?
It measures test-taking ability under specific conditions.
It may or may not be a useful measure depending on how well the test and conditions map to any other thing. They map sort of well to traditional academia through roughly mid-level undergraduate work, which means it's still a useful educational metric. But it does not in any other way predict "intelligence" or "smartness" or "successfulness" or any other thing like that. Success in obtaining academic credentials is a decent statistical indicator of other forms of success (financial stability, family, life span, etc.). But at that point we're at least two or three layers away from the IQ test, so uncertainty is getting rather high. Other factors are starting to mean much, much more such as encouragement from family or mentors, cultural factors, and the availability of financial support for further education.
I've always felt that the score from an IQ test was actually the real test. Reason being is that some people get a big score, think they're all that and a bag of chips, and let life beat them into the ground because they thought success was predestined. Other people get a low score, think they are stupid, and let life beat them into the ground because they thought failure was predestined. The most successful people, in my experience, see the score from an IQ test, say, "hmm, that's interesting," and then continue to try to do their best at whatever it is they want to do with their lives.
In other words, I feel that IQ tests are largely curiosities that are frequently harmful and only rarely actually useful.
Lets not even get started on the blatant testing demographic bias (target vs actual demographic/etc) that makes the scores skewed against people based on background.
TFA mentions that intelligence is connected to dedication and how interested you are in a subject. Well duh.
Anyone can learn something if they really want to.
Intelligence is, I think, about how quickly and how easy it is to understand something. I believe that the ability to understand something without (much) effort is the sign of intelligence.
In other words, I am stupid.
- "If one man can create that much hate, you can only imagine how much love we as a togetherness can create."
Lemme be an iconoclast here for a moment.
So IQ doesn't measure intelligence. So what? If IQ score is, as claimed, highly correlated with success in life, and if it's measuring motivation and determination rather than intelligence, and if it's motivation that determines success in life, doesn't that make the IQ test pretty damned useful?
Who even knows what "native intelligence" means, anyway? If I've got a test that tells me whether someone understands problems, can find solutions to them, and is motivated enough to carry through, isn't that as useful a definition of "intelligence" as any?
Or to put it bluntly: of what use to anyone is a brilliant mind who doesn't give a shit?
Couldn't it also be that higher intelligence makes you more motivated? After all, we all like to go in and show something we do well in. If you suspect you're not really all that bright, you're not very motivated to have it confirmed. "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt." and all that.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
It measures IQ of course!
Your IQ must be in the (Celcius) room temperature range.
The extent of your ability, motivation to perform, and luck in that sitting of the IQ test.
The degree of correlation of IQ score from a sitting in an IQ test to intelligence versus correlation of IQ score to other factors remains an open question; with now this reminder that 'motivation' is a factor that influences the score when taking almost any test.
Can you get a high score on IQ tests on motivation alone?
It's a measure of your propensity and stupidity to buy into another form of elitism and exclusivity. Like the world doesn't have enough of those social partitioning devices already!
Granted this distinction may be useful, since the remedies (if any) for lack of motivation vs. lack "native intelligence" may be different - or maybe not. I suppose the assumption is that native intelligence is more genetically determined, whereas motivation is more determined by environment, but I find that questionable. Some people have exceptional drive and energy throughout life, even despite circumstances, and most of us don't.
I also take issue with the article:
Why? If IQ scores measure motivation as well as intelligence, then admissions based on IQ already do favor those who want to do the work.
This is a subject I've studied before. IQ means different things to different people. Looking over some major tests, I found several schools of thought:
1) Mental quickness and flexibility
2) Factual knowledge
3) Ability to do problem solving
4) Spatial recognition.
IQ is *supposed* to be a general measure of how "smart" someone is (general intelligence), but while it does seem true that general intelligence does exist (doctors can pick up new knowledge in unrelated fields faster than people in some low-level fields), generally the tests just measure specific intelligence.
For example, when trying to test for mental quickness, they might give a kid a jigsaw puzzle to solve (this is what they did on my test in 2nd grade, actually - I spent half my time trying to put it together in unusual ways). But a kid can be "smart" and still be bad at jigsaw puzzles. Since its a timed event, there's also a certain amount of luck involved in how well a kid scores. The difference between "gifted" and "normal" might just be the time span it takes an unlucky kid to try the wrong pieces before he randomly pulls the right piece.
Factual knowledge is also a very difficult to assess subject. I looked over the Titan test (http://www.eskimo.com/~miyaguch/), which is supposed to identify the top 0.0000....01% most intelligent people on the planet. Ok, cool. But one of the answers was an analogy involving Kuru, the prion brain disease contracted by cannibals in Papua New Guinea. I think the test only allowed you to miss a few questions (out of 45) before it ruled you out of the cool kids club. But my objection is, how does knowing what Kuru is make you a smart person? You might just be a trivia buff. And how can you rule someone out for not knowing it? The potential knowledge space for humanity is so impossibly large, that the probability of knowing individual random tidbits of knowledge like that is correspondingly low. How do you differentiate between smart, super-smart, and super-duper-smart? I don't think that any IQ test can provide that level of resolution, really.
