FAQ

Q. Is one’s IQ score important?

A.  Yes, but only up to a point. Person’s with high IQ’s typically have mastered more thanking tools and skills and think faster than average persons[1].  Those high scores don’t make one more creative or more productive necessarily. It means, generally, that they learn faster.  But Jerome Bruner at Harvard pointed out that what any one human can learn, all humans can learn – except those with severe brain damage.

Q.  How much do IQ scores fluctuate?

A. A lot.  In the longest running study of IQ, the so-called “Berkley Longitudinal Study” of IQ, a single individual’s IQ score fluctuated at least six points over time, with some person’s score changing as much as 40 points.  The average change was 14 points. (See Pinneau, below)

Q. What are the fastest ways to improve one’s IQ score?

A. My research at the University of the South Pacific in Fiji showed that almost anything that an adult does positively with a six-year old increases that child’s IQ. Reading to the child, five-minutes a day of arithmetic drills, playing games, “walking by the way and talking, “ All games had a positive effect, particularly games involving abstract symbols.  (See Maxwell, below.)

Q. What are the economic benefits of high IQ and other reasoning skills.

A.  Some years ago, a Rotarian estimated that a one point IQ advantage averaged a $1,000 per year income advantage.  Over a 40 year working period a ten point change in IQ would yield an improvement in income of $400,000.  Combine IQ with integrity and other virtues and the advantage snowballs.

Q.  Are high IQ people happier than normal people?

A.  We don’t know of any definitive research that answers that question.  But clearly it is to everyone’s advantage to be smart rather than slow-witted.