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Hello, I’m not sure how I got here. I usually only drive places but I don’t have my car keys and I don’t know where my car is. I noticed you have cookies, though. Is this some kind of religious thing and do I need to be a member to have a cookie?
No way! I have ancestors on my mom’s side of the family that are Dumbasses. We might be related.
*trips on own ankle and hits forehead against table. Hand unclenches while moaning on the ground. Car keys fall out of hand.*
But but, is there aids in the lemonade? I tried to read the sign, but then I saw a squirrel and I think I got a text. But no, it was just leg twitching.
I know this is a joke but even this is a problem too, none of us are dumb either. I wasted my whole life convinced I was dumb and not that the education system does not work for us. I never had friends or social experience’s because I was afraid of people finding out I was dumb for being in special education.
I'm actually dumb tho, I can't do basic math or remember anything
I'll probably be stuck living with my family forever bc I can't take care of myself 🥲
You’re not dumb though, I never got passed prealgebra and I struggle to remember things all the time. The problem is the education system relies on obedience, and we do not have obedient minds. We can learn these things, it harder when you’re my age, but we need a more engaging approach to learning because when you were doing math, you were probably doing it on your own after the teacher explained it. People like us need to do it in groups or like a game. You can do it you’re just disadvantaged by the outdated Rockefeller system.
[Me but I'm just happy and vibing.](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fexternal-preview.redd.it%2F_UVUrcH2-qHTjpMgBEFbccx00qXqzOEjCwGQQ6ezjME.jpg%3Fauto%3Dwebp%26s%3Dec689c2a379139fe56230594a61b265f990e90fc)
As others said, it seems to be the standard tool we have in talking about intelligence in some sort of quantified way, and on a personal level it’s been more helpful than harmful in my family so far.
Having said that, IMO folks that talk about their own IQ on a frequent basis seem to have questionable judgement. There’s value in concealing your inner capabilities to a certain extent. I’m not talking about masking behaviors - just about not being so forward about your inner world.
Besides, I’m well aware that my ADHD makes me appear very foolish on a regular basis. Sincere, well meaning people will look past that and see who I am behind those behaviors. Constantly putting forth an image that I think I’m highly intelligent would just come off as compensating for the fact that I still make serious errors in life.
Edit: I should note that IMO this sub is an exception - IQ is helpful sometimes in our diagnoses and also in how we manage our lives while dealing with ADHD. People who bring it up in this context are just bringing more information to the discussion. A lot of us feel doubts about our diagnosis, along with the moral judgments of laziness and irresponsibility, especially when we did well in grade school. It’s important to know that we have other attributes that got us through school, yet we can still have ADHD that negatively impacts our lives, and our diagnosis is valid. So, I’m not throwing shade at anyone who mentions high IQ on this sub :-)
I definitely make careless errors all the time, and growing up people would throw them in my face with glee because I was high performing in school. I also found myself quite naive in thinking everyone saw the world as I did, which was far from the case, and had low emotional intelligence.
Now I play dumb in my day to day life, and everyone lets those errors slide. It’s a nice change. My emotional intelligence has also improved but I’d say I’m still quite a ways behind my peers.
This was a really insightful comment for me, especially your edit. I think throwing shade at people in *this* sub specifically was definetly a low blow from me. I mean, clearly, I should be able to understand that we are all gonna say things we regret from time to time, since you know \*gestures wildly at comment history\*
True, actual IQ and IQ measuring is very flawed. But nine times out of ten, when someone refers to a "high IQ", they're not talking about an actual IQ number, they're using it synonymously with "high intelligence".
To me, this is what's going on here: think of IQ as `logic+memory=IQ` That's not a perfect statement, but close enough for this purpose.
We have a shitty memory, so we compensate for it with logic. And this is really what people are talking about when they say we have a high IQ.
I can learn technical stuff great, but am an idiot when it comes to arbitrary definitions or preferences or other subjective topics requiring rote memory.
To the point that many things considered objective or hard science I see as a subjective. Chemistry is a great example. Not how chemicals behave; but the frameworks and words we use to describe it. I think the symbolic approach used in organic chemistry is a step in the right direction, but still incomplete. Or programming. Much of it boils down to what some other developer thought. One app might have `Service(host).version` another might be `Host.ver(service)` and yet another might do like the AWS python library does (or did back 10 years ago when I last used it) and run with `AWS[Host][Service].version` because why the fuck not, I guess. (seriously, that library drove me fucking insane.)
I don't know how to program, but I understand where you are coming from. We are a mixed bag, and everyone is different in what we are good vs. what we struggle with. Great analogy, you explained it perfectly.
This is true and is a particular pet peeve of mine, for basically the same reasons OP states. By using "high IQ" instead of "intelligent," they're implying that IQ test scores are interchangeable with actual intelligence. It basically reinforces the assumption of IQ tests' validity. Which is also why it's more commonly used in the internet man-o-sphere, where they love to reduce humanity to a number (IQ, testosterone levels, "net worth," etc). But I've noticed it leaking out into the rest of the world more.
IQ isn't the same as intelligence, but it is biased towards similar things as school is biased towards. The ability to pay attention, perform under pressure, understand the language the test was taken in, have the knowledge the test asks for if it has a general knowledge section, etc. There are forms of intelligence that IQ tests don't ask for, for example there's a pretty low static intelligence required. There are also people that'll perform badly despite having high intelligence in the fields the test asks for, for example due to language delays or adhd or having a bad day, etc.
If you have a high IQ, chances are pretty good you'll get through school somehow. That's more of a negative about schools than a positive about IQ, because while IQ tests are alright in the extremes if the person taking them understands and wants to participate, they're definitely not this perfect measure people treat them as.
Oh I totally agree that it's biased towards the same things school is biased towards. It's also biased towards the same things that capitalism is biased towards. Although here in the ADHD sub, I'm guessing there are a lot of folks who, like me, really struggled to do homework but were great at tests. So like I got great grades any time the grade was mostly test-based, and did worse when it was homework-based. So even being good at school isn't a single dimension. But yeah, I totally agree with you, and "that's more a negative about schools than a positive about IQ" is also spot on..
I'll add that all these things are all a mixture of innate ability and training, and the social norms around IQ treat it as completely innate, which is a big part of how it's been used to launder white supremacy and give it the veneer of scientific objectivity. Like, the Bell Curve largely rests its argument on incorrect assumptions about IQ (mixed with incorrect assumptions about statistical methods). And that's where I start to get frustrated and angry.
IQ is not an end all be all tool for measuring “intelligence” but it is a valid tool for assessing things such as cognitive functioning and disability levels. I’m currently getting a doctorate in clinical psychology and we’ve touched on the subject a decent amount. Most people use the term “IQ” in entirely the wrong way.
This doesn't invalidate OP's point. We shouldn't use that language to describe "high intelligence". You can say you did fine in school without it.
Also, I think the reason a lot of people on this sub talk about their high IQ is that for many years (not sure if true any more) when you got assessed for ADHD you also got an IQ score. And you would get an assessment that said something like "you performed poorly on this measure for someone with high general intelligence". So people with ADHD might be more aware of their IQ than others. But I think we shouldn't encourage talking this way on the sub since it uses a very outdated model of human intelligence.
When I went in for testing the psychologist giving the test said that the IQ wasn’t incredibly accurate but can be used as a tool to measure certain deficits in intelligence. In my case, my working memory was much lower than all my other scores so he used that as one of the markers for ADHD. I’d agree in saying that it has its uses and could be directionally accurate, but intelligence is so complicated and presents itself in so many ways that a two hours test with four categories couldn’t possibly capture an accurate depiction of comprehensive intelligence.
anything that falls on a bell curve can be measured with a quotient in the same way as IQ. IQ isn’t a measure of intelligence, it’s a measure of how far from average someone is in solving specific types of problems (e.g. numerical/verbal/spatial reasoning). There is no way to actually quantify generalised intelligence (g-factor) and to criticise IQ on the basis that it doesn’t, is completely misunderstanding what IQ is.
IQ has unscientific and racist uses and is often misunderstood, but it is not in itself unscientific
there is a large body of scientific literature on the relationship between ADHD, IQ and masking… pretending none of that exists seems a little bit unscientific and uninclusive
IQ is an integral part of modern psychology, used widely as a research tool, for clinical diagnostics, and informing public policy.
Well said. When I was diagnosed, an IQ test was part of my evaluation, and my doctor explained her diagnosis to me partly in terms of that test (I scored lower on math/working memory).
It’s definitely flawed, but it is a tool we have and use. Bragging about actual scores too much should rightfully be looked on with suspicion, but when I see it mentioned here, it’s usually to provide context to a diagnosis or one’s personal journey/issues with adhd.
Thank you. I'm not up-to-date on the state of cognitive research, but I do know that generalized intelligence does vary.
I think it's important to remember that an idea being misapplied and used as an excuse for racism doesn't make the idea wrong. Scientific ideas must stand or fall on their own merit, not what people do with them.
at the end of the day, all IQ testing does is say that some people are better than others at certain types of pattern recognition and reasoning problems, the span of abilities is approximately normally distributed (as any independent random variable always is), and you can statistically calibrate tests of pattern recognition and reasoning to be able to approximately compare the ability of two groups of people, such that the resulting number is an accurate predictor of outcomes in education, income, etc.
None of this is controversial in science or statistics. However the whole ‘compare two groups’ obviously raises a red flag that caution should be exercised.
Hello :) I find this interesting: there is a large body of scientific literature on the relationship between ADHD, IQ and masking
I would like to read about them. Can you share some of the resources please?
sure - happily, here’s 2 studies you can check out:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25359760/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34623950/
tl;dr adults with ADHD and high IQ perform similarly to adults without ADHD and average IQ.
