What is your IQ?

[snafupants]

I was estimated by someone with a deep knowledge of psychology (and the gifted in particular) to be in the highly gifted range, which to my understanding is 145-159, although supposedly that could be as low as mid-130s. However, I scored in the normal range, and this same person claimed that severe mental illness makes testing intelligence accurately near-impossible. Even if I were in the range that was previously suggested, I feel the genetic imprint of mental illness makes it extremely difficult to harness whatever intelligence I do have. I feel like I've improved the last several months, from a mental health perspective, but I know there are lingering deficits.

Regardless of all that, I feel I pale in comparison to my sister, who seems to have a gleaming coat of intelligence, without a spec of dust or flaw. I've read that from an evolutionary perspective the same suite of genes responsible for intelligence may make one susceptible to psychosis, that is to say that one may be lucky and develop intelligence instead of madness, while a relative may be the unfortunate one. I don't know, many days I seem to be the latter.

The idea of low latent inhibition, psychopathology (e.g., ADHD and schizophrenia), creativity, and giftedness is a ripe and compelling avenue for research, but perhaps too unquantifiable and experimental for mainstream psychology, which has become far too empirically pragmatic.

 

[snafupants]

There is nothing to be nervous about. A lot of psychologists will take a magnifying glass to everything you posted in this thread, that's all.

At any rate, I would be intrigued by that information, as a layperson.

 

[Antediluvian]

The idea of low latent inhibition, psychopathology (e.g., ADHD and schizophrenia), creativity, and giftedness is a ripe and compelling avenue for research, but perhaps too unquantifiable and experimental for mainstream psychology, which has become far too empirically pragmatic.

Yeah, it could be mainstream psychology is ill-equipped to completely capture all those things you mentioned. Even so, I find the notion of IQ to be quite interesting, considering some heavily compelling consistent correlations. For instance, in The Better Angels of Our Nature it is explained that there is a negative correlation between a President's IQ and the amount of deaths of his respective army during war time. My understanding of a negative correlation is that when one variable increases, the other decreases. My take on that claim is the higher the President's IQ, the lower amount of military deaths during his administration.

Aside from that though, the author of that book also claims the Flynn Effect is due to the widespread emphasis on schools choosing to favor abstract reasoning skills. I was home-schooled, so I think that has lead me to have a rather unusual mindset. Whether or not that will prove useful is difficult to claim, at the moment.

 

[LateNightSnack]

Gifted test in school said my iq was around 129, this iq test said I was at 101! lol

 

[snafupants]

Yeah, it could be mainstream psychology is ill-equipped to completely capture all those things you mentioned. Even so, I find the notion of IQ to be quite interesting, considering some heavily compelling consistent correlations. For instance, in The Better Angels of Our Nature it is explained that there is a negative correlation between a President's IQ and the amount of deaths of his respective army during war time. My understanding of a negative correlation is that when one variable increases, the other decreases. My take on that claim is the higher the President's IQ, the lower amount of military deaths during his administration.

Aside from that though, the author of that book also claims the Flynn Effect is due to the widespread emphasis on schools choosing to favor abstract reasoning skills. I was home-schooled, so I think that has lead me to have a rather unusual mindset. Whether or not that will prove useful is difficult to claim, at the moment.

@Antediluvian

The truth behind the Flynn effect is often exasperating to convey to the public. Most of the increase in IQ is monopolized by the left hand side of the bell curve. Folks fallaciously assume a general increase of perhaps a standard deviation over a few decades. That's totally wrong. Someone with an IQ of 122 during the Vietnam War wouldn't leapfrog to an IQ of 141 or something under the scrutiny of the same test performed more recently. Here's the deal, the Flynn effect is largely relegated to the leftmost side of the bell curve, and perhaps attributable to an increase in education, nutrition, stimulation, medical care, and eugenics-like breeding. The claim that genuine IQ has wholesale increased fifteen points in the last half century - or three points per decade over five decades - is absurd on its face. The claim is pure hubris and betrays an ethnocentric bias. The comparison is incommensurate anyway because the tests, places, and times are completely different; as an aside, the Flynn effect is basically compartmentalized in a particular fluid intelligence test. There's really no evidence that someone at the top of their class in 1944 was less intelligent than someone at the top of her class in 2011; the reverse, in fact, may be more demonstrable. The imputation that intelligence has increased indiscriminately for the entire population over the last six decades or so is empirically and theoretically bankrupt; there are literally dozens of elided and unknown variables that rendering a cause and effect relationship between time and IQ increases is comprehensively fatuous.

