Do you believe in IQ?

[Mary Terry]

What is a person using the IQ score for?

If the score is used as a general predictor for one's future job related financial success, they tend to be fairly accurate for IQs below 100, but not at all reliable for IQs above 100 (where 100=average).

Also for IQs below 100, they are useful in determining what kind and how much services/aid is necessary.

Used as a means of judging a person, however, they are entirely useless.

IQ test results provide narcissistic supply to some people so I guess they have some usefulness in a very limited way.

I've known several brilliant people who were too dumb to come in out of the rain.

 

[Crossbreed]

I've known several brilliant people who were too dumb to come in out of the rain.

The TV series, Eureka, frequently riffed on that theme.

 

[Matthias]

IQ is only one measure of intelligence. EQ (emotional intelligence) also plays a large role. People with high IQ but low EQ often appear dumb in certain situations. They may lack common sense, such as having trouble understanding simple things that everyone else knows (like why people behave a certain way - which is often based on emotions). Fortunately, there are many books on emotional intelligence that people can read to improve their EQ.

 

[Judge]

IQ test results provide narcissistic supply to some people so I guess they have some usefulness in a very limited way.

I've known several brilliant people who were too dumb to come in out of the rain.

Reminding me that one's IQ score is no better or worse than touting your can of Ken-L-Ration on tv.

 

[vergil96]

Everyone's got their own thing to brag about

 

[Judge]

Everyone's got their own thing to brag about

Nothing new about that.

However it has a propensity to become toxic when promoted on a very broad level to society at large.

 

[Ronald Zeeman]

Thought this was neat, actually measured.

 

[UFO]

IQ is only one measure of intelligence. EQ (emotional intelligence) also plays a large role. People with high IQ but low EQ often appear dumb in certain situations. They may lack common sense, such as having trouble understanding simple things that everyone else knows (like why people behave a certain way - which is often based on emotions). Fortunately, there are many books on emotional intelligence that people can read to improve their EQ.

This is my problem...

I have an above average IQ according to a standardized Mensa test taken couple decades ago. I am also one of the worst persons you should ever ask any opinion about if you have any emotional problems at all.

I have spend my whole life learning about correct responses to emotional situations from a psychological literature, self-help books, movies, analyzing situations etc. While I can come up with something useful when given some time, all of it is just a theoretical stuff. I suck when it comes to real life and real time situations.

I blame a different way of thinking: What comforts me is most likely not the same thing that comforts others. What would insult others, might not insult me. What would be a small issue to others, can be a huge issue to me. And other way around.

So I can't use my intuition, or my own responses to emotions, as a reference. I just have to resort on learned rules. And I fail on that often.

I wonder if an emotional intelligence, or lack of it, is really the issue? Would I be smart in EQ if I would meet someone who is exactly like me? Do I fail in EQ only because most of situations are too different world to me? How much of EQ is learned and how much of it should be inborn? How much of emotinal responses are cultural behavior and thus learnable?

I agree that studying helps, but the whole concept of intelligence remains fuzzy...

 

[Ronald Zeeman]

IQ is just a number no nuance, learned this with a career working with colour, breakthrough was how to control colours using SPC with one number trick was colour difference not absolute colour.

 

[Matthias]

This is my problem...

I have an above average IQ according to a standardized Mensa test taken couple decades ago. I am also one of the worst persons you should ever ask any opinion about if you have any emotional problems at all.

I have spend my whole life learning about correct responses to emotional situations from a psychological literature, self-help books, movies, analyzing situations etc. While I can come up with something useful when given some time, all of it is just a theoretical stuff. I suck when it comes to real life and real time situations.

I blame a different way of thinking: What comforts me is most likely not the same thing that comforts others. What would insult others, might not insult me. What would be a small issue to others, can be a huge issue to me. And other way around.

So I can't use my intuition, or my own responses to emotions, as a reference. I just have to resort on learned rules. And I fail on that often.

