Can IQ's Above 120 Make a Difference?

The Late-20th-Century Backlash Against IQ's and IQ Testing
    During the last third of the last century, a powerful backlash developed against the concept of IQ and IQ testing. The 1960's were the era of flower children, of the Great Society, of Project Headstart, and of great optimism concerning the elevation of disadvantaged children's IQ's through early intervention. The average IQ of African-American children (and adults) had chronically lagged the average IQ's of other ethnic or "racial" groups by about one standard deviation, but new intervention programs would (it was thought)  redress their shortcomings and would elevate their average IQ to a level approximating parity with their Caucasian counterparts. Their paracletes in this enterprise were the intelligentsia who, with a strong sense of fair play, wanted to see it come out this way. It didn't. The intensive intervention programs designed to boost IQ's through environmental stimulation produced virtually no lasting results.
    In 1969, Dr. Arthur Jensen suggested that the racial gap between "black" and "white" could possibly be genetically based. A firestorm of denunciation and organized heckling followed. In the meantime, parents were becoming more militant and litigious. One set of parents sued the California school system to allow their... intellectually challenged?... child to be mainstreamed with other students rather than placed in a "slow learners" class. They won their suit. (We have friends whose Downs-syndrome child graduated from our city's leading high school. He's unable to function as an independent adult, and lives with his parents, working at low-level jobs.)
    In the meantime, a number of studies were conducted
(1) to investigate the childhood histories of our outstanding intellectual contributors; and
(2) to examine the adult accomplishments of children with varying degrees of childhood precocity.
    These results of these studies were shocking, and agreed with each other that above an IQ of about 120, there was little difference in real-world productivity between those with IQ's averaging, 125 and those with IQ's averaging 165. Ex-Quiz-Kid Ruth Duskin Feldman, one of four Quiz Kids whose childhood IQ's exceeded 200, says in her book "Whatever Happened to the Quiz Kids",
     "An important study on the ingredients of success is under way at the University of Chicago. There were no child prodigies among the one hundred world-renowned mathematicians, concert pianists, Olympic swimmers and tennis players under age 35 whose histories have been dissected by Professor Benjamin S. Bloom's researchers. In fact, few of these topflight achievers stood out as unusually gifted at the age of 5 or even 10. Some did not show as much ability as siblings who started with similar parental encouragement and early training. One thing that made the difference was motivation; an all-consuming will to excel. Fired by recognition and fueled by expert coaching, these young people concentrated on developing their talents, often to the exclusion of social life and other activities. Similarly, among the Terman group, the top achievers were those who, from childhood on, evinced noticeable drive, ambition, initiative, independence and persistence. Those who chose a vocation rather than drifting into one.
    Ms. Feldman wrote this in 1982, but similar studies have shown similar results. Child prodigies generally go on to good jobs and productive lives, but they do no better than other above-average adults. Grady Towers also reviews this topic with his usual aplomb in "The Empty Promise". Grady quotes Arthur Jensen's "Bias in Mental Testing" , 1980, p. 113,
"    'The four socially and personally most important threshold regions on the IQ scale are those that differentiate with high probability between persons who, because of their level of general mental ability, can or cannot attend a regular school (about IQ 50), can or cannot master the traditional subject matter of elementary school (about IQ 75), can or cannot succeed in the academic or college preparatory curriculum through high school (about IQ 105), can or cannot graduate from an accredited four-year college with grades that would qualify for admission to a professional or graduate school (about IQ 115). beyond this, the IQ level becomes relatively unimportant in terms of ordinary occupational aspirations and criteria of success. That is not to say that there are not real differences between the intellectual capabilities represented by IQs of 115 and 150 or even between IQs of 150 and 180. But IQ differences in this upper part of the scale have far less personal implications than the thresholds just described and are generally of lesser importance for success in the popular sense than are certain traits of personality and character.
    'The social implications of exceptionally high ability and its interaction with the other factors that make for unusual achievements are considerably greater than the personal implications. The quality of a society's culture is highly determined by the very small fraction of its population that is most exceptionally endowed. The growth of civilization, the development of written language and of mathematics, the great religious and philosophic insights, scientific discoveries, practical inventions, industrial developments, advancements in legal and political systems, and the world's masterpieces of literature, architecture, music and painting, it seems safe to say, are attributable to a rare small proportion of the human population throughout history who undoubtedly possessed, in addition to other important qualities of talent, energy, and imagination, a high level of the essential mental ability measured by tests of intelligence.'
Grady continues,

    "Jensen's reference to the social implications of exceptionally high IQs suggests that intellectual achievements on an historical scale will be made only by those of very rare ability indeed. Can we find such achievements and measure the IQs of those who made them? Indeed we can. In fact, it's already been done. In the early 1950s, Doctor Anne Roe wrote a book titled The Making of a Scientist (Greenwood Press, Westport Conn, 1973) in which she investigated the biographies, personalities, and intellectual abilities of 64 of America's most eminent living scientists, some of whom were Nobel Prize winners. She found the average verbal IQ of this very eminent group to be 166 (p. 164). These scientists comprise the only research group I've come across whose intellectual abilities resemble those of the Four Sigma Society.

