IQ and what it means in adulthood

Does anyone know of any good articles/studies on how well IQ scores in
childhood correlate with success in adulthood, given all the inherent
inaccuracies of the tests? I realise this is a pretty broad topic, but
I know there are some well-informed people here, and the subject has
come up for discussion on someone's blog so I'm interested in finding
out more.


All the best,

Sarah
--
http://www.goodenoughmummy.typepad.com

"That which can be destroyed by the truth, should be" - P. C. Hodgell

Does anyone know of any good articles/studies on how well IQ scores in
childhood correlate with success in adulthood, given all the inherent
inaccuracies of the tests? I realise this is a pretty broad topic, but
I know there are some well-informed people here, and the subject has
come up for discussion on someone's blog so I'm interested in finding
out more.

I'd understood that the correlation was no where near what might be
hoped for, though of course there is the argument that had the high IQ
score been recognised and the child been nurtured correctly then this
wouldn't occur. I'm not sure how well the eleven plus was thought to
correlate with IQ, but it looks like failing that wasn't a barrier to
success for numerous people.

I was recognised as having a high IQ, I was given all the
opportunitites, but officially I'm a failure, I'm a statistic no one
wants to have - but, I chose this outcome, I decided I'd rather be a
mother than fight my way in academia and my husband supported me in
that. I AM A SUCCESS, just not statistically - not all gifted and
talented people want all these things that are defined as success - and
people give us a hard time for it, if you go to an ivy league school,
the message you are given is it's a waste for you to become a teacher
and motherhood his something you consider after you've established your
career. Success is acheiving what you want to acheive.

Sarah - I think you'd struggle to find data that gave a strong
correlation, I suspect there is a weak one, similar to what you get for
number of years education completed against income, but I do question
whether any of the measurements of success have any real value.

Anne

"Anne Rogers" wrote in message
. ..

Does anyone know of any good articles/studies on how well IQ scores in
childhood correlate with success in adulthood, given all the inherent
inaccuracies of the tests? I realise this is a pretty broad topic, but I
know there are some well-informed people here, and the subject has come
up for discussion on someone's blog so I'm interested in finding out
more.

I'd understood that the correlation was no where near what might be hoped
for, though of course there is the argument that had the high IQ score
been recognised and the child been nurtured correctly then this wouldn't
occur. I'm not sure how well the eleven plus was thought to correlate with
IQ, but it looks like failing that wasn't a barrier to success for
numerous people.

I was recognised as having a high IQ, I was given all the opportunitites,
but officially I'm a failure, I'm a statistic no one wants to have - but,
I chose this outcome, I decided I'd rather be a mother than fight my way
in academia and my husband supported me in that. I AM A SUCCESS, just not
statistically - not all gifted and talented people want all these things
that are defined as success - and people give us a hard time for it, if
you go to an ivy league school, the message you are given is it's a waste
for you to become a teacher and motherhood his something you consider
after you've established your career. Success is acheiving what you want
to acheive.

Sarah - I think you'd struggle to find data that gave a strong
correlation, I suspect there is a weak one, similar to what you get for
number of years education completed against income, but I do question
whether any of the measurements of success have any real value.

I agree 100%-I'm another high IQ person who would be considered a failure.
Throughout life, I loved young children, loved spending time with them, and
heard "You're too smart to teach". I finally, in grad school, burned out on
my field, and got my teaching license-and loved teaching.

Then,I had a baby, and have focused most of my life on teaching one
child-mine, although I do keep my adjunct status at the university by
teaching some demonstration classes (which also fulfills my "kid fix"
needs).

My totally uninformed guess is that you'll probably find more "successes" in
the second band of IQ-the high achievers for whom things were easy in
school, but who weren't "out there" to the point of being misfits. Most of
the people I know who were the super high IQ kids who never quite fit in at
school intellectually learned how to find their own way and provide their
own intellectual stimulation and education early on, and in adulthood tend
to have followed a road to what they love and enjoy, not what is most
publically or financially viable. I know a lot of high IQ former "nerds" who
excelled in college and grad school who are now SAHMs, playgroup leaders, La
Leche leaders, and teachers. On the male side, a lot of them seem to have
drifted into positions where they can do what they want, but which may or
may not ever be noticed. They don't want to be the CTO of a company-they
want to be the researcher who tries out new products or troubleshoots the
hard problems, then drifts back into obscurity. And in general, these people
are happier than those who have made more of a success as the world sees it.