More unanswered questions:
Another problem is, of the four categories above, and others people have thought of, which do you assess on an IQ test, and how do you average them together?
Why do we assume that IQ follows a Gaussian distribution?
What role does linguistic fluency and creativity play into the assessment?
I'm not saying that IQ tests are bullshit, but I think people assign them too much value. When you can have the same person take five different IQ tests and get scored between 150 and 230 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marilyn_vos_Savant#Rise_to_fame_and_IQ_score), I think we could agree the person is "smart", but beyond that, I don't think tests really mean that much.
Ever since that stupid book "The Bell Curve", talking about IQ has been considered to be in bad taste, because to many it sounds like a step away from outright racism. And in general, society doesn't feel comfortable with discriminating between people based simply on native intelligence.
However, we are perfectly comfortable with rewarding people for effort, motivation and concentration. So if this is what IQ tests largely measure, it becomes politically OK for, say, an employer to use an IQ test as a part of an application screening. Pretty understandably, every employer will prefer employees capable of higher levels of effort, motivation and concentration (for a fixed reward).
So let's get away from thinking of the IQ test as an intelligence test and start thinking of it as a motivation/concentration test. That will make its relevance much broader.
I'm glad that they are identifying how much motivation is important in success compared to the numeric value you get on an IQ test.
I scored very highly on my IQ testing from an early age. I was able to coast through school achieving high marks and all the praise and benefits that entailed without putting almost any effort into it. Then I hit university and was completely bludgeoned by the fact I had to self-motivate to produce and that there was actual efforted required to succeed and I couldn't just pound out my assignments in 20 minutes and get back to playing computer games. That early engraining that success doesn't require work, along with significant mental illness has left me far less successful than the numbers say I should be. My general conclusion is that IQ is an interesting number but other than indicating how well you perform on a limited variety of tests it doesn't have much value.
1 + log(# of slashdot posts)
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
How readily you buy into made up bullshit.
Humans have a real high IQ.
If a child isn't motivated to succeed then it won't really matter what their IQ score. They will never do well. They'd be a lot better off measuring impulse control.
- I've got bad karma because I won't parrot everyone else's opinion
IQ is a correlation to academic success. It is measuring some combination of "intelligence" (whatever that is because no one agrees on a definition) and motivation. However doing well at most IQ tests is skewed by being familiar with Western standardised testing which is overly represented in Western education systems.
I wish this had been more widely understood when I was a child as I was bought up on the cult of Intelligence* and have a severe lack of long-term motivation.
* And unfortunately standard Western schooling doesn't challenge many intelligent kids like me who coast through with minimal effort.
========
CINC, 4th Penguin Legion
In children, IQ measures mental age/chronological age. It's useful for assessing developmentally delayed or precocious children. In adults...your mileage may vary.
My IQ is in the genius range, and was recognized as 'gifted' very early on in life. I can *very* specifically remember not trying very hard at all in school, much to the frustration of my teachers and envy of classmates. By 2nd grade I'd exhausted my elementary school's reading curriculum. I'm sure it wasn't that I was more motivated to read, but that my aptitude in that subject was simply beyond the norm. When I went home I turned on the TV and watched cartoons like everyone my age, and read the same books as them, only when absolutely required or someone found a dirty word same as them. It just came more naturally to me, it was clear that my friends had to put more effort in than I did.
Almost every parent of a two year old reads them story books, and almost every two year old enjoys being read to, but not every two year old just suddenly starts learning to read. That's IQ.
An IQ test measures the ability to solve IQ tests
for anything other than the only thing they can measure.
I know a couple people who boasts high IQ's. Even if their claims are 100% true I believe they suffer from IDD...intelligence deficit disorder. The problems with high IQ's are the people that use them to measure intelligence...usually intelligence that they don't yet have because they haven't applied themselves.
IQ, in my opinion, has only ever successfully measured ability. You cannot measure intelligence in anything other than an abstract form. Measure a childs IQ and the only thing you've successfully measured is his ability to learn and apply the information that has been learned to fit other purposes. It's like humans learning to use fire to cook with, or to produce steam. Any dumb ass can do math if they apply themselves, but will that same dumbass be able to do algebra? Technically he should be, but does he have the ABILITY to see the connection between y=x-1 and y+1=x? This is where IQ comes in. The higher your IQ is, the easier it is for you to connect these dots.
Where IQ is a measurement of the ABILITY to apply information intelligence is the actual application of information. Is a cable technician who can find signal egress less intelligent, when it comes to rf signals, than one who can not only find it but tell you where its coming from, how/why it happens and how to avoid it? Yes. Is there a chance they have the same IQ? There sure is. Why the difference? Because one took the time to learn more when the other stopped at "hey this box in my hand tells me there is a signal here and there shouldn't be a signal here." You cannot accurately measure intelligence because even the most intelligent person in the world is still a dumbass when it comes to certain things, if only because they haven't bothered to learn about those things.
