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.

Thanks very much unlimited, only you know your child well. I don't think they are getting the real him.

Similar story to Aeroflotgirl. DS has ASD and used to find communication very difficult due to anxiety. He was more or less selectively mute at school. I remember going in to help in the class and he was being his normal self with me and his teachers were amazed and pulled me aside to ask if he was always like that with me because it was the most they ever heard him speak or engage.

He is regularly described as having 'flashes of brilliance' and if he was always like it he'd be on the school GAT programme.

At home he'd rather watch YouTube or play video games than read. He does read when screen time is finished but he's not the voracious reader I was at his age. But then we only had a BBC basic computer when I was his age and if I wanted it to do anything I had to programme it myself. DS is however into robots, electronics and building highly complex lego, so I can see his intelligence, it's just not classroom intelligence. Like me he's shite at maths

I am one of those highly intelligent chronic underachievers described by a pp and I'm self away enough to know I'm useless, which gives rise to depression. I took the mensa tests and was confirmed to be eligible, but I didn't pay for membership. My DF still claims bragging rights that I turned down mensa membership and places to study at Exeter and Imperial College of Medicine. He is bright but dyslexic and is vocationally educated to masters level. He always loved having an 'academuc' DD. DM was just pleased when me and DSis got GCSEs, everything else is a bonus.

I have a masters but I am a massively underpaid dissatisfied NHS admin worker. I am intelligent but don't have the drive or means to have a high powered career nor the inspiration to be an entrepreneur. I'm very distractable - I wonder about having ADD and I definitely have some ASD traits. The constant boredom at work exhausts me. I'm in the top 0.5-0.3% of the population but don't have much to show for it apart from a handful of degree certificates. I do have a snazzy report from an educational psychologist confirming my IQ though.

To be honest, I'd prefer to have a skill. DS loves cooking and currently wants to be a chef. I think he'd be brilliant at it and I'd rather he does something he loves than be pushed (like I was) to do something more prestigious because I was 'cleverer than all that' - I wanted to be an artist.

TL;DR intelligence is mostly nature but as an intelligent person I wish I had less intelligence and more skills.

I did the MENSA test and was told that I am in the top 1% of the population and invited to join. I really didn't see any point. I do think that it is only one, narrow measurement of intelligence. I happen to have a logical mind and enjoy doing logic puzzles, so the MENSA test was easy for me. DH definitely wouldn't do well in the test because he's not good at what the test measures, but he is incredibly intelligent in his field and earns a lot of money for it.

I agree with the poster that said that nature gives you a potential, where nurture determines how much you develop that potential.

I do find it odd when people say that they are in the top 5% of the population or whatever, in intelligence terms.

Well, no, I'm not sure you are if you have very little to show for it. Moreover, it is [i]one narrow[/i] dimension of intelligence. It doesn't strike me as particularly intelligent to repeatedly fail to apply oneself: "I could have done x" is pretty meaningless, and doesn't say anything about your level of intelligence now.

I'm surrounded by academics 5 days a week. I don't regard them as somehow being hyper-intelligent in comparison to the non-academic population. They have specialist knowledge of a certain sort: it doesn't make them any 'more' intelligent than, say, someone who knows how to build things or deal with a wide range of people (of course, if you can do lots and lots of things, that's great, but such instances are pretty rare!).

Well, no, I'm not sure you are if you have very little to show for it

Thats not how it works. It's a simple metric, you either scored in the top whatever % or you didn't, you don't value judge based on your opinion of their worth

They have specialist knowledge of a certain sort: it doesn't make them any 'more' intelligent than, say, someone who knows how to build things or deal with a wide range of people (of course, if you can do lots and lots of things, that's great, but such instances are pretty rare!)

It does though, generally. But thats not the point ,they either are more intelligent or they are not, no matter what your opinion on it is.
Now, you can decide whether you value that intelligence, or whether you rate other things higher, that is up to you. But you can't deny what people have or what they are based on your opinion.

Godstopper Thu 02-Feb-17 16:18:03

"I do find it odd when people say that they are in the top 5% of the population or whatever, in intelligence terms.

Well, no, I'm not sure you are if you have very little to show for it. Moreover, it is [i]one narrow[/i] dimension of intelligence. It doesn't strike me as particularly intelligent to repeatedly fail to apply oneself: "I could have done x" is pretty meaningless, and doesn't say anything about your level of intelligence now."

