Mensa - Intelligence - Nature/Nurture

[SingingInTheRainstorm]

I've got a couple of questions, the first is, if you've passed the Mensa stuff, is there any point to paying the yearly subscription fee? Do we have any Mensa bods on here?

Also is intelligence nature or nurture. Both my DC have their Dads features, his hair, his lack of interest anything academic, his lack of interest reading. There's little that says they're my children, apart from a certificate for 16 months of morning sickness.

On holiday a few years back I had my books out giving them interesting facts. DD & DS were giggling, I asked what was funny, they said why do you have to be so boring.

When I was there age I read for enjoyment, still do, loved learning stuff, my parents weren't that academic so it was all off my own back, my other siblings weren't pushed like I wasn't, they scraped through school.

My latest trick is to read a book in front of them, to see if they see me reading and think, oh I'll grab a book. It's early days but all I've got so far is, what you reading for?

Do you think kids are either intelligent and interested, or they just want to mess about. I was reiterating interesting facts about where we were, history etc. They're at an age to appreciate it if they wanted too.

Both are average in ability, DS is in a lower set for maths. DD is middle sets for both maths & English. I cruised along in the top set with little effort, but never talk about it. I know it's silly but I was hoping they'd inherit something from me that was good.

I don't care much for online tests - they can perhaps be a guide line, but never accurate. Some will tell everyone that they're a genius!

I think it's both nature and nurture - though I hope it's more nature, as I'm not particularly good at nurturing my son, though I try my best.

I took a supervised, timed Mensa test a few years ago, and scored quite well (3rd percentile). I had 3 points less than I needed to join, and English is my second language, which I did notice made it more difficult. This was on the fluid IQ test, not the logic one. I am going to try again soon, because my English has improved slightly since then. I will never put it on my CV or anything, but it's a confidence boost for me. If I can push it up another 3 points so I qualify, I would be very happy :)

I think with your kids, it's probably pointless to try to force them into something they might not care so much about. Better to support them through what they do enjoy and care about. At least that is what I will do for my son. He loves puzzles, building train tracks and sometimes reading picture books. Though he's 3 and has speech delay!

It seems to be a 70:30 split in favour of nature. I think the reason its mostly nature is because of emotional intelligence as much as 'innate IQ.'

I think intelligence is more nature than nurture. But genius or exceptional success is, accordingly to Malcolm Gladwell in his book Outliers, is all practice and nurture.

The problem with not pushing reading or maths on my dc but finding out where their interest lies is that my dc like to play on their phones. Does that count?

blue maybe they'll be IT geniuses in years to come

Depends how young the child taking the test is. If a 3 year old gets top marks in an IQ test it's probably nature and might fade with improper nurture -this is usually why 'gifted' kids need regular testing. To give you an example one of my brothers did an IQ test at 5 scored 140, did it at 10 scored 134, then at 14 scored 110!. We were really poor and had to go without a lot of stuff (including food). Youngest brother had an opposite set of results - his IQ actually increased from 124-off the chart.

Having said that however does a high IQ breed success? The richest out of all of us is the brother with a 110 IQ (he has the lowest IQ out of all of us) because he's a charmer. Charm is really underplayed as a life skill - people are willing to overlook a certain lack of competancy for someone who can work well with other people!

Notwithstanding disability, I think there's a definite correlation between high IQ coupled with low emotional intelligence. It's almost a balance, the higher the IQ, the weaker the social skills it seems, and the power of social skills should never be underestimated. Most jobs are acheiveable to anyone of average intelligence, add strong social skills and you've got the advantage. The "genius" jobs are often quite niche.

Mind you, if people perceive that you're better than them, or feel that you think you are better because of your high IQ, then I suppose that's a contibuting factor to social difficulty in itself.

It's a mix. Genetics definitely play a part but it definitely needs the right nurturing.