Why this rant? Because IQ as a measurement of motivation is...ridiculous. Just because I have a high IQ doesn't make me any more motivated than the next guy. Most people with high IQ's are actually procrastinators...where is the motivation in procrastination? Keeping with TFA - of course some will be motivated. Who the hell wouldn't be motivated to do something when they have a strong feeling they'll be able to succeed?
OK. I had a course in the theory of psychological testing, so I know the answer. IQ tests are designed to (and sometimes do) correlate with things such as success in school, general problem solving ability, occupational success in fields such as science, etc. To say that they measure “intelligence” is a very vague way of saying this. And, of course, the correlation may not be very strong in some cases because of the limitations of the tests, and the influence of other factors.
I'm pretty unmotivated, and I turned out to be a loser.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
According to "The Millionare Next Door," most self-made millionaires are niether academically nor intellictually outstanding, but they do work their butts off and save their money, among other things. Malcolm Gladwell's "Outliers" points out that "genius" looks more like 10,000 hours of practice than any kind of "magic super neurons." Have their been studies that show IQ really does predict long term success? Is there any reason to suppose that this isn't the same principle as muscle mass; where your genetics matter but the gym matters more?
Sounds to me like it is saying that those who try harder, do better.
I'm not sure there are many people who didn't expect this to be true, but I guess it's nice to have common sense verified.
Folks with low scores are looking for excuses as to why their scores are lower.... I guess if it makes em feel good about themselves, why not.
The educational system caters to students who try, care, are awake, etc. The Onion New Network has more.
New research concludes that IQ scores are partly a measure of how motivated a child is to do well on the test.
Sure, that makes sense. And they're partly a measure of how smart the child is. Probably something like a smart * motivated (with other factors thrown in) = IQ.
That "smart" is a particular kind of smart, too. Emotional intelligence is very important, but not covered by IQ tests.
I've got students who lament their lack of prowess. They have to work very hard for every A or B they earn and are discouraged by those who breeze by without any effort. I try to console them. I tell them that they are learning how to work hard, which is at least as important (possibly more so) than being 'smart'. I tell them I've seen 'smart' kids who never learned how to work hard and went nowhere in life. I tell them getting to work and solving a problem is more valuable to an employer than being able to solve a problem quicker, but not having the discipline or follow through to do so. Of course, some kids are both smart and hard working and my hat is off to them.
Bottom line: knowing how to work is a kind of smartness that is no less valuable than book smarts.
One last thing: Sometimes I wonder; "Is that someone's signature? Or do they type that at the end of each post?"
In my 40 odd years in and out of Mensa I have taken a few IQ tests and met a lot of smart, capable people -- some of them in Mensa. Problem is that some of the brightest would never have passed a test because their intelligence was expressed in other ways than the things IQ tests measure. IQ tests demonstrate ability to solve certain types of problems -- this is a tiny subset of the skills needed to function effectively and creatively in the world. These tests are not a Krell brain power measure, although they are often represented as though they were. And of course, it makes perfect sense that if you are too bummed out about life, responding thoughtfully to the questions in an IQ test could be just too much -- and I am sure the converse is true as well. So this new revelation seems pretty obvious. But some incredible musicians and artists might not do too well, because their minds go elsewhere. And weird cases like Buckminster Fuller (who I met when he was chairman of international Mensa) might like Einstein be classified as failures before they found what interested them. And there are certainly lots of folks in these high IQ societies who are similarly dubious.
Katz, is that you?
...so is Wile E. Coyote's, but he never caught the Road Runner.
No sig today...
There's no helping the bottom 50% who insist that their strength of character, "street smarts", life experience, or wisdom makes IQ inaccurate.
This isn't to say they don't have value. Just not very much and decreasingly so. "The world need's ditch diggers too." but less and less everyday it seems. The mentally inadequate have been breeding like rabbits while the slice of the economic pie that has a use for their "services" is decreasing in size. The extraordinary frequently feel some humanist obligation to philanthropy which combined with ethics and navel gazing are the few brakes on this unstoppable trend.
Perhaps it's more merciful to drive them off the cliff of unemployment slowly, but the end game is the same. An increasingly large portion of the population are unfit for any work beyond doing the bitch-work of their superiors.
All attempts to create havens for these people are ultimately futile, and have the unintended consequence of counteracting what few charitable whims stand in the way of progress.
What do you do when increasing entitlements out-pace GDP in economic growth? How do you govern when what few trade barriers that held influence over the successful have been removed? You can't manage a society where attempts to sustain the useless majority drive the few producing members of society to migrate.
I'd like to make a modest proposal.
And posts on Slashdot. ;)
I didn't realize how smart I am. I took an IQ test and scored 100 percent!
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
What about the people who first solved it? What about those who do it blind folded? There are people who did just figure it out.
One last thing: Sometimes I wonder; "Is that someone's signature? Or do they type that at the end of each post?"
It measures a very weird type of fast thinking and deep concentration as far as I'm concerned. My score is something like 152 yet over the years I've certainly have met people with lower scores and much smarter than me.
