Let’s talk about IQ tests: a thread
I recently saw someone follow me and when I clicked on their page, their bio included their alleged IQ score. It was immediately repulsive to me and I’ve been thinking about why it was such a visceral response, so here’s why-

The most common IQ test in the US is the WAIS (Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, made in 1955 and currently in it’s 4th edition) so that’s what I’ll be focusing on. IQ tests are intended to test a very specific set of skills.

The skills that are chosen to indicate ~intelligence~ don’t cover anywhere near the full range of human skills. Why were these specific skills chosen? They generally measure cognitive abilities (specifically working memory and reasoning), which is something we value in the US.

The average IQ is ~100 & is relatively normally distributed. But there's a slight skew in the general population leaning towards the lower end. Is this because more people are stupid than smart? Of course not, it’s b/c there’s no such thing as a head injury that makes you smarter

Let's get into the problems with these tests, starting with racism:
There is extreme cultural bias. Some cultures emphasize certain skills compared to others and the WAIS is a US based test so is obviously going to center skills that US society values.

Pretty much every IQ test used today was created by white men decades ago. People in positions of power aren’t known to have phenomenal understanding of how marginalized people experience the world, yet they’re responsible for categorizing the masses.

For example, children in the US are brought to school every day where they learn how to solve problems on a piece of paper with no real context. We begin to excel at this sort of problem-solving because it’s a part of our daily life and development.

However, other cultures don’t necessarily teach this way or prioritize these skills), but rather teach life skills the children will be required to use. Those children would perform worse on the WAIS, but if they created an IQ test, US students would likely perform terribly on it

Also, these tests are created in English. While they may be translated to other languages, we all know translation isn’t an exact science and can result in confusion, which can reduce a person’s score not because they’re less intelligent, but because the translation is flawed.

Socioeconomic status is also a factor, and in the US is often tied to race- children from rich families who can afford private tutors may perform better on an IQ test, not because they’re more intelligent, but because they’ve had more resources put into their education.

Brief sexism section: Women tend to perform better on verbal skills while men perform better on spatial skills. Is one of these more important/valuable than the other? Are women stupider if their society values spatial reasoning more?

Very long ableism section:
Some people can’t do entire sections of the test. If you’re blind, you can’t do some of the visual testing. Does that mean blind people just all have a low IQ because they wouldn’t be able to complete those sections? Of course not.

Neuroatypical people can have memory issues, varying abilities to attend to the tests day to day, difficulty focusing well enough to even take the test, etc....

For example, I have ADHD but can’t take stimulants, so there are times when I’m not gonna be able to focus as well as others and would therefore get varied scores even though I’m the same person at all times. Am I just less intelligent on those days?

But Arielle don’t we need IQ tests for intellectually disabled people to know how to help them? No, a number created by a shitty system doesn’t mean anything. 2 different people with an IQ of 70 don’t automatically have the same support needs. Focus on support, not an arbitrary #

Y’all didn’t think I was gonna do a thread on IQ & not mention eugenics, did you? Fun fact: Nazis in 1930s Germany saw how many people the US destroyed in our forced sterilization program (made legal by SCOTUS in Buck vs. Bell) & sought our help to form their own eugenics systems

Yet another example of Nazis being inspired by the US (see also: indigenous reservations inspiring Hitler to create concentration camps). The Rockefeller Foundation even funded the eugenics program Mengele went to.

Nazis at Nuremberg even quoted a US Supreme Court Justice as a defense for why they committed eugenocide. Hitler himself wrote a fucking fan letter to a eugenicist calling his book a “bible.” Tbh I need to do a whole thread one day on just how the US contributed to Nazis.

Anyway, forced sterilization programs of intellectually disabled people in the US were pretty much all based on IQ, which we’ve established have too many biases to be accurate. This is just one of many ways IQ testing has had extremely awful effects.

Misc reasons why IQ tests suck:
Scores are not consistent across tests and can vary even within the same test at the same age but also across ages (reliability) and have pretty terrible construct validity.

There’s a phenomenon called the Flynn Effect that shows our society slowly scoring higher on IQ tests over time. Does that mean we’re all getting smarter? Is technology increasing our IQs? Or just that we’re all getting more practice taking the type of test administered for IQs?

There are also varied types of intelligence.
Fluid intelligence is the ability to reason out problems and learn new skills (learning a language, figuring out word problems) vs crystallized intelligence which is an accumulation of facts (your mom’s birthday, the meaning of words)

Fluid intelligence decreases with age after reaching adulthood but crystallized intelligence keeps growing throughout adulthood. IQ tests measure both, but in different sections. People can be fantastic at one section & terrible at another, so their IQ score will be mediocre.

There’s also Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences, where he lists 8 separate categories of intelligence spanning beyond what IQ tests measure. These are linguistic, logical/mathematical, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal, intrapersonal, & naturalist.

Notice how they range well beyond what’s learned in school? Are people who have super high kinesthetic intelligence just stupid because they may not perform well on IQ tests? Tell that to a surgeon giving you a kidney transplant, b/c that doctor is using kinesthetic intelligence.

Here are some sources to read more about this: The Mismeasure of Man, IQ: The Brilliant Idea That Failed, The Black-White Test Score Gap

In summation, if you brag about your IQ score or even worse, put it in your Twitter bio, you’re not only a pompous asshole, but you’re also racist/sexist/ableist and overall generally bigoted.

And to finish off, I leave you with this quote from someone considered one of the most brilliant minds of the 20th century, Stephen Hawking: “People who boast about their IQ are losers.”