I Took an IQ Test

Summary

The video explores the concept of IQ and its relevance in measuring intelligence. The creator, Mahady Hasan, delves into the history of IQ tests, starting with Spearman's discovery of the correlation between students' performances across subjects, leading to the concept of the G Factor. The idea of mental age and IQ was introduced by Binet and Simon, and standardized by Lewis Terman in the US with the Stanford-Binet test. The video further discusses modern developments in IQ testing, aiming to measure the G Factor by averaging different mental capabilities. Hasan questions the accuracy of online IQ tests but embarks on his personal journey to take a legitimate IQ test, questioning if intelligence is a fixed trait or can be trained.

Highlights

• The term IQ is commonly used but often misinterpreted. 🔢
• Spearman introduced the G Factor to explain correlated academic performances. 📜
• Binet and Simon created the original IQ test to identify students needing extra help. 🏫
• The Stanford-Binet test was a major step in standardizing IQ in America. 🎓
• Today's IQ tests focus on averaging multiple cognitive skills while minimizing errors. 🎯
• Mahady Hasan skeptically tries online IQ tests before taking an official one. 🤷‍♂️
• The debate over the trainability of intelligence continues. ⚖️

Key Takeaways

• IQ is often misunderstood as a definitive measure of intelligence. 🤔
• Charles Spearman's 'G Factor' links performance across various subjects. 📚
• Binet and Simon developed the first IQ test to help struggling students. 🇫🇷
• The Stanford-Binet test further standardized IQ measurement in the US. 🇺🇸
• Modern IQ tests aim to average different cognitive abilities. 🧠
• Mahady Hasan questions the accuracy of online IQ tests. 💻
• Is intelligence fixed or can it be trained? Hasan seeks answers. 🔍

Overview

The term 'IQ' is everywhere, often used as shorthand for intelligence, but do we truly understand what it measures? Mahady Hasan tackles this question head-on, diving into the origins of IQ tests and their evolution over time. He highlights Charles Spearman's G Factor theory, which posits that general intelligence influences all areas of academia.

Hasan recounts how Alfred Binet and Theodore Simon developed the first practical IQ test to discern students needing special education attention. This set the stage for further studies, leading Lewis Terman to adapt it into the Stanford-Binet test in the US, offering a standardized measure that could be used broadly.

Despite advancements, Hasan remains skeptical about online IQ tests' efficacy, seeking to take a legitimate test to determine his own IQ. He delves into the ongoing debate: Is intelligence an innate trait, or can it be cultivated through training? His upcoming test might offer personal insights into this age-old question.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction to IQ The chapter begins with a discussion on the ubiquity of IQ tests in popular culture. The narrator mentions various settings where IQ scores are referenced, including exams, online discussions, and social media. It highlights a common theme: people often associate IQ with intelligence and believe it to be a precise measure of intellectual capacity. However, the chapter prompts a critical question about the validity of IQ as a genuine indicator of intelligence. The narrator expresses a intent to explore the origins of the IQ test and its efficacy in the following discussion.
• 00:30 - 01:00: Origin of IQ Tests The chapter titled 'Origin of IQ Tests' discusses the purpose and predictive power of IQ tests in a person's life. It includes a personal reflection from someone who hasn't taken an official IQ test, questioning their own intelligence and considering themselves slightly above average. There is skepticism expressed about the accuracy of online IQ tests.
• 01:00 - 02:00: Early Research on Intelligence The chapter starts with the narrator discussing the plan to take a real IQ test the following day, with an intention to improve their score through practice tests. The narrator expresses belief in the trainability of these tests, planning to verify this in the upcoming real test. The chapter then shifts to a brief history of intelligence testing, noting that although the concept has existed for centuries, a significant development occurred in 1904 with English psychologist Charles spearheading a notable advancement.
• 02:00 - 03:00: Spearman's G Factor Theory Spearman explored the relationship between students' grades in various subjects. He speculated whether doing well in one subject, like math, might result in poorer performance in another, like English, perhaps due to time allocation. This suggested a negative correlation between subjects.
• 03:00 - 04:00: Subject-Specific Intelligence The chapter titled 'Subject-Specific Intelligence' discusses the idea of correlation between students' performances across different subjects. It presents three hypotheses: performance in one subject being unrelated to another due to different skill sets, performance in one subject being negatively correlated to another, and performance in one subject being positively correlated to another. The analysis conducted by Spearman revealed a positive correlation where students who excelled in math also tended to perform well in English.
• 04:00 - 05:00: Development of Binet-Simon Test The chapter titled 'Development of Binet-Simon Test' discusses the work of Spearman and his observations regarding student performance in various subjects. Spearman found that students who performed well in one subject tended to perform well across all subjects, including Classics and French, as well as Math and English. This led him to propose the existence of a 'G Factor,' or general intelligence, which he believed explained this pattern of performance across different disciplines.
• 05:00 - 06:00: Introduction of Stanford-Binet Test The chapter introduces the Stanford-Binet Test by discussing the construct it was meant to capture, which is essentially the ability of students to quickly learn, recognize patterns, and think critically across various subjects. This capacity is why student scores tend to be correlated across different subjects. Those with a high general intelligence (G score) perform well across all subjects, while those with a low G score do poorly. Spearman's research plays a key role in these findings, as he published his conclusions in a paper that objectively determined and measured general intelligence.
• 06:00 - 07:00: Evolution of IQ Testing The chapter titled 'Evolution of IQ Testing' discusses Spearman's concept of general intelligence, also known as the G Factor, alongside subject-specific factors (S factors). Spearman suggested that while a student's performance in a particular subject, like math, depended on their general intelligence and subject-specific ability, the specific factors could be improved through training. However, he believed that general intelligence was fixed, prompting him to seek a reliable method to measure it.