IQ is an interesting/debatable concept and scores are impacted on by context and culture. My view is you have (as with any talent) got to have the raw material but it's mainly nurture/hard work that gives achievements. Plenty of 'bright kids' do nothing with their lives. Plenty of very poor bright kids aren't given opportunities to do well. Plenty of thick rich who do well from exclusive education. Plenty of kids get amazing achievements because of grit, determination and sheer hard work. I actually think most kids can be good at most things given sufficient training and input. Doting parents thin ,their child is 'gifted' or has 'a talent' from just after they can walk. They start investing so build the skill and child appears more talented so they invest more.
The really bright children are those that arrive in the country as refugees who cant speak any english but get 10 As a year later or the homeless child who gets to university. Ordinary children who do well from selective schools are not necessarily the brightest.
Mine are bright enough. All have at least 5As/As (depending on age) at A level or 42 pints at IB. Definitely easier for those who had highly selective independent secondary education. They got the results through hard work not innate knowledge.

IQ is bullshit. It doesn't test intelligence, it tests the ablIity to do IQ tests.

What's important is not how intelligent you are but what you do with it!
Like a lot of societies, Mensa has less than 10% of its members even occasionally active. Many never go to a meeting at all, they miss the possible opportunity of making bright friends from many walks of life and levels of society.
In the US many Mensa members like to have framed certificates of membership on their office walls. In the UK membership is rarely regarded as enhancing a cv or university application form.

OP Schools used to have ERIC at the beginning of each afternoon, Everyone Reading In Class. This included the teacher and was a peaceful way to wind down after being in the playground. The reading was a free choice of book. It's always good for children to see reading as something normal that's adults do for relaxation and pleasure - I'd say carry on reading in front of your DC!

I wouldn't trust online tests or MENSA. I think MENSA skews scores so you look brighter than you are. After all, they want you to feel flattered and join, don't they?

Pushing children too hard is a really damaging, shitty thing to do, IMO. I don't believe pushing a child counts as nurture.

Children develop at different speeds (one reason why early academic selection isn't a good idea) and intelligence isn't just one thing. I think really bright children show it in their curiosity and independence of thought, and yes sometimes that might be correlated with less positive neurodifferences.

OP I'm sorry your children think you are boring, that must have been hurtful to hear. I recall my father reading through most of my childhood, and he did often bore us with impenetrable conversations on the slightly obscure things he was into, but I've always been proud that he was so knowledgeable (he came froma highly academic family). My bookwormishness was partly from my big sister reading to me and partly because there really wasn't much else to do.

I think with children you encourage them mostly by answering their questions and following up on heir interests. For reading it's mostly exposure, so as others have said have your children had interesting bedtime stories read to them? We also had lots of books on CD as ds is dyslexic. Oh and lots of good quality books about the world for them to dip into and get used to the idea that books are interesting and enjoyable.

I first joined Mensa in the 1980s but let my subscription lapse after a few years.

I rejoined a couple of years ago and have since met a couple of people via Mensa who have become good friends of mine. In fact just got home from visiting one of them this evening.

I rarely go to Mensa meetings though - one truly dreadful evening is still etched on my memory.

It's mainly nature, as becomes clear when you interact with the nurtured.

SleepOhHowIMissYou Wed 01-Feb-17 23:37:37
"Notwithstanding disability, I think there's a definite correlation between high IQ coupled with low emotional intelligence. It's almost a balance, the higher the IQ, the weaker the social skills it seems, and the power of social skills should never be underestimated."

Do we actually know this or is this something parents of children with poor social skills like to comfort themselves with (he is so nerdy that he must be a genius)?

As an academic, I meet plenty of very bright people- and many of them have excellent social skills. Some of them are good at sports too and good-looking, which seems totally unfair

Otoh I have met many students (and a few academics) who have convinced themselves that because they struggle around people and feel "different", they must belong to a special gifted class of people: the only problem is that there is nothing in their work that bears this out.

Have also met plenty of charming but not very bright people, and intelligent and socially struggling people. Basically, I am not sure there is a correlation at all. But I have noticed that even on MN, if a parent comes on and worries about a child who is struggling at socially or behaviour-wise at school, there is an almost immediate response of "oh, s/he is probably bored; have you looked at g & t", even if the OP hasn't mentioned any signs of intelligence.