CODA

    "If IQs above 140 have little importance for personal achievement, what then is left for us? Jensen says, "The evidence is overwhelming that scholastic achievement increases linearly as a function of IQ throughout the entire range of the IQ scale..." (Bias in Mental Testing, p. 319). In other words, what's left for us is knowledge. We are the ones who learn, who understand, who discover, and who invent. That should be ample challenge for any of us."

   (Thus, Grady on the role of the ultra-intelligent.)


Profound Changes as the IQ goes from 75 to 125:
    However, there is another side to this story. As the IQ goes from 75 to 125, there are the most momentous changes in mental capability, learning speed, and socioeconomic status, as is discussed below:
    For IQs below 120, IQ is the best predictor of socioeconomic status of any psychometric measurement. In more complex jobs, IQ is better than even education or experience at predicting job performance. In her article "The General Intelligence Factor", Scientific American Presents "Exploring Intelligence", pg. 24, 1999, Linda Gottfredson states,
    "Adults in the bottom 5% of the IQ distribution (below 75) are very difficult to train and are not competitive for any occupation on the basis of ability. Serious problems in training low-IQ military recruits during World War II led Congress to ban enlistment from the lowest 10% (below 80) of the population, and no civilian occupation in modern economies routinely recruits its workers from that below-80 range. Current military enlistment standards exclude any individual whose IQ is below about 85."
    "Persons of average IQ (between 90 and 100) are not competitive for most professional and executive-level work but are easily trained for the bulk of jobs in the American economy. By contrast, individuals in the top 5 percent of the adult population can essentially train themselves, and few occupations are beyond their reach mentally."
    "People with IQs between 75 and 90 are 88 times more likely to drop out of high school, seven times more likely to be jailed, and five times more likely as adults to live in poverty than people with IQs between 110 and 125. The 75-to-90 IQ woman is eight times more likely to become a chronic welfare recipient, and four times as likely to bear an illegitimate child than the 110-to-125-IQ woman."
    In his book, "Straight Talk About Mental Tests", The Free Press, A Division of the Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., New York, 1981, pg. 12, Dr. Arthur Jensen cites the following four IQ thresholds:
(1) An IQ of 50 or below. This is the threshold below which most adults cannot cope outside of an institution. They can typically be taught to read at a 3rd or 4th grade level. However, they cannot normally function in the customary classroom setting, and they require special training programs.
(2) An IQ between 50 and 75. At this level of intelligence, they generally cannot complete elementary school. Most adults will need smarter help in coping with the world.
(3) An IQ between 75 and 105. Children in this IQ range are not generally able to complete a college prep course in high school.
(4) An IQ between 105 and 115. May graduate from college but generally, not with grades that would qualify them for graduate school.
(5) An IQ above 115. No restrictions.
    For IQs in these ranges, the influence of IQ upon socioeconomic status is dramatic. 31% of those with IQs below 75 were on welfare, compared with 8% of those in the 90 to 110 IQ interval, and 0% in those with IQs above 125. 55% of mothers with IQs below 75 went on welfare after the birth of the first child, compared with 12% of those with IQs between 90 and 110, and 1% of those with IQs above 125. Income is highly dependent upon IQ up to an IQ-level of about 125.

Table 1 - Practical Significance of IQ
IQ Range
Frequency
Cumulative
Frequency
Typical Educability
Employment
Options
Below 30
>1%
 >1% below 30 Illiterate Unemployable. Institutionalized.
30 to 50
>1%?
 >1% below 50 1st-Grade to 3rd-Grade Simple, non-critical household chores.
50 to 60
~1%?
 1.5% below 60 3rd-Grade to 6th-grade Very simple tasks, close supervision.
60 to 74
3.5%?
 5% below 74 6th-Grade to 8th-Grade "Slow, simple, supervised."
74 to 89
20%
 25% below 89 8th-Grade to 12th-Grade Assembler, food service, nurse's aide
89 to 100
25%
 50% below 100 8th-Grade to 1-2 years of College. Clerk, teller, Walmart
100 to 111
50%
 1 in 2 above 100 12th-Grade to College Degree Police officer, machinist, sales
111 to 120
15%
 1 in 4 above 111 College to Master's Level Manager, teacher, accountant
120 to 125
5%
 11 in 10 above 120 College to Non-Technical Ph. D.'s. Manager, professor, accountant
125 to 132
3%
 1 in 20 above 125 Any Ph. D. at 3rd-Tier Schools Attorney, editor, executive.
132 to 137
1%
 1 in 50 above 132 No limitations. Eminent professor, editor
137 to 150
0.9%
 1 in 100 above 137 No limitations. Leading math, physics professor
150 to 160
0.1%
 1 in 1,100 above 150 No limitations Lincoln, Copernicus, Jefferson
160 to 174
0.01%
 1 in 11,000 above 160 No limitations Descartes, Einstein, Spinoza
174 to 200
0.0099%
 1 in 1,000,000
above 174		 No limitations Shakespeare, Goethe, Newton