I Took an IQ Test Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 in popular culture the term IQ is everywhere do IQ exams do that you probably need 120 points of IQ don't know my IQ IQ IQ IQ low IQ individual people who post about their IQ are losers when people say IQ what they mean is intelligence an objective rigorous measurement of intellectual ability but does it actually work well in this video I want to find out where where IQ came
• 00:30 - 01:00 from what does it actually measure what can it predict about your life and I guess what is my IQ I have never taken an official IQ test before honestly I don't think I'm terribly smart I've always kind of considered my IQ to be maybe just a little above average exothermic or endothermic I feel like that should be exothermic good job Science Guy there are a lot of IQ tests online but I am very skeptical about their accuracy
• 01:00 - 01:30 still I figured some of them may be good practice for the real thing tomorrow I'm going to do an IQ test for real before I do that I want to try to improve my score and so I'm going to try to do a whole bunch of practice tests I think this test is trainable but tomorrow we're going to see whether that's true or not the idea of intelligence testing goes back hundreds of years but the first concrete breakthrough occurred in 1904 English psychologist Charles
• 01:30 - 02:00 Spearman was studying students grades in different subjects and he wondered how their performance in one subject like English would relate to their performance in another like math one option would be that the better a student did in math the worse they would do in English maybe because they spent more time on their math work and so had less time to devote to English so performance in different subjects would be negatively correlated another option was that performance in one subject
• 02:00 - 02:30 would be completely unrelated to Performance in another after all different subjects require different skill sets so maybe Marx would be totally uncorrelated the third option was that the better a student did in math the better they would do in English in other words their marks would be positively correlated when Spearman analyzed his data he found a clear positive correlation students who did better in math also tended to do better in English
• 02:30 - 03:00 and the correlation coefficient was 64 but math and English weren't the only subjects the student studied they also took Classics and French and when Spearman looked at the correlations between all of these subjects he found the same pattern students who did well in one subject tended to do well in them all so how do you explain this observation well Spearman proposed that each person has some level of general intelligence what he called the G Factor
• 03:00 - 03:30 this construct was meant to capture how quickly students could learn new material recognize patterns and think critically regardless of the subject matter which explains why student scores across subjects are correlated those with high G score well on all subjects and those with low G score poorly on all subjects Spearman published his conclusions in a paper titled general intelligence objectively determined and measured but the course relations
• 03:30 - 04:00 weren't perfect so on top of the G Factor Spearman proposed subject specific factors or S factors a student's performance in math for example would depend on their general intelligence plus their subject specific factor for math subject specific factors could increase or decrease performance on that particular subject Spearman believed that specific factors could be trained but general intelligence was fixed so he wanted to find a way to reli measure general
• 04:00 - 04:30 intelligence at around the same time in France Alfred Benet was tasked with figuring out which kids needed more help in school together with Theodore Simone he developed the Benet Simone test students were asked to name what's missing in the drawing Define abstract terms and repeat back sentences and there was also this question asking which face is prettiest there were 30 tasks in all
• 04:30 - 05:00 their performance was benchmarked against other students of different ages in order to assign them a mental age for example if a student performed about as well as the average 8-year-old their mental age would be eight this mental age was then divided by their actual age and multiplied by a 100 to arrive at a so-called intelligence quotient and IQ was born so the Benet Simone test was the world's first IQ test test it was
• 05:00 - 05:30 translated by Godard into English and brought to the US at Stanford Lewis Turman standardized it using a large American sample and with some modifications it became the Stanford banet test and for decades it was the most widely used test in the United States but this was just the start many other IQ tests were developed they all had the same goal of measuring the G Factor the way they did this was
• 05:30 - 06:00 by assessing many different mental abilities including memory verbal spatial and numerical skills each one of these areas might have a subject specific shift but by averaging them all together the idea was the subject specific effects would cancel out leaving a decent approximation of G of course there would always be some error but that's why psychologists designed IQ tests with upwards of 7 to 10 sections with distinct tasks to try to minimize
• 06:00 - 06:30 subject specific distortions all the different IQ tests differed in the number of questions and their difficulty so to standardize the scoring system each test was given to a large sample of the population raw scores were normalized usually so the mean was 100 and the standard deviation was 15 and that's how it's still done to this day this is known as IQ and it's meant to be a measure of an individual's
• 06:30 - 07:00 G factor in comparison to the rest of the population the way it's scaled 68% of people have an IQ between 85 and 115 only around 2% score over 130 or under 70