This guy lives next door to me. He probably wouldnt understand the questions on an IQ test much less get any right. He is also a home builder/contactor. He is like a damn idiot savant with a nail gun and wood. I can rank in the 150's pretty regular on IQ tests. My friend makes me look like a moron when I get him to help me building and framing my house. Who is smarter...well.. I guess that depends..
"Kids who score higher on IQ tests will, on average, go on to do better in conventional measures of success in life..."
To the best of my knowledge, this only holds true within a couple of standard deviations from the "average". Prior studies have shown little correlation between very high IQ scores (say, Ïf >= 3) and standard measures of "success" in life. Some have even claimed a negative correlation.
Certainly we know of a few shining examples of same, but that does not a correlation make.
An IQ test predicts how well you will do on the next IQ test that you take. Period. A high IQ does not mean you have any manners, are an interesting person or even that you can use your brain. This is one of the most popular subjects for discussion in Mensa. Invariably, each and every debate ends up with the same conclusion.
Boiling the test down to a single number is sort of useless because that number will depend heavily on how they weight the individual sections that make up the test. For instance, in my case I was born with a moderate to severe motor skill deficiency(depending on how you measure it). I did insanely well on all the sections that didn't require a lot of motor skills, but absolutely bombed the puzzle section because of said motor skill deficiency. Ultimately I got a 128, which was 2 points shy of "gifted", but had they changed the weights of the sections it could have swung by a very large margin either way. They should at least break down the section scores, even if they still want to give you a single number as the "result" of the test.
Monstar L
...They're just inherently lazy and shiftless.
This changes EVERYTHING.
"Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid." — Albert Einstein IQ doesnt measure much.
This makes me think of when my boys were in grade school; I tried to come up with a word that would describe the single most important factor in their success. I would tell them that the reason they did poorly on a particular test isn't because they weren't smart enough, it was because they were sorely lacking that most precious of elements: G.A.S. = Give A Shit. They just didn't give enough of a shit to succeed - They may have been motivated enough to work hard (see how hard I'm working?), or to put in the time (see how long I've been sitting here?), but they just didn't care enough to think things through or to go back to the problems they fudged on to see if they could figure them out. There are external motivations and then there are internal motivations. If you are too focused on the external factors of impressing others then you most likely will miss the most important thing; Satisfying yourself by actually doing your very best weather or not someone is looking. Cheers, TJ
change it.
IQ was *kind* of a presence in my early life, as I got the impression it was a big deal to the adults. After having me take the test again a few weeks after the first, they wanted to put me in a special school; something that hadn't happened to my five older siblings. My mum turned it down saying she thought it was better I live a normal life - but I still was constantly hounded about the not living up to my potential... though no one ever bothered to explain how my potential was apparently restricted to school work.
Eventually I got the idea that your IQ was just how fast you learned compared to others your age. Our mum wouldn't tell us our exact IQ scores of course, the closest she came was telling me mine had been over 200. Which to teachers meant I should learn twice as much, but to me seemed better suited to learning the same amount in half the time - as I had no use for anything being taught beyond its ability to placate adults. Later I tried variations on that, like paying half as much attention, or being twice as high.
Intelligence is still just a convenience, like upper body strength or good eyesight. Anyone who's read the news for longer than a week (let alone a history book) can see that people are embarrassingly slow learners. Being a pretty smart human is like being a pretty fast tractor. I mean, human intelligence is great for solving the types of technical puzzles that lend themselves to that skill - but don't expect it to spare you from making most of the really dumb mistakes in the course of your life that you would have anyway.
"Debrox makes people stupid!"
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the tides advance;GHD Hair Straightenersthe tides recede.winter goes and summer comes.summer wanes and the cold increase.the sun rises,;the sun sets.the moon is full,the moon is black.the birds arrives,the birds depart.flowers bloom,flowers fade.seeds are sown;harvets are reaped.all nature is a circle of moods and i'm a part of nature and so,like the tides,my moods will rise,my moods will fall.today i will be master of my emotions.it's one of the nature's tricks,little understand.if i feel depressed i will sing.if i feel sad i will laugh.if i feel ill i will double my labor.if i feel fear i will plunge ahead.if i feel inferior i will wear new garments.if i feel uncertain i will raise my voice. if i feel porverty i will think of weath to come .if i feel incompetent i will remember past success.if i feel insignificant i will remember my goals.only those with inferior ability can always be at their bestGHD Hair Straighteners.
I couldn't possibly care less about an employee's motivation to do well on a test.
I do, however, care about an employee's motivation to do a job and do it well.
He contacted the click tracker company on the page.
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I was in the talented and gifted program (TAG) in grade school and even though I barely tried, I scored a 135-145 on the IQ test when I was a teen...
My academic achievement; GED. My economic success; below the poverty line. My health; Poor. My longevity; likely to die by 65.
I think Duckworth is full of it.
I was tested and qualified for my schools gifted program by scoring 135 on the Stanford-Binet. I wanted to debunk some common IQ myths.
1. IQ is not a test of knowledge. It is not a trivia quiz. The questions are designed to test how FAST you learn and react to new information. Everything is timed.