 

[Antediluvian]

@Antediluvian

The truth behind the Flynn effect is often exasperating to convey to the public. Most of the increase in IQ is monopolized by the left hand side of the bell curve. Folks fallaciously assume a general increase of perhaps a standard deviation over a few decades. That's totally wrong. Someone with an IQ of 122 during the Vietnam War wouldn't leapfrog to an IQ of 141 or something under the scrutiny of the same test performed more recently. Here's the deal, the Flynn effect is largely relegated to the leftmost side of the bell curve, and perhaps attributable to an increase in education, nutrition, stimulation, medical care, and eugenics-like breeding. The claim that genuine IQ has wholesale increased fifteen points in the last half century - or three points per decade over five decades - is absurd on its face. The claim is pure hubris and betrays an ethnocentric bias. The comparison is incommensurate anyway because the tests, places, and times are completely different; as an aside, the Flynn effect is basically compartmentalized in a particular fluid intelligence test. There's really no evidence that someone at the top of their class in 1944 was less intelligent than someone at the top of her class in 2011; the reverse, in fact, may be more demonstrable. The imputation that intelligence has increased indiscriminately for the entire population over the last six decades or so is empirically and theoretically bankrupt; there are literally dozens of elided and unknown variables that rendering a cause and effect relationship between time and IQ increases is comprehensively fatuous.

Right, and the Flynn effect has effected only certain average subtest scores, while leaving most of the VCI untouched, this may be due to what you said before about crystallized intelligence being a gradual increase. It makes sense that the Flynn effect is seen at the leftmost part of the curve, as well.

I'm no expert on the Flynn effect, and as just stating what I had read prior.

 

[Roni]

Personally I don't care anything for IQ or normal distribution or whatever, I'm just giving ApostateAbe information which he requested.

Me too. I used the given quiz because I don't know my IQ as number* (isn't IQ score meaningless without specifying the test used anyway?)

The poll results so far confirm something I've always suspected - MBTI "Rationals" (xNTx) would have higher than average IQs because IQ tests measure logic (~T) and pattern recognition (~N).
The next question is - do we do better on those tests because they suit our preferences, or do we have those preferences because we started out with higher IQs?

*

Spoiler

I do know my IQ as a percentile - I'm in the top 1% according to Mensa standards. I applied to Mensa (years before I found INTPf) because I was feeling the isolation so many INTPs have expressed on this forum. I'd decided I was either a psycho, a genius or some kind of alien. Getting into Mensa was a great relief at first but it didn't gain me the intelligent company I was expecting. An IQ test is no measure of what we usually mean by intelligent - quick wit, delight in new ideas, capacity for reasonable discussion - and I learned I was more likely to find intelligent company outside my local Mensa group than within it. I've let my membership lapse now. INTPf is way more fun.

 

[eagor]

did the given test, i suspect it's wrong but whatever i scored in the 120-129 range...

 

[Chronomar]

I really have my suspicions about these things, especially being a more spatial person.

I got 142, which I'm just happy about because, you know, 42. Universe life etc.

But I feel like I must have figured out how to cheat without trying to figure out how to cheat because there is no way. That's too many standard deviations above the mean. I have a 2.02 GPA. WTF.

 

[ObliviousGenius]

Yeah I took the one given in the OP and got a 138 but those questions were basically all pattern recognition, at least I contributed to the final results.

 

[snafupants]

I really have my suspicions about these things, especially being a more spatial person.