If we're talking personal anecdotes then I would go for nurture being more important (for IQ). But not hot-housing, more like the combo of what the environment involves & challenges. We know we can totally ruin a person's mind with bad nurture.

Swap around for EQ: deffo nature more important than nurture.

There was a big American study where they looked at children with very high IQs (over 150 i think) and then looked at them in adulthood. Social class wiped put any gains of IQ ie those with high IQ and low social class did poorly (not sure on what measures ?salary ?job status) so nature counts but not to overcome nurture.

Spot on Corythatwas! Most of my children's friends are all round very high achievers with fantastic social skills. It comes from being groomed for success from an early age. They gained have highest possible academic qualifications (44/45 points at IB alongside As at A level and grade 8s in music/dance etc), often play sport at national/intervarsity level, sing beautifully and are truly charming, well dressed, sparkly white teeth, non smoking, fun young adults who sit comfortably at 'proper adult' supper and drinks parties.

"My latest trick is to read a book in front of them, to see if they see me reading and think, oh I'll grab a book."

Its unlikely to work as a trick.

If you were actually an avid reader, they would have seen you reading every day of their lives and that would probably rub off on them to some extent.

I joined Mensa when I was 13. It had a bit of contact with some other Mensa kids and for me it was very useful because some of them came from more affluent middle class backgrounds than me (wouldn't have been hard) and they made me raise my expectations about what I should be doing at school and uni - taking the full set of five Highers, applying to the more prestigious universities. I did a PhD and worked as a process development chemist in pharma for about 10 years before getting bored and retraining as a statistician. I'm now a trailing spouse but I'm having quite a lot of fun gardening, writing a science fiction novel and making endless numbers of little houses for plastic ponies. I sometimes in my career found boredom difficult to deal with - actually more as a scientist as a statistician - the ratio of data to cooking up chemicals was too low. My favourite job was working as a postie, actually, free to just occupy my own brain. I don't know if that's related to high intelligence, but I do have the feeling that for the optimum sort of job success you need to be bright but not too bright - at some point it starts getting in the way. And it's no substitute for people skills - I don't think there's much relationship between emotional intelligence, IQ sort of intelligence, and people skills - I worked with lots of lovely empathetic scientists who were too shy to be good with people, and I've worked for far too many highly successful influential people who were probably psychopaths. I started to get some success in one company and realised slowly that the further away you got from the lab, the more awful the people generally were.

I'm very grateful to Mensa for being around when I was a teenager - the environment I grew up in was quite anti-intellectual and Mensa allowed me somewhere to enjoy knowing stuff and figuring stuff out.
Mensa membership for your kids might help light a fire under them, I guess... there are meetups for kids, I think, there were a few when I was a kid... are either of your kids likely to pass the test? What do your school say?

OP, you and I both got into reading and learning by ourselves and while you can probably be a bit more encouraging than our parents were, I don't think that force feeding your kids fun facts about history is the right way to light a flame under them. I read a really good description of how to encourage your kids' passions in Steve Biddulph's Raising Girls - would apply equally to boys.

I was in Mensa way back. I remember increasingly desperate "special members offers" on the Since air C5. It was like a war time government trying to get people excited about powdered milk. So no, not really worth it.

I think the usefulness of clubs like MENSA has been superseded by the internet anyway. If you want intelligent conversation and you can't find it in real life, you can find an online space around your specific area of interest.

As for nature vs nurture: I think your asking the wrong questions. The differences in human ability are pretty insignificant but we can make them look more important by plotting them on a bell curve.

In all honestly, the way you interact with your children does sound a bit boring. Have you tried talking to them about things they are interested in?

DH is very academically intelligent, bookish and a geek, I was developmentally delayed, have Dyslexia and Dyspraxia, cognitive ability suddenly accelerated at 18 when I left school, and I went to college, did GNVQ advanced, and went on to study BA (hons) in Psychology where I attained a 2:1 and an Msc Health Psychology. I am of average intelligence. Both my dc have learning difficulties, daughter 9 has ASD learning difficulties, and my son who is 5, has dev delay and speech delay. Don't know what went wrong there.

Since air C5 = Sinclair C5.
Poor Clive. Even autocorrect has forgotten you.