2. IQ does not measure intelligence. That was the first thing I was told. IQ measures how well you did compared to how well others did. It places you on a distribution curve that serves as a benchmark for cross-generation comparisons.
3. IQ is often used to identify students whose academic needs are not being met. This includes people with low IQ. In my state, I was given an IEP (Individualized Education Plan). It is the same as the special education kids. It was used to accelerate my education. School was so boring that before being identified as gifted, I was actually failing (even though I outperformed most my peers in tests). I feel like it is a misconception that gifted kids do better in school. Quite the opposite, many of us were not having our academic needs met and as a result we suffered. Education is not designed to meet such extreme deviations from the standard.
4. A large part of our education was spent overcoming barriers associated with high IQ. We spent a great deal of time working on weaknesses.
So what happened to my gifted group of friends?
- One went to med school
- One became addicted to drugs and knocked a girl up.
- One whizzed through college with a math degree and is now a Priest.
- As for me, I dropped out of college and started a lucrative software firm (well I technically finished my undergrad in HS, but I dropped out of grad school).
Which leads me to...
5. IQ does not in ANY WAY predict success.
Intelligence is overrated and IQ serves its purpose--identifying people with special needs.
You know what makes people successful? Discipline, communication, hard-work, personality and luck.
Cheers.
IQ tests measure modernity. The degree to which your thinking aligns with modern thought. Google " IQ modernity " to see articles on the topic. A New Yorker article some time ago gave a remarkable example of how things associate to us (knife goes with fork) whereas to a more primitive people knife goes with potato (something one cuts). Given the limited choices in a multiple choice test.
I'm sure the book 'Outliers' by Malcolm Gladwell will be mentioned somewhere above. What he argues is that IQ measures analytical intelligence and not practical intelligence. They are like orthogonal axes. In order to succeed in society, you need to have a combination of both. An above-average intelligence (~120 IQ) coupled with high practical intelligence is the common denominator of successful people.
the tides advance;GHD Hair Straightenersthe tides recede.winter goes and summer comes.summer wanes and the cold increase.the sun rises,;the sun sets.the moon is full,the moon is black.the birds arrives,the birds depart.flowers bloom,flowers fade.seeds are sown;harvets are reaped.all nature is a circle of moods and i'm a part of nature and so,like the tides,my moods will rise,my moods will fall.today i will be master of my emotions.it's one of the nature's tricks,little understand.if i feel depressed i will sing.if i feel sad i will laugh.if i feel ill i will double my labor.if i feel fear i will plunge ahead.if i feel inferior i will wear new garments.if i feel uncertain i will raise my voice. if i feel porverty i will think of weath to come .if i feel incompetent i will remember past success.if i feel insignificant i will remember my goals.only those with inferior ability can always be at their bestGHD Hair Straighteners.
IQ tests are so dumb. I took one and the stupid tests said I wasn't smart. This is such BS because obviously I am smart. This guy who scored really high was trying to explain something to me and he was obviously an idiot because he was just talking all this nonsense about facts and stuff so like obviously the test is meaningless since I'm way smarter than this guy who tested high and the dumb test scored me low. I can't believe anybody pays attention to these dumb tests. Gosh like duhhh, if the test were real I would get the high score and he would get the low score. I can't believe this isn't obvious to everybody. What does knowing the answers to questions have to do with anything anyway, it's so retarded. Wake up people IQ tests don't mean anything.
...of how well you can take tests. We took a psych class on testing and discovered an interesting thing. I took a series of tests--around ten of them. The ones where I answered with what I thought or knew to be the correct answer scored about 15-20 points lower than where I answered with what I thought the testers wanted.
I must be really smart. I can get the right answers even when they're wrong. AND I can psych out the test writers. AND I'm a genius, according to the psyched tests.
Another good reason to doubt whether IQ is meaningful is the Flynn effect, which is a long-term upward trend in IQ scores (which is swept under the rug by curving the tests downward). Nobody is really sure what the Flynn effect means, or what causes it, but it's such a huge effect that based on their IQ scores, average people from 1930 would be classified as dull or borderline retarded today. What it really suggests is that IQ testing is pseudoscience -- and that is exactly what a lot of psychometricians consider it to be.
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I've said for a long time that IQ only measures your ability to take an IQ test..
That's absolutely correct by definition - the word "intelligence" was coined to name whatever it was that an IQ test measured (the originators weren’t sure what it measured.) However, it has since entered the general vocabulary to mean something like “smarts”. As a result of this linguistic corruption, one hears nonsense phrases like "native intelligence" and even "IQ tests don't measure intelligence". You may rightly guffaw whenever someone claims that IQ tests don’t measure intelligence. IQ does indeed seem to measure something quite meaningful, however, (even if it’s “just” motivation) as _The_Bell_Curve_ demonstrates, elitism be damned.
As an aside, I find high IQ people much more interesting than the general public and Fox News. (per “Beam me up Scotty....”) I’d bet money that the average Slashdoter IQ is well above average (I’d guess by better than one sigma.)
So an idiot does bad on an IQ test because he is not motivated? Bull.