I got 142, which I'm just happy about because, you know, 42. Universe life etc.

But I feel like I must have figured out how to cheat without trying to figure out how to cheat because there is no way. That's too many standard deviations above the mean. I have a 2.02 GPA. WTF.

There's a difference between aptitude and achievement. The relatively low correlation between your IQ and GPA could be attributable to anything from drinking and low work ethic to taking the wrong courses or plain forgoing study. More largely, the reason IQ doesn't always fit with real world success is because real world success is predicated on other things, like empathy and dedication, that intelligence tests miss, because intelligence tests are intelligence tests and not dedication or empathy tests. In an ideal environment, IQ, which obliquely grasps this construct of intelligence, is related to one's ability to understand and manipulate complexity; the last bit is basically a definition of g, if that makes sense.

 

[Chronomar]

There's a difference between aptitude and achievement. The relatively low correlation between your IQ and GPA could be attributable to anything from drinking and low work ethic to taking the wrong courses or plain forgoing study. More largely, the reason IQ doesn't always fit with real world success is because real world success is predicated on other things, like empathy and dedication, that intelligence tests miss, because intelligence tests are intelligence tests and not dedication or empathy tests. In an ideal environment, IQ, which obliquely grasps this construct of intelligence, is related to one's ability to understand and manipulate complexity; the last bit is basically a definition of g, if that makes sense.

I suppose I know that. What I have not applied correctly to my GPA is dedication. And the classic INTP fear of failure resulting in inaction is more or less behind that. But then last semester I got an A in all my classes except one. (I should say my GPA *was* 2.02. Now it's something higher. If I stick to my 'plans' I should still be able to graduate with some level of honors).

I have found it is just as easy to get an A as a F. It just depends which groove one is carving into.

 

[HDINTP]

I just feel like there are limits but so far away... What you are capable of is almost impossible in my opinion so that is it. I mean if you want to think about actual so called problems then you can do that just tell me why not? If you don't have mental illness but anyway that is just less probability in my opinion in that case...?

 

[snafupants]

There are two ways to understand and generate complex information, presupposing good discernment generally; these constraints are such because of limits of working memory, which can only hold about seven items in consciousness at once; this number owes something to George Miller and the information processing theory. At any rate, the two ways of dealing with complex information are (A) quickly or paradoxically (B) with a sustained attention span. The former precludes losing the information in time, and is often employed by geniuses, while the latter prohibits losing the information in space, and is frequently used by mathematicians who value logical, piecemeal assimilation of data. There might not be a third way of negotiating, learning, and disseminating complex information due to the narrowness of human cognitive capacities; narrow even for the most scintillating minds.

 

[BigApplePi]

There are two ways to understand and generate complex information, presupposing good discernment generally; these constraints are such because of limits of working memory, which can only hold about seven items in consciousness at once; this number owes something to George Miller and the information processing theory. At any rate, the two ways of dealing with complex information are (A) quickly or paradoxically (B) with a sustained attention span. The former precludes losing the information in time, and is often employed by geniuses, while the latter prohibits losing the information in space, and is frequently used by mathematicians who value logical, piecemeal assimilation of data. There might not be a third way of negotiating, learning, and disseminating complex information due to the narrowness of human cognitive capacities; narrow even for the most scintillating minds.

(C) Store information/experience in tree-like fashion enabling retrieval at any point or possibly seven points.

 

[LateNightSnack]

I really have my suspicions about these things, especially being a more spatial person.

I got 142, which I'm just happy about because, you know, 42. Universe life etc.

But I feel like I must have figured out how to cheat without trying to figure out how to cheat because there is no way. That's too many standard deviations above the mean. I have a 2.02 GPA. WTF.

I have like a 2.6 GPA
Maybe I should start turning in work & stop correcting teachers so they don't "lose" my work.

 

[Black Rose]

I took the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale in 2009 when I was in the local mental hospital. I'm not INTP but I still would like to understand my scores. They are lopsided from what I can tell. (PSI) is what I want most to know about?

