Are High IQ People More Successful?

Is success all about how smart you are? Researchers have long been interested in understanding whether IQ, which is often used as a measure of cognitive ability, determines whether a person is successful in life. We often just assume that the smarter a person is, the more successful they will be. From Jay Gatsby in "The Great Gatsby" to Steve Jobs of Apple, people often associate success with intelligence.

However, evidence suggests that a high IQ is hardly a guarantee of financial, academic, or creative success in the real world.

Keep reading to learn whether having a genius-level IQ gives people an edge in life and what other factors might determine life outcomes.

What IQ Tests Measure

The very first IQ tests were designed to identify schoolchildren who needed extra academic help. Over time, that intention changed, and the tests became a means of identifying people with higher-than-average intelligence.

Limitations of IQ Tests

It is important to remember that IQ testing has both limitations and biases. IQ tests only measure a specific range of mental abilities, but not all experts agree on a standard definition of intelligence. 

Some tests may be more reliable than others, but it is also possible that IQ scores can change over time. Many factors can affect IQ test scores, including access to education, cultural factors, overall health, and nutrition.

What tests often miss are other skills that contribute to intelligence, such as emotional understanding and interpersonal abilities.

Characteristics of High IQ People

Highly intelligent people are sometimes easy to recognize, but it is essential to remember that each individual is unique. Intelligence is about more than just IQ, and includes characteristics like flexibility, curiosity, and emotional understanding.

A few characteristics that intelligent people may share include:

• Adaptability: High-IQ people are flexible and willing to try new things and explore different ways of approaching a problem.
• Curiosity: Highly intelligent People are curious about the world and want to learn more about how it works.
• Recognition of limitations: They can also recognize their limitations and admit they don't know the answers. By doing this, they can keep exploring and finding answers.
• Empathy: Intelligent people also tend to be interested in others, including their feelings. They have a lot of emotional intelligence, which means they are skilled at understanding, managing, and expressing emotions.
• Open-minded: People with high IQs are willing to approach problems with an open mind. They enjoy novelty and crave new experiences.
• Solitary: Some research suggests that more intelligent people prefer spending time alone. Researchers found that spending more time with people led to less overall satisfaction with life.

Research on High IQ People

When IQ testing was introduced, researchers examined whether higher test scores were linked to more than just doing well in school. In the early 1920s, psychologist Lewis Terman began investigating the emotional and social development skills of kids with genius IQ scores.

He chose 1,500 children in California between the ages of eight and 12 who had an average IQ of 150. Of these, 80 had scored over 170.

Over many years, Terman tracked the children and found that most were socially and physically well-adjusted. Not only were they academically successful, but they also tended to be healthier, stronger, taller, and less accident-prone than a matched set of children with average IQs.

Intelligence and Achievement

So how did Terman's original participants turn out? When looking at the group as a whole after 35 years of study, Terman reported:

• The subjects' average income in 1955 was $33,000, compared to a national average of $5,000.
• Two-thirds had earned college degrees.
• A large number had gone on to attain post-graduate and professional degrees.
• Many of these had become doctors, lawyers, business executives, and scientists.
• More than 50 became faculty members at colleges and universities.

Still, Terman noted that most pursued more humble occupations, including police officers, sailors, typists and filing clerks. He ultimately concluded that "intelligence and achievement were far from perfectly correlated."

Criticisms of the Terman Study

While such findings are compelling, Terman's results are often criticized for excluding factors that may have contributed to a person’s success or failure.

• Important events such as the Great Depression and World War II may have significantly affected educational attainment.
• Traditional gender roles and sex-based discrimination also severely limited the professional prospects of women.
• Some researchers have suggested that any randomly selected group of children with similar backgrounds would have been just as successful as Terman's original subjects.
• Many others have expressed concern that intelligence tests are generally biased in favor of children of higher socioeconomic status.

Personality Traits, IQ, and Success

Researcher Melita Oden, who carried on Terman's research after his death, decided to compare the 100 most successful subjects from the study (Group A) to the 100 least successful (Group C). While they essentially had the same IQ levels, those in Group C only earned slightly above the average income of the time and had higher rates of alcoholism and divorce than individuals in Group A.

According to Oden, the disparity was explained largely by the groups' psychological characteristics.

Those in Group A tended to exhibit characteristics such as:

• Desire to excel
• Perseverance
• Prudence and forethought
• Willpower

Furthermore, as adults, they exhibited three key traits not seen in most Group C subjects: goal-orientation, self-confidence, and perseverance. This suggests that, while IQ can play a role in life success, personality traits remain the determining factor in realizing that success.

Outcomes for People With High IQ

While a high IQ can't predict success in life, it does reliably predict academic success in school. Research also suggests that high IQ people tend to be more successful at work.

However, in some cases, it may just be the opposite. Some studies have suggested that children with exceptional intelligence may be more prone to depression and social isolation than less-gifted peers. They may need support in these and other areas to perform well at school and work.

Openness to Experience

Research has also found that high IQ people were more likely to smoke marijuana and use illegal drugs. A personality trait known as openness to experience might help explain this connection. This trait is one of the key personality dimensions described in the big 5 theory of personality.

Openness is a trait that essentially removes unconscious barriers that would otherwise prevent a person from experiences considered socially unacceptable. Moreover, it is moderately associated with creativity, intelligence, and knowledge.

So more intelligent people may be more open to unpopular or unconventional experiences. That could lead them to innovation and success, but it might also lead to riskier behaviors such as substance use.

Emotional Intelligence

IQ tests measure general, or cognitive, intelligence. But another indicator of success may be emotional intelligence, or EQ. This is the ability to express and control your emotions and to perceive, evaluate, and react to the emotions of others. People with high EQ are often quite successful in careers and relationships, regardless of their IQ.

Takeaways

While researchers continue to debate Terman's research, most are in agreement about the key finding. While intelligence (or more specifically, an IQ score) may suggest a potential for success, it doesn't guarantee an outcome. Fulfilling that potential requires skills, traits, and support that IQ tests alone can't measure.

Your score on an IQ test can be an interesting way to learn more about some of your cognitive abilities, but it is essential to remember that such tests have significant limitations. And as the research has shown, IQ may predict academic success, but it doesn't necessarily correlate to other life outcomes.