I was studying biochemistry and electronics when I was 12 because they were interesting to me, not because I was motivated. I am not a very motivated person unless something is interesting to me.
Namely, the ability to do that particular IQ test on that particular day.
Not that a high IQ is a guarantee of anything: in the 2 years I belonged to MENSA (about 40 years ago) I encountered some of the most stupid people I've ever had the misfortune to come across.
IQ is highly correlated to conventional measures of success in life. My father's a psychologist and he says that IQ tests are instrumental in identifying learning problems (e.g. if you score high on an IQ test, but have poor grades, this can be an indicator that there's a deficiency that needs to be investigated) among other things.
I think the main problem is what it's called. "Intelligence Quotient" is an unfortunate vestige of the bygone era in which its standard testing methodology was devised. The average Joe (like the AC above) assumes that IQ is treated as a comprehensive, innate label of the inner workings of your brain and that's just not how it's treated today.
A high IQ doesnt mean a thing really in reality. But people love to use the word because it gives them the ability to measure something you otherwise cant.
Ive met people with high IQ's and they were stupid, Ive met people with low ones that were incredibly smart, and everything in between. I am a horrible test taker, always have been ever since I was 10 and I still am at 35, and my IQ is in the toilet but I can still understand talk theoretical physics and I can tell you exactly why mucamyst acts as a antidote to tylenol toxicity.
From my experince it doesnt measure your actual intelligence, but it measures your test taking skills. There is a forumula to taking tests, a way to do so that puts the favor of being correct on your side. If you can master it then you have a good chance of taking any test really even without a lot of knowledge on the subject.
IQ test is a outdate means of judging anything.
Note that it doesn't say anything about IQ tests. Grit-S tests "trait-level perseverance and passion for long-term goals." Not intelligence. This is just bad reporting.
I think however that people who are more intelligent are more likely to be motivated to do well, so that their scores might be artificially inflated by that fact. IQ tests were never meant to be exact. I hope that some day people will be able to increase their intelligence. A readjustment of the average by even as few as ten points could cause a cultural renaissance in my opinion.
So, do I.Q. tests measure intelligence? In roughly the same way your shirt size is a measure of how much you weigh. They are a rough gage, unless, of course, you define intelligence tautologically as being the thing an I.Q. test measures. Most I.Q. tests are composed of subtests that tap different abilities, considering intelligence to be a composite of many factors, of which the tests measure some small sampling.
The popular Wechsler intelligence scales categorize subtests into Performance I.Q. and Verbal I.Q. The former attempts to measure spontaneous thinking skills, while the latter is much more highly correlated with academic achievement. Thus, the split between PIQ and VIQ performance can give a psychologist a sense of an individual's academic striving vs. their innate mental ability. So motivation certainly plays a big role in the I.Q. score. The ideas in this "new research" mentioned in TFA don't sound terribly new.
Hundreds of studies have correlated I.Q. with success in academics and other aspects of life. So are geniuses predestined to success? Well... No, but if you're two standard deviations below average (100), it's as unlikely as Forrest Gump being a real person that you're going to make the history books. People with above average IQs simply have the ability others lack --whether they take advantage of it is up to them. (Oblig. car analogy: Properly maintained and driven, your Ferrari could win a race --your Ford Fiesta really couldn't.)
Ask me about my sig!
Asimov's "Thinking on Thinking" should be mandatory reading.
perhaps you would like to bounce it?
I've noticed that most I.Q. tests will do something stupid like ask questions that depend on knowledge as opposed to testing problem solving(IE: knowing words like banality). But I've also noticed that people tend to go overboard in knocking them and will state that they are useless. I disagree, idiots do not do well on decent I.Q. tests, if you scored 90 or less, then you are not very bright. It's probably not your fault, hopefully your looks will compensate. Some people have huge muscle mass while others know that we actually do use more than 10% of our brain capacity.
The Prometheus Society has a great article, The Outsiders, on two important studies of IQ, one by Lewis M. Terman, who provided the "Stanford" half of the Stanford-Binet IQ test, and the other by Leta S. Hollingworth, whose book on her findings is Children Above 180 IQ. Both studies were longitudinal and long-term, drawn from very large pools of subjects.
Conclusion? The smarter you are, the more likely you are to be maladjusted.
You're not getting much sympathy on this thread but I guess by now you are used to it.
Change a few names and places and we could have been twin brothers separated at birth... I spent all of my time in school bored out of my skull; from grammar school onwards, I could read and write by the time I started school, so you can imagine how it was.
If you are ever near Cancun, Mexico, drop me a line and I'll buy you a bear, at least we might have some intelligent conversation for a change...
Cheers
Be very, very careful what you put into that head, because you will never, ever get it out. - Cardinal Wolsey
While difficult to prove, I would be interested in knowing which ones were simply glossing over mistakes by claiming not to care.
...but ability to solve IQ tests.
-- Sneer
"You are a product of your environment." --Clement Stone
Slashdot = Sarcasm
A bit off-topic, but couldn't resist after reading all these comments.