Some people are highly intelligent but are unable to make the most of their abilities due to anxiety or low confidence or MH issues. Even some academics go through periods of aridity when they cannot write. Does that mean their intelligence suddenly disappears? Was my colleague who has just come out of such a phase unintelligent last semester but has suddenly become intelligent again?

I totally agree with you Godstopper

I know some outstanding Phd students, but most of them are just average intelligence who know how to apply themselves to the job in hand.

I live in Mexico and many people here have to eke out a living on a minimum wage of four dollars a day. Now that takes a form of intelligence that I, for one, do not have.

My intelligence is stifled by a combination of physical and mental health problems. It's hard to have a shining career when you're crippled by pain, anxiety and depression.

I don't value myself any more highly than others - as I said in my post, I'd rather have practical skills and the physical health to use them than the ability to do well in tests on a good day.

Hence why I don't value 'intelligence' as determined by a test score. I have a label of being in the top 0.5%, but is it of the slightest use to me? Not really, because whilst I had the intelligence to be a neurosurgeon, I didn't have the physical ability.

(1) I think you need to be careful with quantifying what 'more' intelligence means: is the academic more intelligent in general than someone who finds the subject baffling? Plausibly, no. But is the academic more intelligent in that dimension than most? Plausibly, yes.

I am somewhat puzzled, in this thread, by the unfounded assumption that academic intelligence = most intelligent.

I am also puzzled by the assumption that IQ is a good measure of intelligence given it's rather simplistic and affected by numerous factors.

So, no, I don't regard someone who claims to be in the top x% as being more intelligent than others in general.

(2) Of course academic intelligence doesn't 'vanish' and later 'reappear' during times of anxiety/mental health difficulties. I'm pretty certain though, than when this scenario happened to me, my philosophical abilities were not quite what they were (I couldn't put a coherent thesis chapter together for a good while). I'd say I 'lost' something for a while. Now I'm back into the swing of things, yes, I do think my understanding has increased - but obviously, it's not an either/or situation where you are intelligent or not. That's conceptual nonsense.

I think you need to be careful with quantifying what 'more' intelligence means

In the basic form in which we are using the concept, more intelligent means a higher measured IQ score on a standardised test. That's hardly contentious.

I am also puzzled by the assumption that IQ is a good measure of intelligence given it's rather simplistic and affected by numerous factors

IQ is a good measure of intelligence because it is the standard measure of intelligence. It's not affected by much, really.

I think you are using an overly broad definition of intelligence rather than the narrow definition that is accurate.

This statement is problematic:

IQ is a good measure of intelligence because it is the standard measure of intelligence

It's circular reasoning: Question: Why is IQ a good measure of intelligence? Answer: Because it's the standard measure of intelligence. Question: What is the standard measure of intelligence? Answer: An IQ test.

It's precisely the standard measure of intelligence that is in question.

Why wouldn't an ability to emotionally navigate the world count as a dimension of intelligence? The fixation on academic intelligence is peculiar (I'm saying this as an academic BTW).

IQ tests, measure a narrow band of Intelligence, there are different forms of intelligence. Yes they are not a perfect measure, and are determined by different factors. I am rubbish at IQ tests, I would probably score 50, but I have an MSc degree, obviously I am not. They just measure the ability to do I Q tests.

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

By that measure, Trump must be a genius

I agree that IQ isn't a perfect measure, but on the other hand, it's been around for 100 years and no one has come up with a better one as far as I know!

It is hard Rhoda, he is so outgoing at home, and capable of much more, but at school, retreats into himself.

No, I think trump is just a general dickhead

I took the test once when I was in my early thirites, I think, it was a while ago. It was about guessing "what comes next" after seeing some images where the pattern in those images was shifted around. So, if say the images shown contain | , || , ||| , then you can guess what comes next is ||||. Or if the first image is "¨ o" and then it becomes " ö " then you could guess that the next one is "o ¨", which means the o moving left .

I took the test abroad, where I am, so all test results were shipped to the UK. I didn't hear from them for a while, so when I called them up I was told I had managed 32 out of 36 of the test, but the test sheet was lost, and then someone phoned me up and said I had an IQ of 120. (If you have under IQ 120 you were not supposed to get your test sheet back, the way I remember it.) I once, later, took their trial test online, and I got "you've got an IQ over 135 so you should come and pay to do our test"... It annoys me. But, that said, I don't see any practical use of the type of "intelligence" they're testing. And at least it's good to know I'm normally gifted... IQ 120... now I know... In any case, it didn't measure anything useful, such as sewing a dress or how to get along well with other people.

I only met someone from Mensa once, over the internet, and that guy seemed pretty normal to me, apart from being a programmer.