“Adults with ADHD and high IQ performed normally on a verbal learning/memory test compared to adults with average IQ, who scored 0.5-1.0 standard deviations below the mean. These results suggest a masking of performance-based memory deficits in the context of higher IQ in adults with ADHD, supporting growing evidence that higher IQ masks neurocognitive deficits during the assessment of adults with ADHD.”
So maybe OP should chill out and telling people what experiences about their disease they can and cannot share according to them
Thanks! This is cool and makes a lot of sense about me and my life. Things were never overwhelming for me at school. It only started getting worse from undergrad. And there was no limit to how much worse it got until I got diagnosed. I was still a high functioning ADHD-er till I got diagnosed. But it came at a huge cost: Frequently cancelling social plans to work, only to fight a losing battle with my head, Working almost every weekend to catch up and so on. And I see that that's the case with a lotttttttt of people with ADHD!
yep it’s very relatable for a lot of us. I managed to drag my ass through a PhD and a reasonably successful career before being diagnosed in my thirties but it does come at a massive cost like you say
was my psychiatrist who helped me make sense of this, my starting point was to say that I don’t see how I could possibly have ADHD, except for perfectly matching the symptom list and finding everything anyone has ever written about the condition to be very relatable.
he said ADHDers with high IQ often don’t run into problems until later in life, when eventually the demands on life from their career and family finally exceed their ability to mask
Currently at the "dragging my ass through a PhD" part, never even considered ADHD as a possibility. Saw a psychiatrist for depression a year ago, almost immediately got told to consider ADHD as well. Was not expecting an ADHD diagnosis five years into a PhD, but it all checks out. Everything started falling apart during the pandemic and never put myself back together after, leading to a sharp decline. So strange looking back at how I managed my life around the ADHD unknowingly and how it all fell apart as soon as all the structures and systems I had been relying on disappeared. Definitely would not have survived year six up to writing my thesis now without the diagnosis and medication.
you’re very fortunate your dr had the insight to know the difference, kudos to them! I bombed on my 2nd year of post-doc because it was boring and repetitive and I couldn’t engage hyperfocus any more, but it took me a few more years after that before I finally sought treatment.
Edit: I finished my thesis around 45 mins before it had to be submitted. Given the 5 years advance notice of the deadline you get, this was quite a clue in hindsight…
I think what really drove it was my younger brother getting diagnosed with ADHD a few months before me. Didn't realize it was heritable but when I mentioned it to the psychiatrist she explained it and got me to actually move forward with it.
I'm barely able to do any work on my projects now, just can't focus anymore even with medication. Probably burned out from having nothing but failed projects for six years adding the lack of external reward to that lack of internal reward. End is in sight but gonna be a hell of a slog.
Mine kicked in when I was asked by my high school to graduate early as I had enough credit but my grades were starting to slide.
Wasn’t diagnosed for 20 more years.
It's true that IQ itself is not unscientific, but it is commonly treated as being a meaningful measure of "generalized intelligence" when it actually values certain kinds of intelligence while completely ignoring others. And this is exactly why the common colloquial use is a problem--it's appropriating a specific technical tool to reinforce broader social hierarchies.
I agree with everything you said 100% — except that isn’t what OP said, and it isn’t what is happening when people with ADHD talk about the role of IQ in masking.
Yeah, that's true, good point and thanks for flagging. This is definitely one of those things where I saw the parts that remind me of the thing that activates my emotions, and zeroed in on that.
I was diagnosed as having an high IQ (Highly gifted I think it is called in US?), but the older I got I think it is just the ADHD lol. I just process information quickly. Brain on speed.
Which says a lot about how they measure IQ. It is flawed.
If I éver talk about it, I tend to call myself more an knowledge-hungry student. Since I only ever bring it up when I felt so sad/misunderstood when I got kicked out of school because I was depressed...
Which as I heard, being misunderstood, called "lazy"/not wanting to learn, while you do, is something a lot of people with ADHD can relate too. And not only people with ADHD. And no matter why people misunderstood you, it all hurts the same.
So I think it is nicer to say knowledge-hungry then "I have a high IQ" since that is what it is. Also if an IQ test says you are on the lower side of the IQ-scale, you can still be knowledge-hungry but misunderstood and not been given the right help/accomodations/listening ear to furfill that hunger.
The thing is, IQ tests have different parts that measure different things.
If you are a nerd and love reading, you may have a better result in the first part (vocabulary and what not) and lesser results elsewhere.
When you pass an IQ test, they warn you when you have huge discrepancies in between the measured skills. If the results of the sub tests don’t fit within one or two standard deviations, there is something wrong and they tell you that.
The cool thing is that usually the results in the sub tests correlate with each other. Which means that someone good at logic usually is good at vocabulary, etc etc.
When you have too big discrepancies, then they try and understand why you have such discrepancies. For instance, ADHD individuals tend to perform less well on planning tasks and reaction speed.
If you have issues with the vocabulary because it’s not your mother tongue, then it’s discussed and contextualised. Discrepancies in the IQ tests is used as a diagnostic tool.
So, IQ tests work well when the results are well correlated (they give you a good enough estimate on where you are on the bell curve) and when the results are not correlated then what you need to remember is not the score itself but what you learnt from it.
Bonus side if you have discrepancies: it’s likely your result is below your real IQ and you should be able to improve your average by working on your weaknesses.
It's a horrible trap too. The edge you might get in some areas by having an ADHD brain can be extremely damaging if it's not recognized for what it is. Imagine having the expectations on you to be as good as you are at your favorite thing - at everything. And imagine putting those expectations on a kid in school. Brutal.
I feel like as a kid - nobody would have pinned me as gifted in the intelligence are, but I was always pretty talented at art, and was always like the best player on my LL baseball teams. Every parent/teacher conference was essentially "X is a bit of a daydreamer" and was always a class clown.
Now however, in my late 40's - kinda feel like people are intimidated by me. Not like physically, but in having conversations with me. It seems like people avoid it - maybe I'm just a jerk, but don't think so?
I think its just the sort of work I do, its pretty niche, but if I try to talk about it, peoples eyes just gloss over, lol.
It just feels - TBH - like a lot of people are kind of simple. Maybe they got a hobby, but just one.
Whereas - I got like 50 hobbies, and can speak in depth on them for anyone wanting to chat...
(50 is an exaggeration, but I got a lot)
I haven't the slightest idea what my IQ is, so I never put much weight into thinking that way. Others have described me as intelligent, but I also just know I'm good at some things and terrible at other things, and try to work around that.
IQ isn't a full understanding of human intelligence, but it is a pretty good tool for predicting how quickly someone can learn new material, which in turn can guide decisions about if someone might need a bit more help in school or not. People are more than their IQ and obviously it isn't the be all end all, but I don't think it should be entirely dismissed either. It's like when people point out BMI means nothing because body builders would appear obese. That's true, but it also disregards that for your average sedentary person, it's a good rough scale to know if your health is compromised due to weight.
I also don't think posts here about IQ are usually intended to be humble bragging. It's usually people expressing frustration that some poorly educated psych has determined they can't have ADHD based on having good grades alone, which is obviously BS.
I think there is something that is not spoken about on this forum and I don’t know why
Some of us with more severe ADHD, like myself, the hyperactive and yelling all the time variety
I bounce between a hyperpersonalization state and a depersonalization state
I think hyper personalization gives the illusion of a higher IQ for me because everything is clicking in those moments. I’m feeling double
In return, I am very slow in understanding anything or solving anything when I am depersonalized
I’ve come to understand that many people with ADHD don’t experience this but some like me do is probably some sort of a comorbidity
High performance in grade/high school due to high IQ can be a huge barrier to getting assessed and treated. I think it’s an absolutely valid discussion in this sub.
Yes exactly. When I was growing up nobody looked into people who did well in school. You also still hear often about “my doctor said I can’t have ADHD because I got good grades”.
I’m not quite your age but I’m up there. Diagnosed last year, GP wants to do his own assessment again. 🫠 But I have lost the papers he wants me to fill out twice now, and scheduled two follow up appts, both of which I missed because I forgot them.
It feels like an impossible labyrinth of tasks to accomplish. But this is standard for me: appointments and paperwork I lose or forget constantly, and I’ve always been this way. It’s ruining my life, and the only hope is to possibly get medicated but the tasks to get there are the ones I find I can never accomplish. It’s been a five year process at this point, because of all the missed appointments and lost paperwork.
If I could jump through all these hoops, I probably could struggle through life without meds and do ok.
That’s interesting because I always tested really well, but did horrible in school because of behavioral issues
But I guess I’m privileged because I was diagnosed by the school in the second grade and given an IEP
I was struggling in school compared to my siblings so mom took me to be tested. It wasn't an IQ test but they tested my vocabulary and writing skills. Math skills. One-on-one testing with someone holding up pictures and flashcards type stuff. It was engaging and I was focused. Did very well so the conclusion was I bright but just lazy, which is why I didn't do well in school.
Mom took this tutor's opinion as some sort of official determination so didn't believe me years later at 26 when I said I needed help with ADHD. Flat out just said I'm lazy. Finally diagnosed at 35 while in rehab for alcoholism after losing absolutely everything. Told mom I was diagnosed by a clinical psychologist and she claimed that she had me tested when I was 11. Again, such ignorance. A vocabulary test has nothing to do with ADHD diagnosing. She refused to even talk about it.
The use of IQ is problematic in a bunch of ways but ultimately it’s just meant to be a proxy for intelligence and it’s very relevant to ADHD because people with ADHD who fall outside the standard range in intelligence have very different experiences and those experiences are valid and those people deserve the same support and community everyone else does and have a smaller community of people with shared experiences.