With test designed to be normal distributed around 100 with 15-16 SD, you'd expect less people having scores over 150. In fact I don't think i've ever seen ANYONE on the internet clayming his IQ to be below 100. I guess being able to type OTI really makes you more intelligent than half of the peoples. I really hope there is another explanation...
when I was told in no uncertain terms that Psych was a Science, IQ was thought to mean something. The more "enlightened" we have become, the less Psych looks ,like a Science and the less IQ actually measures. IQ tests are rarely (never?) culturally neutral, and repeat tests increase IQ in many cases. Personally I was measured to be 2SD above the mean whilst at Uni - that does not mean that I have been or will be any more successful (whatever success means btw) than my less "intelligent" friends and colleagues. IQ has never really measured anything useful imo, and probably never will.
"Debrox makes people stupid!"
Obligatory Note to Mods - all slashdot threads contain joke threads 3 layers deep, so watch out for the Joke-Alert Quotes.
Debrox makes you better able to hear what other people say, most of whom are less intelligent than you. :-)
In general, it is safe and legal to kill your children. -- POSIX Programmer's Guide
Some people can excel at certain areas, some people can suck so hard at other areas.
IQ rolls all those successes and failures in to one huge score that has no meaning or purpose other than to mentally-wank at each other.
Some of the most successful people were, to put it bluntly, thick as a pack of bricks.
Some of the most intelligent people in the world... yeah.
Intelligence, quite often, also hinders other development parts, particularly, it seems, with social interactions.
Why is it that intelligent folks seem to suck at interactions with others most of the time? Even condescending at times.
Is it because they are so full of themselves? Is it because they think it is normal? Do they not see it at all?
Most "intelligent" people I have talked to sounded like right elitist twats.
It saddens me to be associated (loosely) with such people.
the interesting thing when you ask someone who found the solution to an IQ question that you did not find is this:
When he explains how he got the answer, you say "damned, it was easy"
For example, if the question is:
how much is: 23234+34696+63453
213579, 121383, 121397, 121375, or 122435
the "high IQ guy" will compute 4+6+3=3, then pick 121383 as the right answer because it's the only one ending with a 3
And then, if you did not find the answer, now you feel really stupid
penis size.
It measures how well you perform in IQ tests. Who says that human intelligence depends on the fact how well you can solve some pointless tasks? Every intelligent human being would notice that there is no advantage you gain from such test and would consequently ignore it.
An IQ test determines just how eager you are to have another person compare your intelligence to everyone else's. Seems that the REALLY smart people would opt-out.
That's strange. My test was timed, and how quickly you finished also factored into your score. I would not trust any test that is not timed. Given enough time, many could find the answer to almost any riddle, puzzle, or problem.
Let's see how well you do on http://www.iqtest.com/. I scored a 139 and was not bored in the least, because I was timed. A very simple IQ test could theoretically be all basic math, but if it is timed, and the difference between a 120 and a 140 is 5 seconds, I doubt you will be yawning much. While nothing in the IQTest.com test is hard, it will require quick intuitive answers. The higher IQ people will find that the answers to these problems will just feel obvious, including complex math problems that quickly weed out the smart (quick answer) and the not so smart (stop, think, pencil, uh... uh...).
I consider the site accurate for me at least, as it matches very closely to tests I've taken in the past, scoring in the 135-145 range.
Parent:
And whether or not you are bored. I scored a 156 but was bored out of my mind and piddled around more than anything for the last hour or so.
I8-D
Look at me I got 127 on my IQ test and I have been resorted to posting anonymously on Slashdot and not even getting the first post!
The way most tests are constructed they measure predominantly one of the seven forms of intelligence, along with blood sugar, motivation, eyesight, literacy, practise at such tests, decisiveness and writing speed. My score varies with the form I am in. I see them as a hangover from the days of eugenics.
Great post.
This looks like a good place to add one of my favorite quotes:
"Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent."
-Calvin Coolidge
The challenge of encouraging and supporting quality home lives for our children is probably the greatest facing society today.
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
No one here has a clue what tests are, how they are constructed or anything at all about reliability and validity from a SCIENTIFIC point of view? Drilling mid-way into the actual science of psychometrics, over half the factor loading on IQ tests is 'verbal memory' or vocabulary to you passers-by. Most of the remaining factor loading relates to very very simple processes around verbal memory. No creativity, convergent or divergent; which words relate a little to problem solving and problem solution creation. Perhaps I missed the post by the person who actually knows something about testing. Srsly. Not to even mention the incredible pontificating based on no data or valid concepts. Here, the people who can spell widget do not seem to be able to think about something sophomores in SOCIAL SCIENCE are bored with. And social science doesn't get much cred for being scientifically rigorous. The Structure of Intellect by J.P. Guilford was written in 1967. There is no theory of intelligence that is as scientifically rigorous or as elegant as this. The concepts are quite striking in understanding the full breadth of human faculties. Read it, then let's have a conversation. Keep asking yourself, What Is Intelligence, What is Motivation? More importantly, how would one measure it? Just the conversation about what these concepts are has taken 2500 years to unfold. BTW, didja know that the Educational Testing Service is owned by the CIA? Think about the implications of that, all you Good Will Huntings? Ever heard of MK-ULTRA? Hmmm, didn't think so.
