How much does IQ matter?

[Anonymous]

IQ and success in life a strongly correlated, but more at the lower end of the spectrum than the bottom. Most professional-class people just don't interact with people at the lower end of the spectrum, so they tend to think of average intelligence people when they think "low IQ," which does nothing to illustrate how important IQ is to life success at the lower end of the spectrum. Prisons are full of people with low IQ, though certainly not everyone in prison has low cognitive ability. So are crappy jobs with low pay.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To what extent does IQ demonstrate intelligence? To what extent does it determine one's career and success in life? Can a person of average IQ become a doctor or a lawyer if they're determined enough?

What IQ is entry level for the Nobel Prize, National Academy of Sciences etc.

It certainly helps but there are also other kinds of smarts that may matter more for life success. Like EQ, street smarts, social smarts, empathy, adaptability/ flexibility, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You need:

IQ
EQ
no serious disabilities or disorders.

Agree

[Anonymous]

I’m a kindergarten teacher and the students who struggle almost always test out with IQs in the low 70s. It takes them a very long time to learn new things. If an average kid learns letter names and sounds in the first few months of kindergarten, it takes these students until the end of the year or even into first grade to learn the same information. They fall behind from the beginning and never catch up. They just need a lot more repetition that cannot always be given in a school day. The same students who struggle in kindergarten are the same students who struggle in every subsequent grade level. Some of them have more determination but many give up by late elementary school and become behavior issues.

[Anonymous]

On Quora, every other person claims to have a 150+ IQ lol.

[Anonymous]

That’s why most of the world does tracking tests for the next level of schooling or not.

[Anonymous]

My ACs are all successful but two are what I would characterize as extremely successful. One has an IQ of 104 and ADHD. They started a tech business and make 500k. The other I feel like I need to be careful in how much detail I say but they are *very* successful in academia with severe ADHD, dyslexia, and a genius level IQ.

Then I think about my old roommate who probably doesn’t have a high IQ but has made a killing in real estate, not only as an agent/broker but flipping and acquiring rentals. Roommate is a people person and started doing RE at 19.

So much has to do with parental SES. I’m glad I didn’t know any IQs until kids were older. I wonder if I would have treated them differently or had different expectations if I’d known.

[Anonymous]

Determining “success” isn’t a simple objective metric. I have a high IQ but a friend has an outrageous IQ and we're in the same career (we met as students though) and roughly the same income. He’s much quicker at learning newer and harder things but we’ve both ended up with rewarding jobs and lives.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:IQ and success in life a strongly correlated, but more at the lower end of the spectrum than the bottom. Most professional-class people just don't interact with people at the lower end of the spectrum, so they tend to think of average intelligence people when they think "low IQ," which does nothing to illustrate how important IQ is to life success at the lower end of the spectrum. Prisons are full of people with low IQ, though certainly not everyone in prison has low cognitive ability. So are crappy jobs with low pay.

This is a good point. I have an advanced degree in STEM; everyone I work with has at a minimum a masters degree in a STEM field. The vast majority of them have never worked with truly stupid people. I worked at fast food restaurants, construction site and other jobs like that growing up; there were some astoundingly stupid people in these jobs. Some were pretty sharp, but those people generally moved into roles with more responsibility pretty quickly. I remember one kid from the country that had to beg money from charity to buy food and clothing for his kid because he knocked up his girlfriend. He spent the majority of it on new tires for his 8mpg muscle car that he drove 60 miles round trip to work each day and constantly did burnouts with. He was just an idiot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m a kindergarten teacher and the students who struggle almost always test out with IQs in the low 70s. It takes them a very long time to learn new things. If an average kid learns letter names and sounds in the first few months of kindergarten, it takes these students until the end of the year or even into first grade to learn the same information. They fall behind from the beginning and never catch up. They just need a lot more repetition that cannot always be given in a school day. The same students who struggle in kindergarten are the same students who struggle in every subsequent grade level. Some of them have more determination but many give up by late elementary school and become behavior issues.

That makes sense. Low 70s is riding up on the 70 line for "intellectually disabled" which is pretty severe. I have a cousin in this range and she has required and received tremendous support and schooling her whole life, but low IQ is immediately obvious and she will never live independently.

[Anonymous]

It doesn't matter... Unless the person is trying to drag race into it then it matters a lot

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To what extent does IQ demonstrate intelligence? To what extent does it determine one's career and success in life? Can a person of average IQ become a doctor or a lawyer if they're determined enough?

What IQ is entry level for the Nobel Prize, National Academy of Sciences etc.

An average IQ is between 90 and 109. What you consider average based on your neighborhood could very well be high average or superior.
IQ of 125 with a very high EQ will suit most people very well in terms of what is conventionally considered success.

This. Intelligencewise, you just have to be above average. Then success comes down to effort, resilience, EQ, and so on.

[Anonymous]

My average IQ son finished law school and is now a lawyer. You don’t need an above average IQ to earn multiple degrees.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m a kindergarten teacher and the students who struggle almost always test out with IQs in the low 70s. It takes them a very long time to learn new things. If an average kid learns letter names and sounds in the first few months of kindergarten, it takes these students until the end of the year or even into first grade to learn the same information. They fall behind from the beginning and never catch up. They just need a lot more repetition that cannot always be given in a school day. The same students who struggle in kindergarten are the same students who struggle in every subsequent grade level. Some of them have more determination but many give up by late elementary school and become behavior issues.

I have also seen this. It is not something we are allowed to observe at my school, though. We must proceed as if every child can meet grade-level expectations, and if they don’t it’s on us. It’s hard to be a teacher at the moment.

[Anonymous]

IQ is a combined score based on multiple different domains. Very few professions require a person to be high in all of those domains.

A typical lawyer needs high verbal skills and high working memory, but could easily be average or even somewhat below average in quantitative reasoning or visual spatial skills. People who are brilliant in STEM fields could be exceptionally high in fluid reasoning and/or visual spatial, and completely average in everything else.

Most people who are in the average range will still have some domain that is above average. If they match their career choice with their aptitudes, they'll be fine.