Sorry, i haven't rtft, but the initial post really got my back up.

Why do you feel the need to blame someone else for the fact that your children do not do as you did

It is not circular reasoning at all. An IQ tests certain things, and we've chosen to name those things "intelligence". No one has yet come up with a better way to measure it. It's been shown to be a reliable and valid test, its been rigorously challenged, debated, and proven over and over again. No, its not perfect, far from it, but its a useful test that tells us something specific.

If you have a proper objection to the test, say so. But a simple opinion that you don't like it and don't value it isn't really enough.

The problem many people have with the IQ tests are that they/their children didn't score highly so therefore the test must be bad. It doesn't work like that!

It's a bit of both. Some people will effortlessly be more intelligent than someone else who tries really hard to be. Like anything, some people are born with skills in one area that someone else doesn't have.

However, hard work and encouragement can raise someone above their natural standard. It's like with our diet: someone who eats takeaways and drinks half a bottle of vodka a day might live to be a hundred, someone who eats healthily, takes regular exercise might drop dead in their twenties. Hard work and discipline help tip the percentages in your favour, but some people are just born "lucky" in one regard or another.

I cannot see why anyone would subscribe to Mensa, indeed the more intelligent someone was the less likely I'd have thought that they would regard it as a sensible use of their money.

Being "clever" for the sake of it is not a particularly needed skill. Using your intelligence in medicine, or anything that is of use to people for that matter, that is something to be proud of. Who do you value more? The person who works hard to cure cancer, or the know-it-all who always feels the need to tell you just how much cleverer they are than others?

Narky, there are flaws with the standard IQ test, it measures intelligence, but one type of intelligence, and the ability to do the IQ tests, just because one has a low score, does not make them unintelligent. They are not that good at the IQ tests, I would not be, and probably score extremely low, that would put me as having severe cognitive imparement, but I know I am not, as I have completed a postgraduate degree, and I am functioning in society independently, and managing my own finances.

I've said I don't value it as a measure of intelligence simpliciter which is very different from saying I don't value it as a measure of specific kinds of intelligence (none of which, in my view, are of greater worth than different kinds).

IQ can, and does, fluctuate (up to about 10 points, I think) as a result of e.g. sleep-deprivation, depression. Beyond that, you get studies like this:

www.medicaldaily.com/study-confirms-iq-tests-do-not-accurately-predict-intelligence-243971

I don't consider people who claim to have scored within MENSA range to be more intelligent on the whole than most of the population. I've not said that IQ tests have no worth, but we must be careful what we extrapolate from a single test result on a specific occasion (comments like: "I have the intelligence of an astrophysicist" based on an IQ test result come across as boastful and delusional if you've never bothered to apply this apparent intelligence).

I was a member of MENSA for a few years in the 1990s. Went to a lot of meet-ups but never "clicked" with anyone and eventually let the subscription lapse. As a pp said, it was more use in the pre internet days.

Unfortunately OP you sound like you are doing what my dad did with us. We must have visited every castle in Wales. At each one he'd quiz us about it, and tell us facts, and we were bored stiff. I said I'd never go to another castle ever.

Once I was an adult and away from home I developed a real passion for history that led to my taking a Degree as a Mature student. I bored my own DC rigid dragging them round hillforts, my own passion .

Most of my dc are adults but as children/teens they really loved stately homes. We are in English Heritage and we regularly took them to places of interest. BUT I never ever quizzed them like my dad did. I let them look at their own pace and find their own interests. It's a bit disappointing when they don't share your passion, but it's so lovely when you realise they are really enjoying something, even if it isn't to your taste.

Our youngest is 9 and our holidays are usually based around NT/EH visits. My DM was surprised that DD enjoys it, but she loves the activities they all put on now, whether it's dressing up as an orphan in the Workhouse, or counting the number of toy owls in a NT house whilst avoiding the teasels on the seats.

This is very long but if you've read this far I would suggest that you stop trying to force them. Take them to interesting places - forests, castles, farms, museums, meadows and stately homes, and let them discover something that grabs them.

I was always told I could do better as a kid, but I found any kind of academic work boring. Only GCSE English was made interesting by the teacher who knew how to present the subject in such a way. I was forced to do homework which I hated, and dragged round boring museums whilst my friends would be having fun. Now I am a lot older I actually find myself interested in the things that bored me as a child, even classical music! Not sure how this answers your question OP but I think that you have to spark the interest of young people to get the best out of them.

Besides, there are many forms of "intelligence " as pp's have stated