check this out too http://www.governmentattic.org/4docs/TrainingNegroArmyTroops_1946.pdf
This isn't so much new, but has been the basis for numerous theories and ideas emerging in the field of psychology. Motivation is the foundation of everything we do. While IQ test aren't the most accurate measure of "intelligence" they are the best we have in the field right now. They are highly subjective and difficult to measure. However, they do measure cognitive ability and other broad facets of human processing which is very useful. As for the concept of "intelligence", do a quick search for Carrol Dwek. Her research on intelligence is ground breaking and insightful. She tests the idea that there are growth theories of intelligence and entity theories present among people. Entity theory states that people adopt the idea that intelligence is fixed; whereas growth theory postulates that people believe intelligence is malleable and can be built-upon. These theories have been put to the test where people are induced to be an entity theory or growth theory. They find that people with growth theories have more persistence, motivation to succeed, and learn things for the sake of learning them - not because they are persuaded by external rewards like money. This suggests that people can learn to be more intelligent through persistence. So, I could see IQ tests as measuring motivation.
Are Tests Biased Against Students Who Don't Give a Shit?
http://www.theonion.com/video/in-the-know-are-tests-biased-against-students-who,17966/
I have been reading through the comments, and there does not seem to be much discussion about what IQ tests do well and what they do poorly. Generally there is an assertion that they are useful by some and an assertion that they are useless by others. As is typical in these cases, both sides are mostly wrong and only partially right.
Thinking about this, I believe there is one particular aspect of this discussion that needs more elaboration. Lets look at two ranges of the IQ test. The range from 80 to 120, and the range from 130 to 170. They are both 40 points apart and imply a wide difference in intelligence for those at the bottom vs those at the top of the range. However, the IQ test does much better (in my opinion and I suspect you can find independent literature to support this) on the range 80 to 120. Usually somebody with an IQ of 80 is not destined for a college degree and somebody with 120 has a good chance of finishing college. In this regard the test does fairly well. Whether it is actually measuring real mental talents of one type or another is a different issue.
Now, look at the range of 130 to 170. People with IQs of 170 are a bit different in nature to those who have 130. That seems fairly clear. But focused strengths in particular mental abilities are not well picked out and the IQ test seems to do a terrible job of predicting future grandmasters in chess, future professors at elite schools, future engaging storytellers, or even future great repositories of interesting trivia. Also when it comes to elite abilities, IQ tests at the high end of the range tend to discount the obsessive dedication that is required to become one of the best.
I think one of the issues is that IQ tests are good at finding deficiencies, places where somebody is lacking critical mental skills to learn what is required in our modern society, and does poorly at diagnosing elite mental talents. Those that praise the IQ test usually point out scenarios where the IQ test helped find people who needed additional resources to succeed. Those that criticize the IQ test tend to focus on how those with "genius IQs" tend not to necessarily do great acts that measure up to their numerical IQ score.
Take the relatively simple problem of determining potential skill at chess. Chess makes for a nice example because skill at chess is only somewhat coorelated with other mental abilities (making it possible to "isolate it" from other mental facets) and it is definitely measurable by competing with others. There is a clear cut state of "grandmaster" which all fairly accomplished chess players agree is a statement of real elite capability. It is (probably -- I am extrapolating on my own anecdotal experience) not hard to create a test to determine if somebody is going to play chess adequately and I suspect such a test is somewhat coorelated with an IQ test. A person with an IQ of 80 probably will never play chess that well, while a person with an IQ of 120 will likely learn to play the game adequately (counter examples are welcome). There are kids who clearly do not have much talent for the game and I doubt even focused study would help them. For them, learning how to mate with K and Q against K is a bit of a stretch.
But is it possible to create a test which will determine who is likely to be a future grandmaster (or even master) as compared to just playing "well"? I have recently been a chess coach for elementary school kids and there is one trait that I have determined that is coorelated with future ability. It is an obsessive interest in the game. I have kids who I thought were better natural talents, but they quickly fell behind those who made it their life mission to be better. In particular, I believe that an IQ test result of 170 is practically meaningless in predicting future great success in chess.
I use chess as an example, because I believe much the same can be said about any elite mental talent. Every time I hear debates about IQ, I ask myself, how well does it predict chess failure and how well does it predict elite chess success? I believe such a examination will produce results that are as valid as when the IQ test is used to predict future greatness in scientists and writers.
I recommend "Review of The Mismeasure of Man by Stephen Jay Gould" in the American Journal of Psychology or ""Intelligence and Some of Its Testers" in Science for a thorough look at The Mismeasure of Man and how 99% of the time it is bogus. The statistical techniques Gould used were not correctly performed, studies were selectively reported to support his point, it misrepresents the work it does report, and the entire book reeks of politicking. It is not a serious contribution toward anyone's understanding of "intelligence."
The douche quotient.