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So Why Don't IQ's Above 120 Affect Life Outcomes?
    If there are the most profound changes in life outcomes as IQ goes from 75 to 125, why aren't there comparable changes as IQ goes from 125 to 160? (I'm using 160 because a deviation IQ of 160 corresponds to a ratio IQ of about 175, and because I believe that ratio-IQ's are more meaningful than deviation-IQ's in measuring absolute capability.) That's a very good question. I believe it's half past time someone tried to learn the answers to the questions:

(1)  Why don't our very-bright fare significantly better in the world than our merely-bright?
(2)  And taking the next step, what techniques can we devise to draw the best out of our brightest?

    I think that research studies are indicated to explore these two related conundrums. It's a matter of observation that  as IQ rises from 125 to a (deviation) IQ of 160, capabilities rise as much as they do in going from an IQ of 75 to an IQ of 125. Society may not demand an IQ higher than 125 to cope, but someone with an IQ of 160 is probably potentially capable of contributing a lot more than someone with an IQ of 125.
    Kindred studies that, I should think, would be useful (if they haven't already been conducted) are measurements of the ways that various capabilities rise with IQ in absolute terms. For example, how does total recognition vocabulary scale with IQ? How about verbal fluency? How do problem solving speeds vary with IQ? How about learning speeds?
    I can hazard some guesses that might or might not be applicable.
(1)  No consistent effort is made to identify and encourage either our brightest students or our brightest adults. We will go all-out to encourage potential ball-players, dancers, musicians, and artists, even to the point of giving them special lessons, but we often ignore our smartest, and most relevant individuals.
(2)  Our brightest children, with IQ's above 160, tend to be far enough beyond their age peers that they really can't relate to them. They're often persecuted by other (envious) children who resent the special attention they receive from teachers.
(3)  Many of these children are bored out of their gourds in lock-stepped school systems. They may learn poor study habits or no study habits at all. Self-discipline can be a problem.
(4)  During the crucial teenage watershed, many of these ultra-bright children (especially girls) try to blend in with their age peers, and drop away from the educational exposure and coaching that they most need at this age.
(5)  If the child does pass all the wickets, he or she is commonly tossed into the retrace with everyone else. There are no job titles  in our world that legitimatize the production of great creative oeuvres or of works of genius. To the extent that lip service is paid to reputation enhancing great works, an outstanding set of credentials (e. g., an Ivy League Ph. D,. plus a splashy set of publications and awards) is the key to positions that are intended to foster great works. Building a reputation can be as much, or more a matter of concentrating on reputation-crafting as it can upon actual accomplishment. (I know faculty members whose sole goal is to fabricate their reputations through politics and meaningless publications. Their management doesn't know enough in their fields to separate window-dressing from real achievements.) Beyond that, most modern parents and spouses are totally busied out during their working and childbearing years if they live as society expects. If our hyperbright subscribe to the hyperactive lifestyles of their agape's, they'll have no time or opportunity to tackle the problems and projects for which they're uniquely qualified. Assigned to tasks that are far beneath their capabilities at work, and oversubscribed at home, they are like supercomputers running payroll or inventory programs. And as far as shining  through on their jobs, in the world of realpolitik, it's not what you know...  (In my experience, a lot of our brightest are computer gurus. They're great at this, but they're also wasted.)

   Of course, there could be other causative factors. I can have my opinions, but in the end, I think this anomaly needs to be investigated.
 
    In the meantime, I think this is a dangerous situation. If you were a famous ivy league psychometrist with an IQ of 130, what would you say about the results of these studies that show that above an IQ of 120, it's personality characteristics and creativity that determines who makes the major contributions to the world rather than IQ? Would you be apt to say, "Why should we invest special funding and attention in super-smart kids when they're not going to contribute anymore to society than the rest of us? So these super-brains know more big words than us. Big deal! They tend to be swell-headed about their intellects, anyway, when it has no practical significance whatsoever. Give me a team player any day. They're players who strut and fret their hours upon the stage, and then are heard no more. Now that we know they're no more productive than anybody else, we need to focus our attention and our money on socially-adjusted, hard-working kids with the drive to succeed."
    I think the hyperbright are lucky that this attitude and these research results haven't permeated everywhere. I think something needs to be done to counter these conclusions. But at the moment, the score is 1 to 0 in favor of those who argue that IQ confers little or no real-world advantages once the IQ exceeds 120.