Intelligence (2 of 6)
Summary
TLDRThis script delves into the concept of IQ, highlighting that 68% of people have an average IQ between 85 and 115. It emphasizes the role of higher education in favoring those with higher IQs and introduces conscientiousness as a key personality trait compensating for lower intelligence. The script discusses the predictive power of IQ on success in various domains, including academic achievement and career, while also noting its limitations, such as its weak correlation with happiness and life satisfaction. It touches on historical geniuses' estimated IQs and the importance of considering confounding variables like socioeconomic status in IQ testing.
Takeaways
- π§ Average IQ is between 85 and 115, with 68% of people falling within this range.
- π Higher education institutions tend to favor individuals with higher IQs, making it more challenging for those with lower IQs to excel.
- π‘ Conscientiousness, or a strong work ethic, can compensate for lower IQ to some extent and is a significant predictor of success.
- π’ An IQ of 130 or above is often considered 'exceptional', while 70 or below may indicate intellectual disability.
- π IQ is a strong predictor of academic achievement, with a high correlation coefficient.
- π IQ also predicts various forms of professional success, including prizes, awards, patents, and publications.
- πΌ Career success and income have a moderate correlation with IQ.
- π Intelligence is negatively correlated with crime and corruption, suggesting smarter individuals are less likely to engage in such activities.
- π Some confounding variables like socioeconomic status (SES) and race can affect IQ test results.
- π€ There is virtually no correlation between IQ and happiness or life satisfaction, indicating that intelligence does not equate to a better or happier life.
- π IQ tests are one of the most studied constructs in psychology, despite the need to consider confounding variables.
Q & A
What is the average IQ range for most people in the world?
-The average IQ range for most people is between 85 and 115.
Why might individuals in higher education potentially have slightly above average intelligence?
-Higher education institutions were created in many ways to exclude people with lower IQs and benefit those with higher IQs, making it harder for those with lower IQs to excel in higher education.
What personality trait can help make up for lower IQ in educational settings?
-Conscientiousness, which refers to a strong work ethic, can help compensate for lower IQ to a certain degree.
What is the general cutoff for exceptional IQ?
-Two standard deviations above the mean, often considered as an IQ of 130 or above, is the cutoff for exceptional IQ.
What is the correlation between IQ and academic grades?
-IQ has a high correlation with academic grades, with a Pearson R correlation coefficient ranging from 0.78 to 0.92.
How does IQ correlate with career success and income?
-IQ has a moderately high correlation with career success and income.
What is the relationship between IQ and involvement in crime and corruption?
-IQ is negatively correlated with crime and corruption, suggesting that higher intelligence is associated with a lower likelihood of engaging in such activities.
Why might there be a wide range in the correlation between IQ and criminal behavior?
-The wide range in correlation could be due to the fact that some crimes require a great deal of intelligence or social intelligence to execute, but the overall trend suggests smarter individuals are less likely to be involved in crime.
What are some factors that are poorly correlated or not predictive of IQ?
-Factors such as suicide, life expectancy, and happiness or life satisfaction have little to no correlation with IQ.
How does intelligence relate to the ability to process information and think abstractly?
-Intelligence allows individuals to process information faster and think more abstractly, but it does not necessarily correlate with happiness or life satisfaction.
What are some confounding variables that can affect the validity of IQ tests?
-Confounding variables such as race, socioeconomic status, and the social status of the area one lives in can affect the validity of IQ tests.
Outlines
π§ Understanding IQ and Its Impact on Success
This paragraph discusses the concept of exceptional IQ, noting that approximately 68% of people have an average IQ between 85 and 115. It highlights that higher education institutions tend to favor individuals with higher IQs, making it more challenging for those with lower IQs to excel in such environments. The speaker introduces the personality trait of conscientiousness as a compensatory factor for lower IQs in achieving success. The paragraph also touches on the predictive value of IQ, mentioning that while it is a strong predictor of success in various domains, it is not the sole determinant. Historical geniuses like Charles Darwin, Mozart, and Isaac Newton are cited as examples of individuals with high IQs, and the paragraph concludes by emphasizing that IQ does not define one's overall worth or happiness.
π IQ's Predictive Power and Its Limitations
The second paragraph delves into the predictive capabilities of IQ, showing strong correlations with academic grades and achievements such as prizes, awards, patents, and publications. It also discusses the moderate correlation between IQ and career success and income, and the negative correlation with crime and corruption, suggesting that higher intelligence may lead to lower involvement in such activities. The speaker points out that while intelligence can process information faster and think abstractly, it does not necessarily correlate with happiness or life satisfaction. The paragraph concludes by acknowledging potential confounding variables such as race and socioeconomic status that may affect IQ testing, emphasizing the need for a nuanced understanding of IQ's role in predicting life outcomes.