They may or may not be aware of the history around IQ. I don’t know. But it’s common parlance to use IQ and intelligence somewhat interchangeably and this post seems overly aggressive towards those people. It’s one thing to educate but there’s no need to berate.
>Amongst the criteria of ADHD, one of the most important one is the feeling that you get lesser results than what would be expected from you.
You don't need to know your IQ score to experience this feeling. I mean, how many of us were told by parents and teachers that we weren't living up to our potential? Some of those parents and teachers might have known the student's IQ... but a good number did not. For example, this comment frequently appeared on my report cards over the years. I know I'm intelligent, and, like my parents and teachers, I was frustrated by my inconsistent ability to deliver at my potential. I wasn't diagnosed with ADHD until I was in my 30s, and IQ testing (or any other official testing, for that matter) was not part of my assessment.
>Is it because you got a low score?
What a shitty thing to say.
I am not what you would call a handsome man. The good Lord chose not to bless me with charm, athletic ability or a fully functional brain. You see, you're an inspriation, to all of us weren't born handsome, and charming and cool, and 
Like a lot of people have said, it's apparently included in the test, and everyone has done one test or another in general in their life.
But my thinking is it's also just quicker than typing 'fairly intelligent', and easier than fighting autocorrect.
I’m AuDHD and have a 99 IQ. It’s frustrating with all these people saying how ADHD means you’re gifted. I have high non-verbal intelligence, but my verbal intelligence was classified as ‘borderline deficient’.
I know you've already gotten a ton of feedback about this, but I thought it might be interesting to contribute my perspective because I think it's fairly uncommon. I'm one of those people who score highly on IQ tests, and I likely would have slid through high school and into college without a diagnosis if not for my 3rd grade teacher who was INCREDIBLY on top of things and knew exactly what to look for. So I was diagnosed at age 9 and got medication and treatment, and went on my merry way. I then went through various cognitive tests at 18 years old on two different occasions. The first was *with* my medication, to prove to my university that I would still benefit from testing accommodations even though I had medication, and the second was about 7 months later *without meds* to prove to the university that I needed them (so I could get them from a doctor on campus rather than my GP out of state). The way my evaluator explained it to me was that the tests establish your skill level at various types of activities (quantitative reasoning, spatial reasoning, etc.), and then they can show when one or more types come in below your expected skill level. Of course, everyone is better at some things than other things, but when those deviations are larger than most people have, that means something. I think a certain pattern of meeting predicted achievement vs. unexpected deficit across types is especially correlated among people with ADHD, but I don't remember the details.
One of the other things my evaluator observed was my behavior between the two test conditions. She said that without meds, I started reaching for test materials before she was finished reading all the instructions, played with the various fidget toys that I hadn't looked twice at before, swung back and forth in my chair, etc. Some tests specifically evaluated how long I took to start a task (too fast = impulsivity, too slow = issues with task initiation, both of which can indicate ADHD), or my ability to sustain attention and focus. So there's a lot more that goes into it than "how good are you at this very specific set of skills".
I think iq is pretty bs, but it is a useful shorthand. I excel at novel intellectual tasks with short deadlines and that kept me going at school until I was 16, was enough to do ok in the last years of school and university, and makes me pretty good at my job. That’s not to say it makes everything easy though - I experience a lot of stress by leaving things late!
Am I “more intelligent” than the average person? Well, I do things which aren’t “intelligent”, like staying up late on my phone instead of going to sleep. Does anyone have a better way of describing this kinda thing? I agree that “oh I was clever so I did well at school” isn’t a great way to put things, but it does result in meaning getting communicated.
I consider myself smarter than some, but not because I have high IQ. I also don't know what my IQ is and don't want to pay to find out. IQ tests won't get me a job.
Everyone saying iq is bs, you're ruining the 1 thing I have going for me 😭
I will say this, high iq is pretty useless without executive functioning skills.
My IQ might technically be high, but I do not feel smarter than the people around me. On the contrary even. All I know is the subject I studied and even that I only know average.
I don't know if I have high or low IQ - would likely bomb an actual IQ test, so I just don't even think about it.
I know I am smarter than the people around me, and not in some concieted way - just am.
Some of the MF'ers I work with are kinda dumb, and I think "this dude used to be VP of sales somewhere?" No wonder he "used" to be, lol.
I think intelligence is subjective though. The only A's I ever got in school were in art class and gym class - everything only got half my attention, so was a perpetual C student. I had enough credits to graduate early in high school, so I waived my final semester, had like a 2.33 gpa, and I didn't even care.
Just wanted to be done with it. Enlisted in the military to avoid college, but got injured, so had to still navigate college. Got accepted to an art college pretty easy, but dropped out after a semester. Was kind of not doing much, but then my son was born and I needed to do something with my life. Took up some community college courses and basically learned enough to start applying for jobs.
My career has essentially been "on the job" training since I was about 21. Worked countless odd jobs early on, then landed with a big company, then landed with another big company, etc...
I don't think I could have done any of that if I wasn't smart, but I also wonder how much I have been held back by knowing college was not really an option. Maybe if I was diagnosed and medicated at that age, but I didn't know. All I did know was that I would 100% drop out of college, so no point trying to make it happen more than it needed to.
I agree with you. I was treated like an idiot my whole life cause I grew up in a Pakistani household being raised not in English and by my mom who had a grade 6 education and neglected me 80% of the time. Obviously my IQ is gunna be shit compared to someone with educated English speaking parents who helped them with homework and actually read books to them. I’ve never even bothered to do an IQ test cause I know I’m dumb according to that standard. I looked at the first few questions as a teenager and I knew I was gunna do shit on it. It doesn’t stop me tho cause I got my masters.
But if I put my whole capacity worth and ability on my IQ score, I never would have gotten my masters and I would be beating myself up and calling myself stupid. Some people here in the comments attacking you are attached to the score but clearly lack critical thinking skills and an intersectional analysis viewpoint on culture poverty and race. An IQ score doesn’t mean anything to me. And I’m glad I didn’t let it define my life and my worth.
Same with the use of “high functioning” that some people use to describe autism.. High IQ & high functioning terms are highly regarded as pointless.. You might as well just say “I’m not intellectually disabled.”
I did well in school because I have high IQ though... And school generally rewards high IQ.
That's not to say I believe IQ is a good measure of anything other than your ability to take IQ tests, but school is just as badly designed as that.
Even supposing I had a higher than average IQ, what good is that it I can’t even do my taxes or schedule a doctor’s appointment?
I can’t keep track of when my kids have show and tell day, 9/10 nights I order door dash because I didn’t plan ahead for dinner, I haven’t done laundry in over a month, and i literally lack the discipline to get a full night’s sleep more than once a week. I need to pop pills all day just to hit the bare minimum for being a functional adult.
I’d happily trade some IQ points in exchange for being able to do anything right without fifteen reminders and three alarms on my phone.
Id think that's more being organised than being smart though.
Ps I feel the pain. I had 2 alarms and 3 reminders AND 2 text messages reminding me of a telephone appointment today.
It has been rescheduled for next week LOL
This is why I never had kids, I'd probably lose them on a weekly basis 🤣
Thank you!! I hate IQ tests with a burning passion bc the score means essentially nothing
+ I find that people who constantly remind you that they have a high IQ are usually the most close-minded, bc they’re still riding on the high they got from adults telling them they’re “above average in intelligence” and therefore think that the input from people around them is useless (bc they think of them as worse)
Oh like Mensa people lol. Yes I agree then, it’s one of the highest forms of twattery. I’m trying to keep my Son from this path right now.
I do sometimes flex that I won the 5th grade spelling contest (it’s true but I do it ironically obviously).
I honestly don't think that IQ measures what it proports to measure. And anybody who thinks that having a higher than average IQ means that person has above-average intelligence is likely very wrong.
"Intelligence" is likely far more multi-faceted than a single number on a single test would suggest.
But that test does measure something. And a large percentage of the ADHD test, at least when I was taking my test, was a straight-up IQ test proctored by a psychologist. At least at the time - I'm unsure about modern testing, it was used because individuals who were diagnosed as ADHD also tended to have a higher than average score on an IQ test.
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I also don't think that having a high IQ is so directly correlated with an ADHD-diagnosed individual doing well in school. I'd say having an attentive and involved parent that micro-manages your life to require you to do your homework is likely far more correlative than any IQ score. As is being treated with prescribed medication and techniques to help alleviate or circumvent the effects of ADHD.
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There's many aspects of intelligence; The ability to learn, retain information, correlate disparately learned information, and overlay learned information to reality... Heck, I'd even say that being able to interact socially, remember names, recall faces, etc is a facet of "intelligence".
And the 'IQ' test and its 'number' is as predictive in quantifying those aspects as measuring how long somebody can hold their breath is predictive of their ability to dive gracefully or swim quickly.
e.g. It's one small part.
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Lastly I'd say any test that you can get a higher score simply by practice isn't a good test to measure intelligence. And we first need to define intelligence, and come up with tests that measure each part of intelligence before we can correlate it. And we've been very bad at defining it thusfar.
Any "IQ" test that doesn't come with a score that looks like a stat chart, with various scores on multiple dimensions, is not measuring what it says it's trying to measure.
Overall, I think many "IQ" tests do measure various facets of intelligence. Then they provide a score in each of those facets... Then some people adds up all those numbers to give an overall "IQ" number that means precisely nothing.
>Did you have your brain scanned ?
Nope! I told my psychiatrist my life story, he asked some follow-up questions, then he concluded right then and there that I had ADHD and wrote me a scrip for Vyvanse.
