IQ Tests. Thoughts?

[teawill]

I'm fully aware of the fact that some people care about this more than others, but I mean, we're in a comm about being a personality type so maybe some of us would like to discuss other psych tests, too

Comments

[suitablyemoname]

IQ tests mostly seem to exist so that boring people can put something on their Facebook pages and middle-class parents can discuss their children at cocktail parties.

I guess the question I have is why they're useful

[drandomtuba]

Yeah, I probably would have spent a good forty minutes trying to articulate what you just said, so thanks!

[suitablyemoname]

Not all IQ tests are "culturally biased". For example, Raven's progressive matrices has no cultural content whatsoever. It's just pictures/shapes.

Yes, all IQ tests are culturally biased. African-Americans, for example, have been shown to perform worse on tests which emphasise geometry and on-paper spatial knowledge (such as identifying, classifying, sorting or distinguishing between shapes and groups thereof) than other groups, even after other factors are controlled for. The fact that a test is not consciously or formally biased doesn't mean the outcomes it produces aren't.

Actually it's illegal to use IQ tests for hiring purposes, even though they are actually somewhat good predictors. For many jobs it is infeasible to give a "job-related test".Job-related tests are always possible. It is not always possible to perform the best possible job-related test (a work sample test), but situational interviewing and testing is a more reliable metric than performing "dumb" skills testing, which includes testing for intelligence and

[drandomtuba]

According to IQ tests, I'm wicked smaht. (I can't remember if that silly online test I took gave me 126 or 132, but I do remember that some of the questions were unfair. Don't ask me a question about baseball innings and expect me to know the answer!)

I'm also failing college, 22 and living in my parents basement because I don't have a job, and I don't have the skills (or lack of skills) needed to obtain any job that isn't already taken. I have very few friends, and a list of psychological problems a mile long. Pretty much, I'm incapable of taking care of myself.

My therapist says it's because I'm "too smart."

Yay.

[teawill]

...Oh. Oh wow. I don't know what to actually say to that. It must be nice to have a therapist, in the meantime.

[drandomtuba]

*shrug*

I have an acquaintance who took the same dumb test I took; she got 164 whilst watching a movie, and she seems to be one of the happiest people I've ever met... so I don't actually believe my wonderful problems are related to my supposed intelligence, especially seeing as I'm really not that smaht.

[unkickablekitty]

I find them somewhat interesting, but useless overall. My family claims I tested a 134 as a kid, but seeing as they refuse to show me papers, I take that at face value. Intelligence isn't really something that can be measured so plainly; in the end, it's just a test, with a number.

[waterspyder]

I was in a gifted program up until the end of high school, and so took many IQ tests as a part of the regular battery of tests they gave us. So when I was around 154 when I was 14, and it's slipped a little as I've gotten older (142 the last time I was tested a few years ago for a job).

Really, all this means, is I'm now extremely familiar and comfortable with the style and format of IQ tests, and thus probably perform much better than my peers since I've retained knowledge on how to complete geometry puzzles simply for the benefit of these puzzles, as I have absolutely no reason to do them otherwise.

And all it really gets me at work is a reputation as a know-it-all (I prefer the term "Generalist")

[ankh_f_n_khonsu]

IQ tests do not measure intelligence.