Mindmap
Keywords
π‘IQ
π‘Conscientiousness
π‘Standard Deviation
π‘Giftedness
π‘Adaptive Functioning
π‘Learning Disability
π‘Predictive Value
π‘Correlation Coefficient
π‘Historical Geniuses
π‘Confounding Variables
π‘Abstract Thinking
Highlights
Approximately 68% of people have an average IQ between 85 and 115.
Higher education institutions tend to favor individuals with higher IQs.
Conscientiousness, or hard work ethic, is a significant predictor of success alongside intelligence.
Two standard deviations above the mean (IQ 130) is often considered the cutoff for exceptional IQ.
IQ is one of the best-known psychological predictors, despite not being the be-all and end-all of assessments.
Historical geniuses like Charles Darwin, Mozart, and Isaac Newton are estimated to have had exceptionally high IQs.
IQ has a strong correlation with academic grades, ranging from 0.78 to 0.92.
IQ scores are predictive of academic output such as prizes, awards, patents, and publications.
The number of years spent in higher education is also predicted by IQ scores.
IQ scores have a moderately high correlation with career success and income.
There is a negative correlation between IQ and involvement in crime and corruption.
High intelligence does not necessarily correlate with happiness or life satisfaction.
Intelligence allows for faster information processing and abstract thinking.
The differences in task performance due to intelligence tend to disappear once the task is understood.
Confounding variables such as race and socioeconomic status can affect the validity of IQ tests.
Despite issues with confounding variables, IQ testing remains a highly studied construct in psychology.
Transcripts
so let's talk first about exceptional IQ
so again as I just mentioned some of the
stuff will be redundant I've already
talked about but approximately 68% of
people have an average IQ that is
between 85 and 115 um that's most people
in the world um if you are in higher
education like you all are um then
there's a possibility that you may have
a slightly above average intelligence um
just because schools were created higher
education institutions anyways were
created to um in many ways EX include um
uh people with lower IQs and um really
benefit people with higher IQs so it
makes it much harder for some of the
lower IQ to do well in higher
education
um so but we're going to talk a little
bit about personality uh in the next
lecture and I'll talk to you about how
you can make up for that with one
personality trait called
conscientiousness conscientiousness is
the number um sorry intelligence is the
number one predictor uh of of um success
and variety domains but um
conscientiousness basically hard work
ethic uh accounts for a really really
large number as well between the two you
get a pretty big piece of the pie um so
again hard work can make up for that to
a
degree um two standard deviations is
often the cutof for exceptional IQ as I
mentioned earlier um 130 or 70 are Coffs
for intellectual disability and and
giftedness
um the diagnostic criteria for ual
disability also includes um adaptive
functioning um again we'll might talk
about that a little bit more in special
education um but I don't want you to
think IQ is the be all and end all of
these
testings interestingly uh a learning
disability uh the most common
exceptionality in Ontario um often
results when there is difficulty
learning despite an average or in some
cases above average
IQ um IQ is currently one of the best
known uh psychological predictors so
we're going to talk a little bit about
the um predictive value of
IQ uh interestingly um many historical
Geniuses seem to have displayed High
cognitive abilities at very young ages
um there was a uh a researcher very
popular researched um young children and
followed them if they had high IQs they
were known as termin termites and he
followed them for in a longitudinal
study um over many many years to see
what would happen happen um if you
looked at people with high IQs at young
age is what they would achieve one of
his students Katherine Cox was
interested in looking at IQ in the
opposite direction so looking at
historical Geniuses and estimating their
IQ based on their own considerable
experience and mental testing so U with
this they they labeled Charles Charles
Darwin at 140 which again is above that
well above that um 130 genius cut off
and um again makes up a very very small
small po subset of the
population U Mozart they they labeled at
150 and and Sir Isaac Newton at
170 so what exactly does IQ predict I
apologize this slide has a little bit of
uh the small it's a little bit smaller
because there's a lot of information on
it um but uh here are some examples of
what IQ does predict and doesn't predict
so some examples of highly correlated um
or predictive factors academic a in
grades IQ has a Pearson R which is we
talked about uh in the last lecture as a
COR it's a correlation coefficient um of
78 to 0.92 that is massive in social
science we don't see um we don't see
correlations like that often in social
science um but it doesn't make it
doesn't it shouldn't really surprise you
because a school um was often as we saw
with um
um Benet Benet and the French Ministry
of education school was often created as
a system um to to um basically select
for people who have higher intelligence
um in a traditional I should put the
caveat on that that in a traditional um
sense of intelligence what they mean
traditionally by that I'm going to talk
about different types of intelligence uh
later in the lecture but we're talking