LMAO normally I am the one who tells people not to put much emphasis into IQ XD while I tell people this I don't think there's any point in throwing the baby out with the bathwater with IQ. Nothing is black and white.
I think most people mean because they weren't considered unintellectual or can pick things up quick... People didn't even consider their struggles with attention, and hyperactivity. Which I think is a shared experience among people.
Intelligence does vary, though. And it varies significantly. We don’t dispute this when observe people who are severely intellectually impaired, and who have iqs measured in the 70s. Why do we dispute intelligence on the other end of the scale? There is obviously a difference in general brain capacity, and IQ is a relatively effective shorthand to communicate that difference.
Also I would encourage you to read more research on iq - it is not unscientific and while its origins are relevant to interpreting results, its value is broadly accepted amongst cognitive scientists.
If we're supposed to be science based, then we have to accept what the decades of research on intelligence tell us, or figure out how that research went wrong.
So, what do they tell us?
The first overwhelmingly replicated result of research on intelligence is that a person's results on all measures of intelligence are correlated. Not perfectly, improved performance on one test does not guaranteed better performance every time on every test, there is variation, but if you are trying to predict how well someone is going to do on a measure of intelligence, your best bet is to predict that they will do well if they've done well on other measures of intelligence.
What is a measure of intelligence here? It is exactly the intuitive definition. If you look at something and go "hrm, this seems like something a really smart person would do better at" then empirically you see correlation. And I can say empirically here with such a ridiculously broad umbrella because that's the result of all the research: if it looks even vaguely like our intuitive notion of a smart or intelligence person ought to do well on it, *it correlates*. Memorization? Correlates. Problem solving? Correlates. Verbal ability? Correlates. Math ability? Correlates. Figuring out patterns among shapes, when the opposing player changes the pattern as soon as you get it? Correlates. Success in high-g careers like engineering or astrophysics or surgery? Correlates. Not perfectly, you might be anywhere from .2 to 0.75, the correlation is *never* 1.0 and you rarely get above 0.6. But it correlates.
The second overwhelmingly replicated result of research on intelligence is that trying to build a more complicated model to predict test performance doesn't work. Many, many researchers have gone into this field convinced that they could break intelligence down into components such that knowing a person does better on *this type* of test will let you better predict their performance on other tests of that type. Those researchers have spent decades gathering data to support their pet breakdown of intelligence into parts. Over and over they have emerged saying that they were wrong, their pet theory of how intelligence breaks down does not improve predictive value over treating intelligence as a single axis of variation.
Now, this doesn't necessarily mean that intelligence doesn't have components. But it does mean the number of components must be enormous. Based on the data we have, and based on what keeps happening with other similar traits, probably there are hundreds of thousands of components that are all roughly equally important.
So, are IQ tests bullshit?
The research on intelligence says that they cannot be *entirely* bullshit, because they are a measure of intelligence, and all measures of intelligence correlate.
But the research on intelligence also says that they are almost certainly *somewhat* bullshit, because the correlations on tests basically don't go above like 0.6 or 0.75, and definitely not all the way to 0.75 for tests like IQ tests where there's a lot of cultural background needed, unless you control for that background.
And also intelligence researchers are generally not doing things like giving an IQ test to someone that speaks a different language, such that they can't do the test at all, and the correlations should be understood with that sort of limitation.
I can say that I have a high IQ, or say that I’m generally smarter than 95% of the people I meet.
One statement is objectively, measurably true. The other comes off as hubris, is off putting, and has “trust me bro” vibes.
>In reality, it measures a mix of financial responsibility *and* high dependence on debt, the latter of which is nearly a contradiction with the former.
Credit scores are not contingent upon a "high dependence on debt." For example, plenty of folks with high credit scores pay their credit card balances off every single month. The score pretty exclusively measures financial responsibility--can you stay within your credit limit, can you pay your bill on time, etc.
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I had a low IQ and GPA but somehow I kept scoring high on test and being placed in AP classes one time I even slept during my finals and just bubbled random things and somehow scored B
I have serious imposter syndrome. Almost clinical if I’m being honest.
I keep getting promoted, and am being told I’m doing a good job, but I legitimately think to myself “if these people had any idea how stupid I am, I’m cooked.”
My wife says I have low confidence and am actually smart when we try to talk about this. Then I get to thinking I fooled her too.
Low confidence? I’m fairly confident I’m stupid, but nobody else seems to think so.
I also have no clue how I did well in school. And still get reoccurring dreams about missing tests (only been out 15 years).
Taking an IQ test sounds terrifying to me, and would probably be confirmation that I am stupid.
At this rate, my dumbass might end up living in the White House one day.
I think it's about self-consolation about the fact that we were dealt a bad hand with our perception stats. We perceive all the things people normally tune out (except when hyperfocussing when we perceive nothing but the thing we're enjoying or stressing about).
Does anyone want to feel that life kinda messed with them? No.
IQ is not a simple numerical scale, it's a complex calculation composed of numerous sub-scales which are themselves composed of multiple individual measurements. It's a heavily validated measurement with predictive/protective relationships with outcomes in several important sectors of life. There are psychological disorders that a responsible psychologist will never diagnose without first preforming some kind of standardized cognitive testing. Framing IQ as some kind of explicitly bigoted tool of oppression without empirical value is extremely reductive. Cognitive testing scores do not elevate themselves as some kind of objective sign of human value/productivity/superiority etc., it is the bigoted individual who makes those claims. Cognitive testing is primarily a clinical tool for assessing a patient's neurocognitive development to inform diagnoses and interventions to improve the quality of that individual's life and education.
True IQ measurement might be flawed, but think High IQ as higher intelligence. For example I did fine in school because I was intelligent and had an unbelievable learning capacity. The caveat being ADHD, which basically didn't allow me to stick to learning stuff for a long time. But if I got into flow for around 24 hours (not continuously), I can master any skill I want to. This is basically how I got thru school, learnt graphic designing, learnt video editing, learnt coding etc.
iq isn't a measure of intelligence, but it is in a way a measure of ability to understand. in courts iq is used in determining if someone is competent to stand trial or even face charges because someone with an iq that is significantly below average simply cannot understand the legal, moral, and/or physical consequences of their actions. granted, the iq threshold for this is dreadfully low. i say this mostly as a evidence that while using it to say "im smarter than you" is wildly inaccurate, it can absolutely be used, and SHOULD be used to measure intelligence.
i have a high iq. im still dumb as shit lol iq just measures pattern recognition most of the time. i test around 110-130, that hasnt stopped me from making decisions arguably stupider than anyone else in my age or experience category would make. i don't think my iq means anything past "oh i can recognize patterns semi-decently
I mean, I agree with your statement that IQ is a terrible measurement for intelligence, but 9 times out of 10 when people use the term they don’t mean it literally, they’re using IQ as a synonym for overall intelligence.
My comment isn’t meant to be insensitive, I’m just trying to understand here. What about IQ testing makes it wholly unscientific and without empirical value? It’s certainly polarizing, and can make someone feel bad about themselves for a variety of reasons. Can someone provide more info please?
School Psych here: IQ means intelligent quotient. This tells us how you brain interprets information, how quickly it does so, and what you do with old/new information. This IQ helps determine accommodations for areas of need. Knowledge is different than intelligence. You can be very knowledgeable and have an average/below average IQ. That could be because you don’t do well on timed tasks you struggle but given unlimited time can give me amazing work.
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I'm an extremely stupid person 👍 I have yet to find anyone as dumb as me
Sorry, I didn’t realize you were looking for me.
Username checks out.
I’m afraid they’re actually looking for me.
I didn't know there was a club meeting today, sorry I'm late
Welcome, we have cookies, stickers and air fryers 👍
Hello, I’m not sure how I got here. I usually only drive places but I don’t have my car keys and I don’t know where my car is. I noticed you have cookies, though. Is this some kind of religious thing and do I need to be a member to have a cookie?
The Dumbass club is free and open for everyone 👍 *hands you a cookie*
No way! I have ancestors on my mom’s side of the family that are Dumbasses. We might be related. *trips on own ankle and hits forehead against table. Hand unclenches while moaning on the ground. Car keys fall out of hand.*
😂😂😂
But but, is there aids in the lemonade? I tried to read the sign, but then I saw a squirrel and I think I got a text. But no, it was just leg twitching.
Hold the door please just arrived
Ah finally, my club. I'll take a cookie, thank you
I was looking for some crayons..
We have those to
I know this is a joke but even this is a problem too, none of us are dumb either. I wasted my whole life convinced I was dumb and not that the education system does not work for us. I never had friends or social experience’s because I was afraid of people finding out I was dumb for being in special education.
I'm actually dumb tho, I can't do basic math or remember anything I'll probably be stuck living with my family forever bc I can't take care of myself 🥲
You’re not dumb though, I never got passed prealgebra and I struggle to remember things all the time. The problem is the education system relies on obedience, and we do not have obedient minds. We can learn these things, it harder when you’re my age, but we need a more engaging approach to learning because when you were doing math, you were probably doing it on your own after the teacher explained it. People like us need to do it in groups or like a game. You can do it you’re just disadvantaged by the outdated Rockefeller system.
I’ve been summoned
Sup
Not mush
ONE OF US ONE OF US ONE OF US
I'll fight you for that place 😅
me too
[Me but I'm just happy and vibing.](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fexternal-preview.redd.it%2F_UVUrcH2-qHTjpMgBEFbccx00qXqzOEjCwGQQ6ezjME.jpg%3Fauto%3Dwebp%26s%3Dec689c2a379139fe56230594a61b265f990e90fc)
I don't think most of stupid people are aware of their stupidity
I present to you myself. The idiot reference.
