Don't believe the denialists who claim that IQ doesn't mean anything, or that it only measures one "aspect of intelligence", or that only measures performance on a test and nothing else. A century of research has made quite clear that there is a general factor of intelligence g that quite reliably predicts almost every life outcome that matters - from school grades to work performance to criminal behaviour to life expectancy. No, the prediction is far from perfect, but that doesn't mean that it's a "useless" measure. Height isn't the only factor affecting success in basketball, but is it a useless statistic?
The claim that IQ only measures "one aspect of intelligence" is also quite untrue. Most IQ tests actually measure not only g but also various specific/crystallized intelligences. These "other intelligences" may generally be construed as "trained intelligence".
And in any case, all intellectual abilities - mathematical or social or linguistic or what have you - correspond quite well with g, so highly g-loaded tests like the Raven's Matrices are rather good at quantifying how intelligent a person is. In other words, someone who reliably does well on (good) IQ tests will typically find themselves more capable than average in all sorts of learning.
As for training to beat IQ tests, sure. That's just cheating the test, however, and doesn't change your actual intellectual prowess. Any test can be rendered ineffective if you cheat, but that doesn't really say anything about the effectiveness of the test in and of itself.
Finally, the general factor of intelligence is indeed quite static, barring neurologically-significant events like brain damage or developmental malnutrition. That said, crystallised intelligence is far from static. To oversimplify, we can think of general intelligence as our raw potential and crystallised intelligence as our achievements to date. While someone with little potential will likely not achieve much regardless of effort, most people will be able to make quite big differences in their own lives if they choose to.
ears ago, when I was studying intelligence testing, most standardized, legitimate IQ tests were considered to be the second-best measures of potential high school and college academic performance. And academic performance is supposed to be related to general intelligence.
Some quick IQ tests only take an hour or maybe 45 minutes to complete.
When I entered the army, in 1959, they administered a type of IQ test. From this simple test, they could predict the success rate for certain jobs at about 70 percent. That’s quite good for running thousands of guys through military training.
The strengths of IQ tests are that they are easy to administer and they correlate somewhat with tasks that we think require general intelligence.
The weaknesses of IQ tests are that they only measure some parts of human abilities (they ignore creativity, compassion and determination) that enable people to be successful in multiple tasks, and they make people think that there is some such thing as “an IQ that a person has.” This thought process attaches too much meaning to an IQ score, and often people who think this way do more harm to themselves and to others than if they had no knowledge of someone’s IQ test scores. (IQ scores vary from test to test, change over time, and are affected by language and culture.)
By the way, the best way to predict academic performance in the future is to look at records of past academic performance. GPA is a better predictor of future academic success than is an IQ score or an ACT or SAT score.
Yes they can. There is an enormous amount of misinformation on this subject.
1) Your performance on one test of mental ability correlates with your performance on others. That is the underlying reasoning behind IQ. So the guy who naturally learns 80,000 out of 100,000 words also has a lot of math knowledge, easily recognizes abstract patterns in shapes that other people stare at and see nothing or get wrong. The guy who knows a small percentage of those words also has trouble recognizing basic patterns in numbers to understand basic fractions much less abstract shapes.Vocabulary tests are actually one of the less accurate forms of testing, despite everything I said above. Other tests are even harder to train for than that.
The correlation between your performance on all of these tests, the underlying factor, is called the g factor for general intelligence. Different IQ tests have different g-loadings. This means it is harder to train for, less culturally biased, more accurate. Vocab tests are cheap and still pretty accurate. But other tests are far more g-loaded.
2) Training to beat an IQ test - Consider a simple vocabulary IQ test. The test has 30 questions. The questions involve comparison of two words, all randomly sampled from an enormous bank of vocabulary words. If it was the same 30 words, you could learn those 30 words and ace the test. If they are randomly sampled from a bank of 100,000 words, you would have to learn all 100,000 to ace the test.
On the other hand your IQ allows you to naturally learn a percentage of the words in day to day life by hearing them being used while recognizing their context if said context is below a certain level of complexity. Suppose you have a 150 IQ and your friend has 100 IQ. You know 80,000 of those words and he knows 50,000. These are both without intentionally studying vocabulary words.
If you want to train to beat him, you would have to learn more than 30,000 vocabulary words. But, better hurry, because every year he gets further ahead of you as he is learning words naturally as well. Even to beat someone 15 points away from you, you might have to close a gap of 7,500 words.