here strictly about a traditional view
of intelligence um which is mostly like
analytical skills like your math and
deductive reasoning and things of that
nature problem
solving um so so yeah that's a a huge um
a huge correlation there so we can look
at academic achievement we can break
that down into output so that is things
like prizes and awards um patents
Publications um and we can also break
that out into um input so how many years
you actually spend in higher education
and across the board it pretty much
stays uh pretty uh pretty strongly
predicts um a lot of those things
obviously something like the Nobel Prize
is a very prestigious award
interestingly um doesn't predict it as
well um but you could imagine that um
because it's such a rare award um there
could be a lot of different factors that
that lead to different Nobel prizes but
all the other categories seem to be
pretty highly correlated with
intelligence
scores uh Career Success and income um a
moderately High uh correlation and if
you look at crime and Corruption um it's
actually negatively correlated so recall
that means that as one goes up the other
goes down so this suggests the more
intelligent you are in terms of
traditional intelligence um the less
likely you are to um get involved in
crime and Corruption which is kind of
interesting because when I think about
criminals um some of the the best
criminals were obviously intelligent and
so that's why you see such a strong
range here I suppose um because
certainly some crimes would require a
great deal of intelligence to pull off
or even at least social intelligence
which which is not what they're talking
about here um but to uh be able to
manipulate people um you have to be able
to understand people to a certain degree
and that's why um I'm very interested in
the science of serial killers and um
often them often times they don't feel
remorse for one but often times they
come off as very charismatic and and
sociopathic in nature um but that's a
little bit outside the scope of this
class um but I love talking about that
kind of stuff so if you want to chat
more about um any psychological concept
that's outside the scope of this class
feel free to come by my Virtual Office
hours or just post in the discussion
forum and I'll be happy to answer to the
best of my abilities any questions or
Curiosities that you might have about
things related to
psychology um some things that are
poorly correlated or not predictive um
for example suicide seems to range
massively um from no correlation to a
moderate correlation uh life expectancy
again it ranges from U NE some studies
found a negative correlation a high a
strong negative correlation others found
a strong positive
um although um even though life
expectancy is a little bit wonky um
Health in general correlates well with
intelligence um which is interesting
because you would think that those
things are not necessarily related but
they are um and happiness and life
satisfaction there's zero there's
virtually zero correlation with that and
so um it's important to point out that
just because you have a higher
intelligence doesn't make you a better
person uh doesn't make you a happier
person it uh you know and so
intelligence isn't everything what
intelligence gets you is it allows you
to process information faster where both
people will Pro like if you take one
person who's a little bit more
intelligent than the next the person
who's a little bit more intelligent
might come to the answer quicker the
other person will get there as well um
so it predicts that initial speed once
they understand the task though um the
the differences start to disappear so
intelligence is about speed um it's also
about uh being able to think abstractly
so if you think about um uh the
abstraction and if you think about
abstract as the opposite of concrete um
something that's concrete is something
that's physical in the world so you can
imagine if you're sitting at a desk
right now you can look at that desk and
you can close your eyes and you can
picture that desk in your mind's eye but
if I ask you to predict something more
um to picture something more abstract
like love or desire um or intelligence
for that matter it's a much more
difficult to to do that
and um and people with higher IQ scores
tend to be better at abstracting um but
really those are the major differences
and they do play out uh in predictive
value um but certainly again doesn't
make you happier or more satisfied in
life at
all um it's also important to consider
some confounding variables we talked uh
earlier in the class about um what that
is a confounding variable or third
variable in the previous lecture um some
confounding variables include race sces
um class things like that sorry sces by
the way if you haven't heard of it
before is socioeconomic status this
refers to your um economic class um this
the the social um um the social status
of the area that you live in things of
that nature um so these things confound
the test and that's a big big problem
we're going to talk about those problems
uh coming up but it doesn't mean we
should throw IQ testing out the window
um it just means that we need to take a
closer look at it a lot of times people
don't like to look at um this type of
stuff the IQ prediction research because
because of these confounding variables
um but it's one of the most highly
studied thing most highly studied
constructs in Psychology and so um it's
definitely worth discussing I think
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