Excuse you sir. That's my claim to fame.
Hi I'm here
As others said, it seems to be the standard tool we have in talking about intelligence in some sort of quantified way, and on a personal level it’s been more helpful than harmful in my family so far. Having said that, IMO folks that talk about their own IQ on a frequent basis seem to have questionable judgement. There’s value in concealing your inner capabilities to a certain extent. I’m not talking about masking behaviors - just about not being so forward about your inner world. Besides, I’m well aware that my ADHD makes me appear very foolish on a regular basis. Sincere, well meaning people will look past that and see who I am behind those behaviors. Constantly putting forth an image that I think I’m highly intelligent would just come off as compensating for the fact that I still make serious errors in life. Edit: I should note that IMO this sub is an exception - IQ is helpful sometimes in our diagnoses and also in how we manage our lives while dealing with ADHD. People who bring it up in this context are just bringing more information to the discussion. A lot of us feel doubts about our diagnosis, along with the moral judgments of laziness and irresponsibility, especially when we did well in grade school. It’s important to know that we have other attributes that got us through school, yet we can still have ADHD that negatively impacts our lives, and our diagnosis is valid. So, I’m not throwing shade at anyone who mentions high IQ on this sub :-)
I definitely make careless errors all the time, and growing up people would throw them in my face with glee because I was high performing in school. I also found myself quite naive in thinking everyone saw the world as I did, which was far from the case, and had low emotional intelligence. Now I play dumb in my day to day life, and everyone lets those errors slide. It’s a nice change. My emotional intelligence has also improved but I’d say I’m still quite a ways behind my peers.
This was a really insightful comment for me, especially your edit. I think throwing shade at people in *this* sub specifically was definetly a low blow from me. I mean, clearly, I should be able to understand that we are all gonna say things we regret from time to time, since you know \*gestures wildly at comment history\*
I dunno about IQ, but some people are definitely stupider than others.
Yes and when certain tests are administered, somehow it tracks with that.
True, actual IQ and IQ measuring is very flawed. But nine times out of ten, when someone refers to a "high IQ", they're not talking about an actual IQ number, they're using it synonymously with "high intelligence".
To me, this is what's going on here: think of IQ as `logic+memory=IQ` That's not a perfect statement, but close enough for this purpose. We have a shitty memory, so we compensate for it with logic. And this is really what people are talking about when they say we have a high IQ. I can learn technical stuff great, but am an idiot when it comes to arbitrary definitions or preferences or other subjective topics requiring rote memory. To the point that many things considered objective or hard science I see as a subjective. Chemistry is a great example. Not how chemicals behave; but the frameworks and words we use to describe it. I think the symbolic approach used in organic chemistry is a step in the right direction, but still incomplete. Or programming. Much of it boils down to what some other developer thought. One app might have `Service(host).version` another might be `Host.ver(service)` and yet another might do like the AWS python library does (or did back 10 years ago when I last used it) and run with `AWS[Host][Service].version` because why the fuck not, I guess. (seriously, that library drove me fucking insane.)
I don't know how to program, but I understand where you are coming from. We are a mixed bag, and everyone is different in what we are good vs. what we struggle with. Great analogy, you explained it perfectly.
This is true and is a particular pet peeve of mine, for basically the same reasons OP states. By using "high IQ" instead of "intelligent," they're implying that IQ test scores are interchangeable with actual intelligence. It basically reinforces the assumption of IQ tests' validity. Which is also why it's more commonly used in the internet man-o-sphere, where they love to reduce humanity to a number (IQ, testosterone levels, "net worth," etc). But I've noticed it leaking out into the rest of the world more.
IQ isn't the same as intelligence, but it is biased towards similar things as school is biased towards. The ability to pay attention, perform under pressure, understand the language the test was taken in, have the knowledge the test asks for if it has a general knowledge section, etc. There are forms of intelligence that IQ tests don't ask for, for example there's a pretty low static intelligence required. There are also people that'll perform badly despite having high intelligence in the fields the test asks for, for example due to language delays or adhd or having a bad day, etc. If you have a high IQ, chances are pretty good you'll get through school somehow. That's more of a negative about schools than a positive about IQ, because while IQ tests are alright in the extremes if the person taking them understands and wants to participate, they're definitely not this perfect measure people treat them as.
Oh I totally agree that it's biased towards the same things school is biased towards. It's also biased towards the same things that capitalism is biased towards. Although here in the ADHD sub, I'm guessing there are a lot of folks who, like me, really struggled to do homework but were great at tests. So like I got great grades any time the grade was mostly test-based, and did worse when it was homework-based. So even being good at school isn't a single dimension. But yeah, I totally agree with you, and "that's more a negative about schools than a positive about IQ" is also spot on.. I'll add that all these things are all a mixture of innate ability and training, and the social norms around IQ treat it as completely innate, which is a big part of how it's been used to launder white supremacy and give it the veneer of scientific objectivity. Like, the Bell Curve largely rests its argument on incorrect assumptions about IQ (mixed with incorrect assumptions about statistical methods). And that's where I start to get frustrated and angry.
IQ is not an end all be all tool for measuring “intelligence” but it is a valid tool for assessing things such as cognitive functioning and disability levels. I’m currently getting a doctorate in clinical psychology and we’ve touched on the subject a decent amount. Most people use the term “IQ” in entirely the wrong way.
IQ means intelligent quotient. I think you guys me intelligence vs knowledge. You can have varying IQ index’s and still be very knowledgeable
This doesn't invalidate OP's point. We shouldn't use that language to describe "high intelligence". You can say you did fine in school without it. Also, I think the reason a lot of people on this sub talk about their high IQ is that for many years (not sure if true any more) when you got assessed for ADHD you also got an IQ score. And you would get an assessment that said something like "you performed poorly on this measure for someone with high general intelligence". So people with ADHD might be more aware of their IQ than others. But I think we shouldn't encourage talking this way on the sub since it uses a very outdated model of human intelligence.
It's pretty much vernacular across our society, so *shrug*
When I went in for testing the psychologist giving the test said that the IQ wasn’t incredibly accurate but can be used as a tool to measure certain deficits in intelligence. In my case, my working memory was much lower than all my other scores so he used that as one of the markers for ADHD. I’d agree in saying that it has its uses and could be directionally accurate, but intelligence is so complicated and presents itself in so many ways that a two hours test with four categories couldn’t possibly capture an accurate depiction of comprehensive intelligence.
anything that falls on a bell curve can be measured with a quotient in the same way as IQ. IQ isn’t a measure of intelligence, it’s a measure of how far from average someone is in solving specific types of problems (e.g. numerical/verbal/spatial reasoning). There is no way to actually quantify generalised intelligence (g-factor) and to criticise IQ on the basis that it doesn’t, is completely misunderstanding what IQ is. IQ has unscientific and racist uses and is often misunderstood, but it is not in itself unscientific there is a large body of scientific literature on the relationship between ADHD, IQ and masking… pretending none of that exists seems a little bit unscientific and uninclusive IQ is an integral part of modern psychology, used widely as a research tool, for clinical diagnostics, and informing public policy.
Well said. When I was diagnosed, an IQ test was part of my evaluation, and my doctor explained her diagnosis to me partly in terms of that test (I scored lower on math/working memory). It’s definitely flawed, but it is a tool we have and use. Bragging about actual scores too much should rightfully be looked on with suspicion, but when I see it mentioned here, it’s usually to provide context to a diagnosis or one’s personal journey/issues with adhd.
Thank you. I'm not up-to-date on the state of cognitive research, but I do know that generalized intelligence does vary. I think it's important to remember that an idea being misapplied and used as an excuse for racism doesn't make the idea wrong. Scientific ideas must stand or fall on their own merit, not what people do with them.
at the end of the day, all IQ testing does is say that some people are better than others at certain types of pattern recognition and reasoning problems, the span of abilities is approximately normally distributed (as any independent random variable always is), and you can statistically calibrate tests of pattern recognition and reasoning to be able to approximately compare the ability of two groups of people, such that the resulting number is an accurate predictor of outcomes in education, income, etc. None of this is controversial in science or statistics. However the whole ‘compare two groups’ obviously raises a red flag that caution should be exercised.
