Do you think the whole IQ thing is accurate?

[Anonymous]

IQ tests to figure out someone's brain abilities when it comes to their intelligence, if anything wouldn't telling them their "brain levels" psychologically immobilize them, to some it might even stop them from trying to get more intelligent because they are okay and settle with what they currently have, is it even accurate? 🤔

[buzzword]

IQ tests are valid when you

• Take the test blind. That is, you can't enter the test knowing the sorts of questions you might encounter and you can't practice to solve those types of questions beforehand. If you prepare at all then you've cheated yourself into believing you are smarter than you actually are. The point is to see if your mind can actually solve new question types organically.
• You can't guess on any questions. You have to have a valid reason for belief in your answer. Randomly guessing or guessing between the better options by process of elimination means you don't know how to solve the problem. Thus if you get the answer correct without understanding why, the score is invalid.

Otherwise you are measuring you ability vs everyone else that has taken the test, and either you will be able to solve the problems better or worse than others by certain margins. The problem is a lot of people are dumb and they want to appear to be smarter than they actually are so they try to cheat themselves.

[Asker]

So basically you can only take the test once?

[buzzword]

If you want to be honest with yourself, yes. There are different IQ tests with different types of questions though. Thus, you could technically take a couple different IQ tests to measure different types of reasoning. If you repeat the same test you're just basically doing route memorization. For example, some people buy IQ test preparation books where someone that has inside information teaches them how to identify certain question types and then how to solve them. All you have done in that situation is drilled how to copy a smart person's approach to solving a problem, you didn't actually innovate the idea on your own. You didn't actually test your intelligence, you tested the test prep guy's intelligence. So the test prep guy is the one with the high IQ not you in that scenario. A lot of people that are mediocre will do that, take the test, then maybe run into some snags on certain types of questions. Then they go back and train on those sorts of questions that were stumping them, and retake the test and hope for a better score. That's not a valid approach.

[Asker]

Interesting

[WindAtMyBack]

It measures what it measures. It doesn't measure if you had a good day or a bad day when taking the test. It doesn't measure if someone is good at taking tests or not. It doesn't take into account how good or fast someone is at reading. What if they can't read at all?

But that is not to say it has no value. It does tell you something about the person. It is not perfect by any means. It is not inclusive and does not measure many things that might be considered intelligence. But it still has value, and can be one of many indicators of future performance in a wide variety of things.

It is not the fault of the test or how IQ is calculated. It is the fault of people who interpret the meaning of IQ. They need to know what it measures and it's short comings.

In college, a person with an IQ of 90 might do far better than a person with an IQ of 150. But ON AVERAGE, the person with a higher IQ as measured by those tests has a better chance of doing well in college. Same with other areas of life. It doesn't mean they WILL do better, just that they have a better chance.

In daily life, I don't see any reason to know someone's IQ. It's irrelevant. But it does give information that is useful to teachers, psychologists and maybe some others. Even though helpful, those people should not place too much emphasis on it either.

[MemeSupreme]

kinda?

like i took an actual MENSA one before and i scored high. thing is i was huge into school around then like i did well on AMC 10 in 8th grade, so i was kinda indirectly trained for it. i liked the challenge and it interested me to solve "puzzles"

so it definitely has SOME truth but it's also something kids who train for it, got experience, or are interested in it got a huge advantage in. it can easily not be accurate at all

[Asker]

Yea like another user said, if you know what to expect then it kinda defeats the whole purpose so perhaps the first time ever seeing it might be the most accurate.

[MemeSupreme]

yeah that's why they like doing IQ tests on kids like elementary school bc you have zero experience with the material

[Asker]

Interesting, I didn't know they did IQ tests on children

[MemeSupreme]

yeah i think the most common age is like 7 or 8

[Asker]

I didn't know that

[MemeSupreme]

it kinda makes sense if you think about it

[Asker]

No it doesn't 😂

[MemeSupreme]

it does bc you can be eligible for gifted programs if you have a high score. trust me those kids can have a HUGE advantage being in those

and like on a personal level you have no experience with the material, and probably no test anxiety bc you're a kid so it's more accurate lol

[Asker]

Well you make some good points indeed 🤔

[Smashingdoozy]

It is accurate, however they only measure a few things which aren't the entirety of what is intelligence.