I wonder if an emotional intelligence, or lack of it, is really the issue? Would I be smart in EQ if I would meet someone who is exactly like me? Do I fail in EQ only because most of situations are too different world to me? How much of EQ is learned and how much of it should be inborn? How much of emotinal responses are cultural behavior and thus learnable?

I agree that studying helps, but the whole concept of intelligence remains fuzzy...

I see. I tried learning the correct responses to emotional situations just like you did. I agree with you that it doesn't work well. However, books on emotional intelligence do much more: they help you change your emotional responses to situations so that you're able to experience the same emotions as others. After that happens, you can rely on your new intuition and emotional responses to understand how others feel. I can tell you from experience that it works much better than trying to learn or mimic typical emotional responses.

 

[Gerald Wilgus]

This is my problem...

I have an above average IQ according to a standardized Mensa test taken couple decades ago. I am also one of the worst persons you should ever ask any opinion about if you have any emotional problems at all.

I have spend my whole life learning about correct responses to emotional situations from a psychological literature, self-help books, movies, analyzing situations etc. While I can come up with something useful when given some time, all of it is just a theoretical stuff. I suck when it comes to real life and real time situations.

I blame a different way of thinking: What comforts me is most likely not the same thing that comforts others. What would insult others, might not insult me. What would be a small issue to others, can be a huge issue to me. And other way around.

So I can't use my intuition, or my own responses to emotions, as a reference. I just have to resort on learned rules. And I fail on that often.

I wonder if an emotional intelligence, or lack of it, is really the issue? Would I be smart in EQ if I would meet someone who is exactly like me? Do I fail in EQ only because most of situations are too different world to me? How much of EQ is learned and how much of it should be inborn? How much of emotinal responses are cultural behavior and thus learnable?

I agree that studying helps, but the whole concept of intelligence remains fuzzy...

I do not ever think that an EQ, based on the socially adept NTs, is an accurate measure of us. All we have is a mismatch between how we see the world and react and the system designed to support and make NTs feel emotionally safe. For me that mismatch created a traumatic social isolation. Yet, for my emotional safety and to protect a fragile self-concept, all I could do is learn how to be independent, with varied interests, and wired to treat people respectfully, but reserved in my shyness. It was difficult then, but it was the scaffolding that I built a decent life upon.

 

[UFO]

they help you change your emotional responses to situations so that you're able to experience the same emotions as others

Yes, that could happen. According to my childhood friends and my family (I don't myself remember much about childhood) I have became more responsive to certain situations (I have learned to get offended by some remarks, getting pleased when hearing praising is still under work), and less responsive to others (more tolerant towards disappointments), and so on. So that partly answers to my question about learning.

 

[UFO]

For me that mismatch created a traumatic social isolation. Yet, for my emotional safety and to protect a fragile self-concept, all I could do is learn how to be independent, with varied interests, and wired to treat people respectfully, but reserved in my shyness. It was difficult then, but it was the scaffolding that I built a decent life upon.

When I have been reading stories like this from here, I have began to think that I have had an easy life: I have either not even noticed when I have been treated negatively, or I have been able to ignore it (both cases according my childhood friends). Those situations, that have left me bullied in such way that I remember them, have been (probably) as traumatic as any and shaped my social avoidance, but they seem to be few and mild (from my perspective, I have heard and sympathized much more severe experiences of others).

I don't know if my version of social isolation is a result of those traumatic experiences, or have I always been just a hang-around friend rather than a socially active friend (according my childhood friends and my parents, I have never been first to initiate friendships, or been calling friends to join any activities). Even my only girl friend was the one who decided to catch me, not the other way around. All I know is that I realized around late-teens that I don't miss even my dearest childhood friends, and that maintaining or creating friendships is not a worth of an effort.

I do like being around people and I can even like socializing with them, but I don't seem to have a such need that would make me suffer if I can't connect to people. Most likely it affects also my motivation to learn those EQ-things over the theoretical level