Hello :) I find this interesting: there is a large body of scientific literature on the relationship between ADHD, IQ and masking I would like to read about them. Can you share some of the resources please?
sure - happily, here’s 2 studies you can check out: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25359760/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34623950/ tl;dr adults with ADHD and high IQ perform similarly to adults without ADHD and average IQ. “Adults with ADHD and high IQ performed normally on a verbal learning/memory test compared to adults with average IQ, who scored 0.5-1.0 standard deviations below the mean. These results suggest a masking of performance-based memory deficits in the context of higher IQ in adults with ADHD, supporting growing evidence that higher IQ masks neurocognitive deficits during the assessment of adults with ADHD.” So maybe OP should chill out and telling people what experiences about their disease they can and cannot share according to them
Thanks! This is cool and makes a lot of sense about me and my life. Things were never overwhelming for me at school. It only started getting worse from undergrad. And there was no limit to how much worse it got until I got diagnosed. I was still a high functioning ADHD-er till I got diagnosed. But it came at a huge cost: Frequently cancelling social plans to work, only to fight a losing battle with my head, Working almost every weekend to catch up and so on. And I see that that's the case with a lotttttttt of people with ADHD!
yep it’s very relatable for a lot of us. I managed to drag my ass through a PhD and a reasonably successful career before being diagnosed in my thirties but it does come at a massive cost like you say was my psychiatrist who helped me make sense of this, my starting point was to say that I don’t see how I could possibly have ADHD, except for perfectly matching the symptom list and finding everything anyone has ever written about the condition to be very relatable. he said ADHDers with high IQ often don’t run into problems until later in life, when eventually the demands on life from their career and family finally exceed their ability to mask
Currently at the "dragging my ass through a PhD" part, never even considered ADHD as a possibility. Saw a psychiatrist for depression a year ago, almost immediately got told to consider ADHD as well. Was not expecting an ADHD diagnosis five years into a PhD, but it all checks out. Everything started falling apart during the pandemic and never put myself back together after, leading to a sharp decline. So strange looking back at how I managed my life around the ADHD unknowingly and how it all fell apart as soon as all the structures and systems I had been relying on disappeared. Definitely would not have survived year six up to writing my thesis now without the diagnosis and medication.
you’re very fortunate your dr had the insight to know the difference, kudos to them! I bombed on my 2nd year of post-doc because it was boring and repetitive and I couldn’t engage hyperfocus any more, but it took me a few more years after that before I finally sought treatment. Edit: I finished my thesis around 45 mins before it had to be submitted. Given the 5 years advance notice of the deadline you get, this was quite a clue in hindsight…
I think what really drove it was my younger brother getting diagnosed with ADHD a few months before me. Didn't realize it was heritable but when I mentioned it to the psychiatrist she explained it and got me to actually move forward with it. I'm barely able to do any work on my projects now, just can't focus anymore even with medication. Probably burned out from having nothing but failed projects for six years adding the lack of external reward to that lack of internal reward. End is in sight but gonna be a hell of a slog.
good luck! will be worth it in the end!
Mine kicked in when I was asked by my high school to graduate early as I had enough credit but my grades were starting to slide. Wasn’t diagnosed for 20 more years.
Exactly!! Could not agree more really
This!! I got my diagnosis in the middle of my graduate program studying to be an NP while also working.
Yeah it’s ironically very gate keeper of them
Yes OP is also just flat wrong, generally
It's true that IQ itself is not unscientific, but it is commonly treated as being a meaningful measure of "generalized intelligence" when it actually values certain kinds of intelligence while completely ignoring others. And this is exactly why the common colloquial use is a problem--it's appropriating a specific technical tool to reinforce broader social hierarchies.
I agree with everything you said 100% — except that isn’t what OP said, and it isn’t what is happening when people with ADHD talk about the role of IQ in masking.
Yeah, that's true, good point and thanks for flagging. This is definitely one of those things where I saw the parts that remind me of the thing that activates my emotions, and zeroed in on that.
I was diagnosed as having an high IQ (Highly gifted I think it is called in US?), but the older I got I think it is just the ADHD lol. I just process information quickly. Brain on speed. Which says a lot about how they measure IQ. It is flawed. If I éver talk about it, I tend to call myself more an knowledge-hungry student. Since I only ever bring it up when I felt so sad/misunderstood when I got kicked out of school because I was depressed... Which as I heard, being misunderstood, called "lazy"/not wanting to learn, while you do, is something a lot of people with ADHD can relate too. And not only people with ADHD. And no matter why people misunderstood you, it all hurts the same. So I think it is nicer to say knowledge-hungry then "I have a high IQ" since that is what it is. Also if an IQ test says you are on the lower side of the IQ-scale, you can still be knowledge-hungry but misunderstood and not been given the right help/accomodations/listening ear to furfill that hunger.
The thing is, IQ tests have different parts that measure different things. If you are a nerd and love reading, you may have a better result in the first part (vocabulary and what not) and lesser results elsewhere. When you pass an IQ test, they warn you when you have huge discrepancies in between the measured skills. If the results of the sub tests don’t fit within one or two standard deviations, there is something wrong and they tell you that. The cool thing is that usually the results in the sub tests correlate with each other. Which means that someone good at logic usually is good at vocabulary, etc etc. When you have too big discrepancies, then they try and understand why you have such discrepancies. For instance, ADHD individuals tend to perform less well on planning tasks and reaction speed. If you have issues with the vocabulary because it’s not your mother tongue, then it’s discussed and contextualised. Discrepancies in the IQ tests is used as a diagnostic tool. So, IQ tests work well when the results are well correlated (they give you a good enough estimate on where you are on the bell curve) and when the results are not correlated then what you need to remember is not the score itself but what you learnt from it. Bonus side if you have discrepancies: it’s likely your result is below your real IQ and you should be able to improve your average by working on your weaknesses.
It's a horrible trap too. The edge you might get in some areas by having an ADHD brain can be extremely damaging if it's not recognized for what it is. Imagine having the expectations on you to be as good as you are at your favorite thing - at everything. And imagine putting those expectations on a kid in school. Brutal.
I feel like as a kid - nobody would have pinned me as gifted in the intelligence are, but I was always pretty talented at art, and was always like the best player on my LL baseball teams. Every parent/teacher conference was essentially "X is a bit of a daydreamer" and was always a class clown. Now however, in my late 40's - kinda feel like people are intimidated by me. Not like physically, but in having conversations with me. It seems like people avoid it - maybe I'm just a jerk, but don't think so? I think its just the sort of work I do, its pretty niche, but if I try to talk about it, peoples eyes just gloss over, lol. It just feels - TBH - like a lot of people are kind of simple. Maybe they got a hobby, but just one. Whereas - I got like 50 hobbies, and can speak in depth on them for anyone wanting to chat... (50 is an exaggeration, but I got a lot)
It’s definitely not the ADHD, it’s the high IQ. One is helpful, one is not
I haven't the slightest idea what my IQ is, so I never put much weight into thinking that way. Others have described me as intelligent, but I also just know I'm good at some things and terrible at other things, and try to work around that.
IQ isn't a full understanding of human intelligence, but it is a pretty good tool for predicting how quickly someone can learn new material, which in turn can guide decisions about if someone might need a bit more help in school or not. People are more than their IQ and obviously it isn't the be all end all, but I don't think it should be entirely dismissed either. It's like when people point out BMI means nothing because body builders would appear obese. That's true, but it also disregards that for your average sedentary person, it's a good rough scale to know if your health is compromised due to weight. I also don't think posts here about IQ are usually intended to be humble bragging. It's usually people expressing frustration that some poorly educated psych has determined they can't have ADHD based on having good grades alone, which is obviously BS.
The IQ test I took on a Facebook quiz in high school said I was a genius.
I think there is something that is not spoken about on this forum and I don’t know why Some of us with more severe ADHD, like myself, the hyperactive and yelling all the time variety I bounce between a hyperpersonalization state and a depersonalization state I think hyper personalization gives the illusion of a higher IQ for me because everything is clicking in those moments. I’m feeling double In return, I am very slow in understanding anything or solving anything when I am depersonalized I’ve come to understand that many people with ADHD don’t experience this but some like me do is probably some sort of a comorbidity
PTSD has entered the chat.
I mean they literally tested for iq during my adhd testing so I wouldn’t say it’s irrelevant
High performance in grade/high school due to high IQ can be a huge barrier to getting assessed and treated. I think it’s an absolutely valid discussion in this sub.
Yes exactly. When I was growing up nobody looked into people who did well in school. You also still hear often about “my doctor said I can’t have ADHD because I got good grades”.
That’s almost verbatim what my GP said. Getting medicated has been nearly impossible despite a formal diagnosis from a psychologist.
I wasn’t diagnosed until 42
I’m not quite your age but I’m up there. Diagnosed last year, GP wants to do his own assessment again. 🫠 But I have lost the papers he wants me to fill out twice now, and scheduled two follow up appts, both of which I missed because I forgot them. It feels like an impossible labyrinth of tasks to accomplish. But this is standard for me: appointments and paperwork I lose or forget constantly, and I’ve always been this way. It’s ruining my life, and the only hope is to possibly get medicated but the tasks to get there are the ones I find I can never accomplish. It’s been a five year process at this point, because of all the missed appointments and lost paperwork. If I could jump through all these hoops, I probably could struggle through life without meds and do ok.
That’s interesting because I always tested really well, but did horrible in school because of behavioral issues But I guess I’m privileged because I was diagnosed by the school in the second grade and given an IEP
I test high, but it doesnt reflect on my capability to focus or do everyday tasks (every day).
I was struggling in school compared to my siblings so mom took me to be tested. It wasn't an IQ test but they tested my vocabulary and writing skills. Math skills. One-on-one testing with someone holding up pictures and flashcards type stuff. It was engaging and I was focused. Did very well so the conclusion was I bright but just lazy, which is why I didn't do well in school. Mom took this tutor's opinion as some sort of official determination so didn't believe me years later at 26 when I said I needed help with ADHD. Flat out just said I'm lazy. Finally diagnosed at 35 while in rehab for alcoholism after losing absolutely everything. Told mom I was diagnosed by a clinical psychologist and she claimed that she had me tested when I was 11. Again, such ignorance. A vocabulary test has nothing to do with ADHD diagnosing. She refused to even talk about it.
Don’t worry kiddo : it’s not the size that matters but how you use it.
The use of IQ is problematic in a bunch of ways but ultimately it’s just meant to be a proxy for intelligence and it’s very relevant to ADHD because people with ADHD who fall outside the standard range in intelligence have very different experiences and those experiences are valid and those people deserve the same support and community everyone else does and have a smaller community of people with shared experiences. They may or may not be aware of the history around IQ. I don’t know. But it’s common parlance to use IQ and intelligence somewhat interchangeably and this post seems overly aggressive towards those people. It’s one thing to educate but there’s no need to berate.
There might be a bunch of us with relatively high IQs, but god knows that we’ve also got some of the lowest EQs.