However not everyone does well on IQ tests despite being very smart. Especially those who have ADHD or autism. Brains work in different ways so the tests aren't definitive.

[Asker]

That's indeed some big brain stuff to say without a doubt

[Maybe_Maybe_not]

Essentially inaccurate, in the sense that IQ test doesn't measure what it is supposed to measure because intelligence is too complex to be defined by psychometrics. It also highlights this tendency we have to measure before defining exactly what we are measuring, this trope: "You do science but what is your philosophy?"

Now, IQ tests are useful at one thing, revealing cognitive dysfunctions when results are consistently low, revealing high-efficiency performing when results are consistently high. In both of these cases, we are then looking at kids, teens or adults who will have trouble integrating in society and that is a concern to care for.

[Asker]

That's true indeed

[msc545]

@Maybe_Maybe_not IQ tests are very accurate predictors of academic performance and they are very useful for that - other things, not so much. We do use them for identifying areas of dysfunction following brain injuries, but for that they need to be used in conjenction with other tests like The Luria-Nebraska, Halstead-Reitan, or NAB if you want reasonably reliable and valid results.

[RavVid]

IQ is general intelligence and you can't get more intelligent than what is innate.

You can learn a whole lot of shit for sure. But that is not becoming more intelligent; it is just knowing more shit.

The first work on IQ was measuring reaction time by the way.

[Asker]

That would be reflexes tho

[msc545]

IQ is never assessed by mearuing reaction time.

[RavVid]

@msc545 YES!

But IQ was first explored in the late 1800's with reaction times. Back then it was more natural to do so because 'Keen of mind and body' was thought to be a natural correlation. The school dux was good on the cricket field and also good with girls. Had it all :(

Now the trope is more dumb neanderthal guys being good at sports and nerdy intelligent guys being a complete wash out on the sporting field and tripping over themselves.

Without looking hard I found a paper that mentions correlation between reaction and IQ as a moderate correlation but was reporting a stronger correlation between life expectancy and IQ. i would post the link but GAG thinks it is obscene.

What I wanted to make a point on is you can learn stuff but general intelligence (IQ) is more innate than having done units and passed them. The character trait of perseverance can get you a long way with learning. That was all.

[msc545]

Explored by whom, if you know. First I have heard of it.

[RavVid]

@msc545 Donders circa 1868 was one. Intelligence is a vague concept that is highly disputable. Do IQ tests measure general intellgence or are they cultural? Back then it seems to have been 'speed of thought'.

It seems to be generally accepted that whatever we are measuring with reaction time is moderately well to strongly correlated with whatever we measure with IQ tests rather than necessarily intelligence per se.

There is a little history in this paper. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5608941/

[Abbycado]

I’m like 5,000 on the sarcasm scale.

It’s a new test. XD

[Asker]

And you don't share the test, I must be like over 1 million 😂

[ProbablyClueless]

Probably not super super accurate, but I think you can get general idea about what kind of horsepower someone is working with.

[Asker]

Lol horsepower

[elaphe]

I think that they measure general intelligence, but they are not the end all in determining a person's skills or talents.

[Asker]

That's a good point

[Radiate143]

IQ tests have been found to be skewed towards middle and upper class whites success. They're not an foolproof measure of intelligence by a longshot.

[Anonymous]

not 100% accurate but it does give a ballpark average

[Asker]

Fair enough

[nolabels]

For what they do measure, yes, I think that they're quite accurate.

That's not to say that IQs are defining for anyone.

[NathanDavis]

the IQ theories were debunked about 30 minutes after they were said to be a thing...

nowadays, it's just, yet another thing for some pretentious people to be quite pretentious about it... lol

[Staximus]

I've learned some life lessons from people who would not be considered intelligent by most standards but they have moments of brilliance. Everybody is smart in their own way.

[LiamJHayden]

Accurate for what it is.