Anne

Anne Rogers wrote:


Sarah - I think you'd struggle to find data that gave a strong
correlation, I suspect there is a weak one, similar to what you get for
number of years education completed against income, but I do question
whether any of the measurements of success have any real value.

Not struggling to find anything - just genuinely interested in what the
evidence actually does show (or whether such evidence exists!)

After writing the OP, I thought of checking Wikipedia, which actually
has a useful summary of what I was after - apparently IQ correlates
highly with job performance, moderately with income, and not at all with
subjective self-reports of happiness. So there we have it. ;-)


All the best,

Sarah
--
http://www.goodenoughmummy.typepad.com

"That which can be destroyed by the truth, should be" - P. C. Hodgell

In article , Donna Metler says...


"Anne Rogers" wrote in message
...

Does anyone know of any good articles/studies on how well IQ scores in
childhood correlate with success in adulthood, given all the inherent
inaccuracies of the tests? I realise this is a pretty broad topic, but I
know there are some well-informed people here, and the subject has come
up for discussion on someone's blog so I'm interested in finding out
more.

I'd understood that the correlation was no where near what might be hoped
for, though of course there is the argument that had the high IQ score
been recognised and the child been nurtured correctly then this wouldn't
occur. I'm not sure how well the eleven plus was thought to correlate with
IQ, but it looks like failing that wasn't a barrier to success for
numerous people.

I was recognised as having a high IQ, I was given all the opportunitites,
but officially I'm a failure, I'm a statistic no one wants to have - but,
I chose this outcome, I decided I'd rather be a mother than fight my way
in academia and my husband supported me in that. I AM A SUCCESS, just not
statistically - not all gifted and talented people want all these things
that are defined as success - and people give us a hard time for it, if
you go to an ivy league school, the message you are given is it's a waste
for you to become a teacher and motherhood his something you consider
after you've established your career. Success is acheiving what you want
to acheive.

Sarah - I think you'd struggle to find data that gave a strong
correlation, I suspect there is a weak one, similar to what you get for
number of years education completed against income, but I do question
whether any of the measurements of success have any real value.

I agree 100%-I'm another high IQ person who would be considered a failure.
Throughout life, I loved young children, loved spending time with them, and
heard "You're too smart to teach". I finally, in grad school, burned out on
my field, and got my teaching license-and loved teaching.

Then,I had a baby, and have focused most of my life on teaching one
child-mine, although I do keep my adjunct status at the university by
teaching some demonstration classes (which also fulfills my "kid fix"
needs).

My totally uninformed guess is that you'll probably find more "successes" in
the second band of IQ-the high achievers for whom things were easy in
school, but who weren't "out there" to the point of being misfits. Most of
the people I know who were the super high IQ kids who never quite fit in at
school intellectually learned how to find their own way and provide their
own intellectual stimulation and education early on, and in adulthood tend
to have followed a road to what they love and enjoy, not what is most
publically or financially viable. I know a lot of high IQ former "nerds" who
excelled in college and grad school who are now SAHMs, playgroup leaders, La
Leche leaders, and teachers. On the male side, a lot of them seem to have
drifted into positions where they can do what they want, but which may or
may not ever be noticed. They don't want to be the CTO of a company-they
want to be the researcher who tries out new products or troubleshoots the
hard problems, then drifts back into obscurity. And in general, these people
are happier than those who have made more of a success as the world sees it.


Exactly.

I've seen stats saying that, after a certain point, IQ correlates with less
success, in articles with all kinds of conjecture about how perhaps expectations
are too high, burnout, not socially adjusted, or "EQ" ("emotional quotient") may
tend to be low, yadda yadda.

I've always thought that being smart to the degree of ignoring social
conventions had more to do with that. Like the math whiz who works as a school
custodian, submitting papers to mathematical journals (may be apocryphal story
though ...). He's figure out how to do exactly what he wants, away from
academic and other pressures, and considers his other needs minimal and meets
those. That's success.

