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High IQs are associated with mental and physical disorders

scientificamerican.com

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Re: High IQs are associated with mental and physical disorders

#21

Post by float4 »

davidbanham wrote: post #12
jw1224 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am normal, healthy, and a Mensa member. What exactly do you mean by that?

My contention would be that many (not all) people are drawn to Mensa because they have difficulty forming relationships in mainstream society. I’d suggest it’s this trait that correlates with mental and physical disorders.

The Dutch Mensa site[0] has the following bullet points in a "high IQ checklist":

- [...]

- Do you often fit poorly into a group?

- Do you sometimes feel desperate due to all those slow people around you?

- [...]

I think that says a lot.

[0] https://www.mensa.nl/hoogbegaafdheid

Re: High IQs are associated with mental and physical disorders

#22

Post by tomcam »

lima wrote: post #9
ndiscussion wrote: post #2

This is a survey of people who joined MENSA. I would posit that most normal, healthy, high-IQ folks never bother, and there's a selection bias at play.

Yes. It's a weird bunch (not in a bad way!). I went to their meetings a couple times by invitation, and it never really "clicked" - for many of their members, their MENSA membership and related activities are a big part of their identity and their life, and I wasn't able to connect. I heard the same thing from a couple of friends who also met their entrance criteria, and there's certainly a lot of selection bias. Whi…

I joined at a young age and after a couple of meetings realized it made no sense at all to me. Joining a club because you have a high IQ is like joining a club because you have a leg or a head. I think immutable attributes in general just aren’t enough to hold a group together, or at least make it interesting. Could be wrong on this one, though.

Re: High IQs are associated with mental and physical disorders

#23

Post by josefresco »

jw1224 wrote: post #4
ndiscussion wrote: post #2

This is a survey of people who joined MENSA. I would posit that most normal, healthy, high-IQ folks never bother, and there's a selection bias at play.

I am normal, healthy, and a Mensa member. What exactly do you mean by that?

The only person I know in Mensa used it in his resume which always grossed me out.

Re: High IQs are associated with mental and physical disorders

#25

Post by rory »

mamon wrote: post #17
Foobar8568 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Moreover, you don't even need to pass an IQ test to join MENSA US. https://www.us.mensa.org/join/testscores/

What I find interesting on that page is that the more recent (past 2-3 decades) college preparatory tests (e.g. SAT) are not accepted as substitutes to IQ tests. Shows the trend of dumbing down the tests, I guess.

That is odd. If the tests were simply dumbed down, wouldn't Mensa just raise the required score? The implication is that these tests have become less IQ-correlated. I'd be interested to see a comparison in the type of questions from the 70s vs today.

Re: High IQs are associated with mental and physical disorders

#26

Post by 11thEarlOfMar »

Long, long ago, I came to the conclusion that intelligence was inversely related to sanity. Not a scientific observation, just that people who I knew who were very smart also tended to have difficulties in more ways than the people I knew who had typical intelligence. Typical issues were depression, insecurity, difficulty relating or communicating with others, ... Certainly you can find people with these issues in all groups who have these attributes, and certainly there were many very intelligent persons who had their shit together, but issues seemed to be more common among the very intelligent persons.

Re: High IQs are associated with mental and physical disorders

#27

Post by gugagore »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #18
Foobar8568 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Moreover, you don't even need to pass an IQ test to join MENSA US. https://www.us.mensa.org/join/testscores/

I struggle to see how a list of accepted IQ tests supports the idea that you don't need to pass an IQ test to join.

There are other tests that qualify you for membership, it appears.

Re: High IQs are associated with mental and physical disorders

#28

Post by Consultant32452 »

rory wrote: post #5

> It’s also possible that people who join Mensa differ from other people in ways other than just IQ. For example, people preoccupied with intellectual pursuits may spend less time than the average person on physical exercise and social interaction, both of which have been shown to have broad benefits for psychological and physical health. Is Mensa really an "intellectual pursuit"? I'm not sure exactly what Mensa does…

My limited experience with Mensa is that it's a social/dating club for high IQ people. It's been too long for me to remember the details, but I recall reading about studies that suggest relationships where IQs are too far apart (more than 5-10pts) have a high failure rate. If you're more than a standard deviation from the mean, it probably makes sense to have a special dating circle if you're looking for a long term partner.

Re: High IQs are associated with mental and physical disorders

#29

Post by Mountain_Skies »

rory wrote: post #5

> It’s also possible that people who join Mensa differ from other people in ways other than just IQ. For example, people preoccupied with intellectual pursuits may spend less time than the average person on physical exercise and social interaction, both of which have been shown to have broad benefits for psychological and physical health. Is Mensa really an "intellectual pursuit"? I'm not sure exactly what Mensa does…

I joined to have something to put on my otherwise bare resume coming out of university. Never renewed my membership. Their magazine was better than I expected but the local newsletter didn't inspire me to actually show up at any meetings. From the few other Mensa members I've met, it seemed like they were active members in order to be able to socialize with people who were of "birds of a feather" so to speak rather than out of an insecurity but this is from a rather small sample size of maybe seven or eight people.

Re: High IQs are associated with mental and physical disorders

#30

Post by desireco42 »

rory wrote: post #5

> It’s also possible that people who join Mensa differ from other people in ways other than just IQ. For example, people preoccupied with intellectual pursuits may spend less time than the average person on physical exercise and social interaction, both of which have been shown to have broad benefits for psychological and physical health. Is Mensa really an "intellectual pursuit"? I'm not sure exactly what Mensa does…

You are saying that only because they didn't accept you there :)
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