How do you measure intelligence? What is a measure of intelligence? IQ is often used as a measure of intelligence and in fact it is often use by some people as some sort of badge of honour demonstrating how intelligent they are. But does IQ really demonstrate intelligence? Well no, it doesn’t.
A recent article in Focus discussed IQ and how useful it is as a way of measuring intelligence. The bottom line is that IQ is a pretty good measure but it gets to a point where the IQ score will keep increasing but the actual intelligence won’t. Having a higher IQ score doesn’t actually mean you are more intelligent.
The article in Focus explains this using basketball. To play basketball at the highest level you need to be tall, at least 6’ 4”. Being taller doesn’t necessarily make you any better. You could be 7’ 0” but no better. Likewise with IQ you could have an IQ of 130, but a person with an IQ of 160 may not be smarter, they are just better at the tests used to measure IQ.
A better way to assess intelligence is to combine IQ with another measurement called a divergence test. This is a test that requires you to use a different type of intelligence or approach such as imagination. A simple example could be to ask the question “List as many different uses for a) a blanket, and b) a brick”. This question requires you to think in a very different way to an IQ test, it requires abstract thinking, use of imagination and creativity. This alone would not be a great way to assess someone’s intelligence but combining it with IQ it becomes a strong measure.
So next time someone asks you what your IQ is (no doubt because they feel they have a high score themselves), ask them how many uses they can think of for a brick.