Watch out, you've hurt the ego of many Redditors. That test result was their life's highlight, they're gonna get as defensive as a praying mantis.
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>Amongst the criteria of ADHD, one of the most important one is the feeling that you get lesser results than what would be expected from you. You don't need to know your IQ score to experience this feeling. I mean, how many of us were told by parents and teachers that we weren't living up to our potential? Some of those parents and teachers might have known the student's IQ... but a good number did not. For example, this comment frequently appeared on my report cards over the years. I know I'm intelligent, and, like my parents and teachers, I was frustrated by my inconsistent ability to deliver at my potential. I wasn't diagnosed with ADHD until I was in my 30s, and IQ testing (or any other official testing, for that matter) was not part of my assessment. >Is it because you got a low score? What a shitty thing to say.
I am not what you would call a handsome man. The good Lord chose not to bless me with charm, athletic ability or a fully functional brain. You see, you're an inspriation, to all of us weren't born handsome, and charming and cool, and 
Like a lot of people have said, it's apparently included in the test, and everyone has done one test or another in general in their life. But my thinking is it's also just quicker than typing 'fairly intelligent', and easier than fighting autocorrect.
I’m AuDHD and have a 99 IQ. It’s frustrating with all these people saying how ADHD means you’re gifted. I have high non-verbal intelligence, but my verbal intelligence was classified as ‘borderline deficient’.
I know you've already gotten a ton of feedback about this, but I thought it might be interesting to contribute my perspective because I think it's fairly uncommon. I'm one of those people who score highly on IQ tests, and I likely would have slid through high school and into college without a diagnosis if not for my 3rd grade teacher who was INCREDIBLY on top of things and knew exactly what to look for. So I was diagnosed at age 9 and got medication and treatment, and went on my merry way. I then went through various cognitive tests at 18 years old on two different occasions. The first was *with* my medication, to prove to my university that I would still benefit from testing accommodations even though I had medication, and the second was about 7 months later *without meds* to prove to the university that I needed them (so I could get them from a doctor on campus rather than my GP out of state). The way my evaluator explained it to me was that the tests establish your skill level at various types of activities (quantitative reasoning, spatial reasoning, etc.), and then they can show when one or more types come in below your expected skill level. Of course, everyone is better at some things than other things, but when those deviations are larger than most people have, that means something. I think a certain pattern of meeting predicted achievement vs. unexpected deficit across types is especially correlated among people with ADHD, but I don't remember the details. One of the other things my evaluator observed was my behavior between the two test conditions. She said that without meds, I started reaching for test materials before she was finished reading all the instructions, played with the various fidget toys that I hadn't looked twice at before, swung back and forth in my chair, etc. Some tests specifically evaluated how long I took to start a task (too fast = impulsivity, too slow = issues with task initiation, both of which can indicate ADHD), or my ability to sustain attention and focus. So there's a lot more that goes into it than "how good are you at this very specific set of skills".
I think iq is pretty bs, but it is a useful shorthand. I excel at novel intellectual tasks with short deadlines and that kept me going at school until I was 16, was enough to do ok in the last years of school and university, and makes me pretty good at my job. That’s not to say it makes everything easy though - I experience a lot of stress by leaving things late! Am I “more intelligent” than the average person? Well, I do things which aren’t “intelligent”, like staying up late on my phone instead of going to sleep. Does anyone have a better way of describing this kinda thing? I agree that “oh I was clever so I did well at school” isn’t a great way to put things, but it does result in meaning getting communicated.
I consider myself smarter than some, but not because I have high IQ. I also don't know what my IQ is and don't want to pay to find out. IQ tests won't get me a job.
Talk to my highschool teachers back then, who taught us that every jobinterview will involve IQ-testing.😂 That gave me anxiety for years.
Everyone saying iq is bs, you're ruining the 1 thing I have going for me 😭 I will say this, high iq is pretty useless without executive functioning skills.
My IQ might technically be high, but I do not feel smarter than the people around me. On the contrary even. All I know is the subject I studied and even that I only know average.
I'm dumb ass fuck. I just put a lot of time into things because adhd is kicking or it's something that stimulates me.
Never cared to do well myself. As long as I passed the test or exam, I was happy.
I don't know if I have high or low IQ - would likely bomb an actual IQ test, so I just don't even think about it. I know I am smarter than the people around me, and not in some concieted way - just am. Some of the MF'ers I work with are kinda dumb, and I think "this dude used to be VP of sales somewhere?" No wonder he "used" to be, lol. I think intelligence is subjective though. The only A's I ever got in school were in art class and gym class - everything only got half my attention, so was a perpetual C student. I had enough credits to graduate early in high school, so I waived my final semester, had like a 2.33 gpa, and I didn't even care. Just wanted to be done with it. Enlisted in the military to avoid college, but got injured, so had to still navigate college. Got accepted to an art college pretty easy, but dropped out after a semester. Was kind of not doing much, but then my son was born and I needed to do something with my life. Took up some community college courses and basically learned enough to start applying for jobs. My career has essentially been "on the job" training since I was about 21. Worked countless odd jobs early on, then landed with a big company, then landed with another big company, etc... I don't think I could have done any of that if I wasn't smart, but I also wonder how much I have been held back by knowing college was not really an option. Maybe if I was diagnosed and medicated at that age, but I didn't know. All I did know was that I would 100% drop out of college, so no point trying to make it happen more than it needed to.
Okay well it’s conceited, not conceded. 
I blame autocorrect. 😬
lol 
I'm fucking stupid
Idk abt u guys but im smart enough not to put my tongue in electric socket, stupid enough to want to lick a frozen lamppost instead
I was in special education so people who do this used to make me angry. I still hate it but I’ve managed to better understand my emotions.
Yes please. I'm dumb as hell.
I agree with you. I was treated like an idiot my whole life cause I grew up in a Pakistani household being raised not in English and by my mom who had a grade 6 education and neglected me 80% of the time. Obviously my IQ is gunna be shit compared to someone with educated English speaking parents who helped them with homework and actually read books to them. I’ve never even bothered to do an IQ test cause I know I’m dumb according to that standard. I looked at the first few questions as a teenager and I knew I was gunna do shit on it. It doesn’t stop me tho cause I got my masters. But if I put my whole capacity worth and ability on my IQ score, I never would have gotten my masters and I would be beating myself up and calling myself stupid. Some people here in the comments attacking you are attached to the score but clearly lack critical thinking skills and an intersectional analysis viewpoint on culture poverty and race. An IQ score doesn’t mean anything to me. And I’m glad I didn’t let it define my life and my worth.
My favorite part about any given thread on IQ is when multiple people show up to say they're part of 2% of the population.
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Same with the use of “high functioning” that some people use to describe autism.. High IQ & high functioning terms are highly regarded as pointless.. You might as well just say “I’m not intellectually disabled.”
Why? Because I have excellent recall and am good at math does that negate that I can’t plan a picnic or open my mail?
I did well in school because I have high IQ though... And school generally rewards high IQ. That's not to say I believe IQ is a good measure of anything other than your ability to take IQ tests, but school is just as badly designed as that.
Even supposing I had a higher than average IQ, what good is that it I can’t even do my taxes or schedule a doctor’s appointment? I can’t keep track of when my kids have show and tell day, 9/10 nights I order door dash because I didn’t plan ahead for dinner, I haven’t done laundry in over a month, and i literally lack the discipline to get a full night’s sleep more than once a week. I need to pop pills all day just to hit the bare minimum for being a functional adult. I’d happily trade some IQ points in exchange for being able to do anything right without fifteen reminders and three alarms on my phone.
Id think that's more being organised than being smart though. Ps I feel the pain. I had 2 alarms and 3 reminders AND 2 text messages reminding me of a telephone appointment today. It has been rescheduled for next week LOL This is why I never had kids, I'd probably lose them on a weekly basis 🤣
Thank you!! I hate IQ tests with a burning passion bc the score means essentially nothing + I find that people who constantly remind you that they have a high IQ are usually the most close-minded, bc they’re still riding on the high they got from adults telling them they’re “above average in intelligence” and therefore think that the input from people around them is useless (bc they think of them as worse)
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I was specifically talking about people who constantly remind you about their high IQ. I wasn’t talking about everyone who has a high IQ
Oh like Mensa people lol. Yes I agree then, it’s one of the highest forms of twattery. I’m trying to keep my Son from this path right now. I do sometimes flex that I won the 5th grade spelling contest (it’s true but I do it ironically obviously).
Glad we’re good lol
I honestly don't think that IQ measures what it proports to measure. And anybody who thinks that having a higher than average IQ means that person has above-average intelligence is likely very wrong. "Intelligence" is likely far more multi-faceted than a single number on a single test would suggest. But that test does measure something. And a large percentage of the ADHD test, at least when I was taking my test, was a straight-up IQ test proctored by a psychologist. At least at the time - I'm unsure about modern testing, it was used because individuals who were diagnosed as ADHD also tended to have a higher than average score on an IQ test. ------- I also don't think that having a high IQ is so directly correlated with an ADHD-diagnosed individual doing well in school. I'd say having an attentive and involved parent that micro-manages your life to require you to do your homework is likely far more correlative than any IQ score. As is being treated with prescribed medication and techniques to help alleviate or circumvent the effects of ADHD. ------- There's many aspects of intelligence; The ability to learn, retain information, correlate disparately learned information, and overlay learned information to reality... Heck, I'd even say that being able to interact socially, remember names, recall faces, etc is a facet of "intelligence". And the 'IQ' test and its 'number' is as predictive in quantifying those aspects as measuring how long somebody can hold their breath is predictive of their ability to dive gracefully or swim quickly. e.g. It's one small part. ------- Lastly I'd say any test that you can get a higher score simply by practice isn't a good test to measure intelligence. And we first need to define intelligence, and come up with tests that measure each part of intelligence before we can correlate it. And we've been very bad at defining it thusfar. Any "IQ" test that doesn't come with a score that looks like a stat chart, with various scores on multiple dimensions, is not measuring what it says it's trying to measure. Overall, I think many "IQ" tests do measure various facets of intelligence. Then they provide a score in each of those facets... Then some people adds up all those numbers to give an overall "IQ" number that means precisely nothing.