Banty

Banty wrote:

I've always thought that being smart to the degree of ignoring social
conventions had more to do with that. Like the math whiz who works as a school
custodian, submitting papers to mathematical journals (may be apocryphal story
though ...).

Heh - I thought that was the plot of 'Good Will Hunting'? ;-)

Anyway, it would probably help if I gave the context here - the debate
was about the studies showing a correlation between breastfeeding and
increased IQ, and - if that association is real and not due to a
confounder - what it means in practice. I must say I was never terribly
impressed by the kind of numbers I was hearing - in the studies being
discussed, the average difference was seven IQ points, which just didn't
really sound like that much in practice to me. But the question came
up, and it got me wondering whether I was right about that or not.


All the best,

Sarah
--
http://www.goodenoughmummy.typepad.com

"That which can be destroyed by the truth, should be" - P. C. Hodgell

Sarah Vaughan wrote:
Banty wrote:

I've always thought that being smart to the degree of ignoring social
conventions had more to do with that. Like the math whiz who works as
a school
custodian, submitting papers to mathematical journals (may be
apocryphal story
though ...).

Heh - I thought that was the plot of 'Good Will Hunting'? ;-)

Anyway, it would probably help if I gave the context here - the debate
was about the studies showing a correlation between breastfeeding and
increased IQ, and - if that association is real and not due to a
confounder - what it means in practice. I must say I was never terribly
impressed by the kind of numbers I was hearing - in the studies being
discussed, the average difference was seven IQ points, which just didn't
really sound like that much in practice to me. But the question came
up, and it got me wondering whether I was right about that or not.

The studies on IQ and "success" are very mixed, and
depend a lot of what you mean by "success." I think the
important part about the breastfeeding studies is not so
much whether it will make a difference between becoming a
lawyer vs. some other job seen as "less successful," but
that it indicates an effect on brain development that
may have other implications. Taken together, my impression
of the literature on the benefits of breastfeeding is that
it seems to say that while the differences aren't huge, they
argue for the potential for a rather significant effect at
the margins--the kids who are at risk of assorted issues
and might otherwise have noticeable deficits if not for
the little bump from breastfeeding.

Best wishes,
Ericka

In article , Sarah Vaughan says...

Banty wrote:

I've always thought that being smart to the degree of ignoring social
conventions had more to do with that. Like the math whiz who works as a school
custodian, submitting papers to mathematical journals (may be apocryphal story
though ...).

Heh - I thought that was the plot of 'Good Will Hunting'? ;-)

Yeah - but I heard of that before 'Good Will Hunting', and it was an older
person who had made his whole life that way..

Banty

Anne Rogers wrote:

Does anyone know of any good articles/studies on how well IQ scores in
childhood correlate with success in adulthood, given all the inherent
inaccuracies of the tests? I realise this is a pretty broad topic,
but I know there are some well-informed people here, and the subject
has come up for discussion on someone's blog so I'm interested in
finding out more.

I'd understood that the correlation was no where near what might be
hoped for, though of course there is the argument that had the high IQ
score been recognised and the child been nurtured correctly then this
wouldn't occur. I'm not sure how well the eleven plus was thought to
correlate with IQ, but it looks like failing that wasn't a barrier to
success for numerous people.
[snip]

These days, in our area, the 11+ measures "verbal reasoning" rather then IQ.

--
Penny Gaines
UK mum to three

Sarah Vaughan wrote:
Banty wrote:

I've always thought that being smart to the degree of ignoring social
conventions had more to do with that. Like the math whiz who works as
a school
custodian, submitting papers to mathematical journals (may be
apocryphal story
though ...).

Heh - I thought that was the plot of 'Good Will Hunting'? ;-)

Anyway, it would probably help if I gave the context here - the debate
was about the studies showing a correlation between breastfeeding and
increased IQ, and - if that association is real and not due to a
confounder - what it means in practice. I must say I was never terribly
impressed by the kind of numbers I was hearing - in the studies being
discussed, the average difference was seven IQ points, which just didn't
really sound like that much in practice to me. But the question came
up, and it got me wondering whether I was right about that or not.

By practising, you can increase your IQ score in tests by about 5 points
(or so I've read).

The difference between average score and (average plus seven) score is
probably significant, compared to the difference between high score
and (high plus seven) score.

--
Penny Gaines
UK mum to three