Btw, there are actually 600,000 words defined in the Oxford Dictionary. I just made up 100,000 to make the point.
As for it applying to real life, anything in life that could be described as a "test of mental ability" probably has a significant correlation with g. Job performance in a new job for instance.People censor this topic and provide false information all the time because no one wants to think of themselves as less capable. If there is any way to increase intelligence, it cannot be arrived at with such an attitude.
IQ tests are effective at giving you a glimpse of how you score across different metrics compared to the majority of the population sampled by the same testing method. The most common tests measure:
- Perception
- Abstract reasoning
- Recognizing patterns
- Analytical thinking
- Spacial orientation
Scoring high across all metrics will get you a high score; however (and here is the rub) - scoring exceptional in three out of five and average in the others will get you a “slightly above average” score, and that is a problem. Why?
Because most genius level thinkers and talent are brilliant beyond what you can discover through a few questions in only some of these metrics, sometimes one or two, but mediocre or deficient in some others. Invariably, most important thinkers were so deep into their field of expertise, they were 50 or 100 years ahead of their contemporaries, but their obsession also meant they would fair poorly in disciplines not related to their principal focus. So they will never score their true potential because you’re asking from things their mind doesn’t process, and you don’t dig enough into the skills they perform better than most people. For instance, Richard Feynman scored 125, and he would always joke about it.
So basically, a good IQ score online is something nice to hang on a wall or brag to your friends about, but it generally means you are a well balanced, well functioning person. Alas, among reasonably intelligent people, the ones who would excel no matter what discipline they tackle, are generally those with an extreme hunger for knowledge and unmatched perseverance, and not necessarily those with some innate gift. To dig your true capacity in an area where you suspect you’re head and shoulders above the rest, you need to work with a professional who can design customized tests.
When you score high after you are tested by a professional, you have something you can truly be proud of.
@zexsypmp23 an elaboration on Feynman IQ
This isn't to say true scientific genius can't be measured by IQ. Someone formally IQ tested a group of eminent physicists and found IQs in the 150s and above — exactly what you would expect from a bunch of geniuses. The difference between them and Feynman and Aaronson is that the physicists in the sample were tested in adulthood in a formal scientific study, and Feynman and Aaronson are working off half-remembered IQ tests of unclear quality they took in school. If you took some half-remembered IQ test in school and heard you got a 106, then good news: For all you know, you too might have the ability to be a professor of quantum physics.
IQ tests were originally designed for two purposes: to measure the disability level of children (and adults) for special accommodative services, and, in the military, to identify those who could quickly acquire and process information for leadership roles.
They were never designed, nor do their publishers claim, to identify actual, innate intelligence. We still can’t even agree on what intelligence is in its totality, let alone figure out how to measure it.
As a result, most people who understand what IQ tests do and don’t accomplish don’t put a lot of stock in them as something to venerate. They are a tool, useful in certain applications, but far from the best way to identify who will or will not succeed in life.
@zexsypmp23 IQ they can measure intelligence in animals even when they are not verbal. intelligence is defined as the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills. IQ then can measure one important aspect of intelligence: cognitive ability. Higher cognitive function generally results in higher economic success. It’s hard to come up with general criteria for success. I guess the easiest is to use professions that require a formal education because formal education is designed in improve cognitive skills: language, math, critical thinking skills, reasoning skills. I said designed to be but the outcome may not produce that because of flaws in the educational system.
the other reason they use professions as a surrogate for IQ is because certain professions require more schooling and correlate with a certain income which is a surrogate for economic success.
No one will dispute that High IQ alone can make one rich. We all see plenty of sports stars, entertainers, or trade people that make very good living without academic credentials. A skilled carpenter makes a lot more than a teacher, for example. Or a janitor may have a high IQ but chose to live a simple life, doesn’t mean he’s not engaging in mentally challenging activities.
our argument here you say is the usefulness of IQ test. I say it is useful for the purpose we already listed: to identify the needy, to offer advanced schooling for the gifted.
So you have to see IQ test in the context is is use. IQ test itself is not racist. How you use it determines that. The mentioning of races in relation to IQ does not mean it is racist. If you say country A has higher IQ than country B. Is it racist? It depends on the intention of the person who makes the statement doesn’t it?