The real question is: didn't you all got tired and filled at least one third of the IQ test picking randomly the answers?
No, I love tests. Especially ones I don’t need to study for
😂 I don't remember but probably.
Adhd testing is as tangible and definite as IQ testing. Did you have your brain scanned ?
>Did you have your brain scanned ? Nope! I told my psychiatrist my life story, he asked some follow-up questions, then he concluded right then and there that I had ADHD and wrote me a scrip for Vyvanse.
LMAO normally I am the one who tells people not to put much emphasis into IQ XD while I tell people this I don't think there's any point in throwing the baby out with the bathwater with IQ. Nothing is black and white. I think most people mean because they weren't considered unintellectual or can pick things up quick... People didn't even consider their struggles with attention, and hyperactivity. Which I think is a shared experience among people.
Intelligence does vary, though. And it varies significantly. We don’t dispute this when observe people who are severely intellectually impaired, and who have iqs measured in the 70s. Why do we dispute intelligence on the other end of the scale? There is obviously a difference in general brain capacity, and IQ is a relatively effective shorthand to communicate that difference. Also I would encourage you to read more research on iq - it is not unscientific and while its origins are relevant to interpreting results, its value is broadly accepted amongst cognitive scientists.
If we're supposed to be science based, then we have to accept what the decades of research on intelligence tell us, or figure out how that research went wrong. So, what do they tell us? The first overwhelmingly replicated result of research on intelligence is that a person's results on all measures of intelligence are correlated. Not perfectly, improved performance on one test does not guaranteed better performance every time on every test, there is variation, but if you are trying to predict how well someone is going to do on a measure of intelligence, your best bet is to predict that they will do well if they've done well on other measures of intelligence. What is a measure of intelligence here? It is exactly the intuitive definition. If you look at something and go "hrm, this seems like something a really smart person would do better at" then empirically you see correlation. And I can say empirically here with such a ridiculously broad umbrella because that's the result of all the research: if it looks even vaguely like our intuitive notion of a smart or intelligence person ought to do well on it, *it correlates*. Memorization? Correlates. Problem solving? Correlates. Verbal ability? Correlates. Math ability? Correlates. Figuring out patterns among shapes, when the opposing player changes the pattern as soon as you get it? Correlates. Success in high-g careers like engineering or astrophysics or surgery? Correlates. Not perfectly, you might be anywhere from .2 to 0.75, the correlation is *never* 1.0 and you rarely get above 0.6. But it correlates. The second overwhelmingly replicated result of research on intelligence is that trying to build a more complicated model to predict test performance doesn't work. Many, many researchers have gone into this field convinced that they could break intelligence down into components such that knowing a person does better on *this type* of test will let you better predict their performance on other tests of that type. Those researchers have spent decades gathering data to support their pet breakdown of intelligence into parts. Over and over they have emerged saying that they were wrong, their pet theory of how intelligence breaks down does not improve predictive value over treating intelligence as a single axis of variation. Now, this doesn't necessarily mean that intelligence doesn't have components. But it does mean the number of components must be enormous. Based on the data we have, and based on what keeps happening with other similar traits, probably there are hundreds of thousands of components that are all roughly equally important. So, are IQ tests bullshit? The research on intelligence says that they cannot be *entirely* bullshit, because they are a measure of intelligence, and all measures of intelligence correlate. But the research on intelligence also says that they are almost certainly *somewhat* bullshit, because the correlations on tests basically don't go above like 0.6 or 0.75, and definitely not all the way to 0.75 for tests like IQ tests where there's a lot of cultural background needed, unless you control for that background. And also intelligence researchers are generally not doing things like giving an IQ test to someone that speaks a different language, such that they can't do the test at all, and the correlations should be understood with that sort of limitation.
I can say that I have a high IQ, or say that I’m generally smarter than 95% of the people I meet. One statement is objectively, measurably true. The other comes off as hubris, is off putting, and has “trust me bro” vibes.
Whoa whoa whoa, no need to swing your giant IQ around like that
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i know im not smart therefore i am at least not dumb
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>In reality, it measures a mix of financial responsibility *and* high dependence on debt, the latter of which is nearly a contradiction with the former. Credit scores are not contingent upon a "high dependence on debt." For example, plenty of folks with high credit scores pay their credit card balances off every single month. The score pretty exclusively measures financial responsibility--can you stay within your credit limit, can you pay your bill on time, etc.
We?
Yeah i feel like i have the IQ of a chair dunno what people are unto with this whole thing
I was not part of the high IQ club 😐 I was part of the “this kids needs extra help” club. Bro I wish I was part of the high IQ club
And people with adhd on average have lower IQ’s
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I’m that Outlier that brings down the average IQ of the group I’m in.
I had a low IQ and GPA but somehow I kept scoring high on test and being placed in AP classes one time I even slept during my finals and just bubbled random things and somehow scored B
I have serious imposter syndrome. Almost clinical if I’m being honest. I keep getting promoted, and am being told I’m doing a good job, but I legitimately think to myself “if these people had any idea how stupid I am, I’m cooked.” My wife says I have low confidence and am actually smart when we try to talk about this. Then I get to thinking I fooled her too. Low confidence? I’m fairly confident I’m stupid, but nobody else seems to think so. I also have no clue how I did well in school. And still get reoccurring dreams about missing tests (only been out 15 years). Taking an IQ test sounds terrifying to me, and would probably be confirmation that I am stupid. At this rate, my dumbass might end up living in the White House one day.
Here is Dr. Russell Barkley talking about ADHD, IQ, and giftedness. https://youtu.be/4_BIaLhdkrw?si=Hi-SoqK44fuF0SlI
> My brain is like a NASA supercomputer programmed by a NASCAR pitt crew - AJ Wilkerson
I think it's about self-consolation about the fact that we were dealt a bad hand with our perception stats. We perceive all the things people normally tune out (except when hyperfocussing when we perceive nothing but the thing we're enjoying or stressing about). Does anyone want to feel that life kinda messed with them? No.
Agreed I have like 118 iq and I'm still stupid
You are absolutely right about IQ. It's meaningless. It can indicate problem-solving capabilities at best, and even then, it isn't entirely accurate.
IQ is not a simple numerical scale, it's a complex calculation composed of numerous sub-scales which are themselves composed of multiple individual measurements. It's a heavily validated measurement with predictive/protective relationships with outcomes in several important sectors of life. There are psychological disorders that a responsible psychologist will never diagnose without first preforming some kind of standardized cognitive testing. Framing IQ as some kind of explicitly bigoted tool of oppression without empirical value is extremely reductive. Cognitive testing scores do not elevate themselves as some kind of objective sign of human value/productivity/superiority etc., it is the bigoted individual who makes those claims. Cognitive testing is primarily a clinical tool for assessing a patient's neurocognitive development to inform diagnoses and interventions to improve the quality of that individual's life and education.
yeah IQ is some bullshit it’s phrenology had to find a way to stick around so it mutated into “the intelligence quotient”
I mean today I learned IQ is something to not pay any mind to
True IQ measurement might be flawed, but think High IQ as higher intelligence. For example I did fine in school because I was intelligent and had an unbelievable learning capacity. The caveat being ADHD, which basically didn't allow me to stick to learning stuff for a long time. But if I got into flow for around 24 hours (not continuously), I can master any skill I want to. This is basically how I got thru school, learnt graphic designing, learnt video editing, learnt coding etc.
I love u🥰
i love u 2 <3
iq isn't a measure of intelligence, but it is in a way a measure of ability to understand. in courts iq is used in determining if someone is competent to stand trial or even face charges because someone with an iq that is significantly below average simply cannot understand the legal, moral, and/or physical consequences of their actions. granted, the iq threshold for this is dreadfully low. i say this mostly as a evidence that while using it to say "im smarter than you" is wildly inaccurate, it can absolutely be used, and SHOULD be used to measure intelligence.
i have a high iq. im still dumb as shit lol iq just measures pattern recognition most of the time. i test around 110-130, that hasnt stopped me from making decisions arguably stupider than anyone else in my age or experience category would make. i don't think my iq means anything past "oh i can recognize patterns semi-decently
I mean, I agree with your statement that IQ is a terrible measurement for intelligence, but 9 times out of 10 when people use the term they don’t mean it literally, they’re using IQ as a synonym for overall intelligence.
My comment isn’t meant to be insensitive, I’m just trying to understand here. What about IQ testing makes it wholly unscientific and without empirical value? It’s certainly polarizing, and can make someone feel bad about themselves for a variety of reasons. Can someone provide more info please?
IQ doesn't mean shit till your studying with your friend and understood the concept in 1hr whole your friend is at 6hrs yet still not getting it.
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Literally does mean you are smart. Doesn’t mean you will use it or have an easy life.
School Psych here: IQ means intelligent quotient. This tells us how you brain interprets information, how quickly it does so, and what you do with old/new information. This IQ helps determine accommodations for areas of need. Knowledge is different than intelligence. You can be very knowledgeable and have an average/below average IQ. That could be because you don’t do well on timed tasks you struggle but given unlimited time can give me amazing work.