Indices and scales
There are four index scores representing major components of intelligence:
Verbal Comprehension Index (VCI) 117
Perceptual Reasoning Index (PRI) 115
Working Memory Index (WMI) 102
Processing Speed Index (PSI) 92
Two broad scores are also generated, which can be used to summarize general intellectual abilities:
Full Scale IQ (FSIQ) 108, based on the total combined performance of the VCI, PRI, WMI, and PSI
General Ability Index (GAI) 115, based only on the six subtests that the VCI and PRI comprise.

 

[SpaceYeti]

Which scale?

 

[KuroKamiHime]

Sometimes when I write from my phone, odd emoticons appear in the reply. The "cool" one was not an accurate representation of my mood at that point

Well, a lot of people have tested INTP here to later discover that they were INFPs, ISTPs, ESTPs, ENFPs, ENTPs, INTJs etc.

I believe the majority of the active members are other types than INTPs. Also, I don't think I would be bold claiming they know very little about mbti, that include myself.




How many do you think have found themselves otherwise? Why do you think the majority aren't INTP anyway? I don't see what would attract people to join this site other than the quest for peers( I guess they could just come across it in the search for some of the topics but...).

 

[KuroKamiHime]

So what if it's not a reliable poll, but I have the same suspicions. As far as IQ goes; I've had various scores and come to the conclusion that 'birds of a feather' is probably the best judge of character. If you find peers in the INTP circles, you're probably INTP. If you enjoy conversing with people considered by others as 'genius', you probably are one. IQ tests supposedly vary by about 15 points and I think (for the highly gifted) there can be a LOT of idiosyncrasies that can (especially as you get older) inhibit your ability to focus and test accurately. Of course, I haven't taken an IQ test since I was young and I don't remember exactly how they go...

 

[Cherry Cola]

I had a gap of 36 pts between my lowest subscore (processing speed) and my highest. Won't say my score since I'm an INFJ, but yeah I'm really smart watch out yo

 

[just george]

Regardless of all that, I feel I pale in comparison to my sister, who seems to have a gleaming coat of intelligence, without a spec of dust or flaw. I've read that from an evolutionary perspective the same suite of genes responsible for intelligence may make one susceptible to psychosis, that is to say that one may be lucky and develop intelligence instead of madness, while a relative may be the unfortunate one. I don't know, many days I seem to be the latter.

My definition of madness is where a bunch of dummies get together and agree that they don't understand anything that a really smart person is saying, and so that person must be insane.

My iq came in at a bit under 160. I still think the tests are bullshit though

 

[Cherry Cola]

whats bullshit with them? whats the option?

 

[just george]

whats bullshit with them? whats the option?

The bullshit is the confusion between human intelligence and human capacity. IQ testing is a bit like judging the power of a computer by only looking at the CPU.

 

[Hadoblado]

The bullshit is the confusion between human intelligence and human capacity. IQ testing is a bit like judging the power of a computer by only looking at the CPU.

But you could say... judge the CPU by the CPU?

It's all about how far you generalise your results. A lot of people discount IQ entirely when IQ is a useful statistical measure, but a lot of people take it to mean more than it is meant to. Both are mistakes.

 

[just george]

But you could say... judge the CPU by the CPU?

It's all about how far you generalise your results. A lot of people discount IQ entirely when IQ is a useful statistical measure, but a lot of people take it to mean more than it is meant to. Both are mistakes.

My point precisely.

I read somewhere that when your IQ goes past about 130, then it stops mattering so much, since you can do pretty much anything you put your mind to. The average IQ of high end medical practitioners (doctors, pharmacists, physiotherapists etc) is 130, which supports the above statement.

 

[Hadoblado]

I've heard that from a friend, but not read it. Have you any clue where you picked that tidbit up?

 

[just george]

I've heard that from a friend, but not read it. Have you any clue where you picked that tidbit up?

Unfortunately not. I read a lot, so it all blurs together