How do people with high IQ think?

[toddhicks]

You have more ability mentally. If you are challenged and you can tap into your abilities, you can grow mentally. There are different mental skills. Including, problem solving, critical thinking, math, computing, and awareness of yourself and your surroundings. Quick thinking, strategy, etc. You have 2 sides of your brain. THe left and right. Left- detail oriented, Right- more emotionally oriented.
That's basically it. The more you can learn. The more you know that you can tell when someone is authentically smart and who tries to be or look like they are. You can apply your mind to anything. Understanding psychology, etc. You just have more brain power. You can understand things better(if you read, listen to people talk) and can do that at higher speeds so you can often be ahead of whoever youre talking to. And when you come into contact with someone who is also very smart, you can tell because they can keep up with you and youll often have very high pace conversations with highly explanatory and complex concept, thoughts, and ideas back and forth... and you can recognize that. and then you know... when someone's smart or not.

[Adde]

I was tested 135 in high school, in former Yugoslavia. Ended up in Sweden as a refugee when the civil war broke out.

Never really considered myself specially smart or anything, was social and not so competitive, people would occasionally say that I was, I usually thought they were pulling my chain, and laughed.

However when the war was brewing back in 1990-1992 and propaganda and brainwashing started blaring 24/7 on TV, I honestly thought that nobody was gonna buy that, it became surreal when they did.

Ended up in Sweden as a refugee and got sterotyped a lot, it was extremely frustrating to hear some really dumb people talk down to you just because you are from some other country, and people who were in authority over you because of your status as a refugee.

In 2 years I learned enough swedish to attend royal school of technology in Stockholm, had 4s and 5s (Bs and As), but I noticed soon the racism in a sense that an average sweed was expecting to be smarter then some bloke from country when they shoot at each other, so when you go at full throttle, they sneer and bully you. If you get depressed and play dumb, then they talk down to you.

Got my nervous breakdown and never finished university, worked as a programmer (was easy to pick up, and compiler doesnt discriminate), but hated it since I really missed the social part of it. In 18 years I think I made 2-3 close friends who were at same level and didnt feel threatened and you can develop genuine trust and friendship.

So yeah, it definitely didnt help, tho every time I got depressed I was scared to lose it. Weird world we live in.

[cassiopeia]

Adde, I can understand your frustration. I'm half Swedish and lived there for two years, and yes Swedish people can be racist, especially if you have an accent (I don't, so although I'm mixed race people just assumed I was adopted, which was easier for me, but I still felt it sometimes). I have never met such a high proportion of super-educated people (foreigners in Sweden) working in jobs that don't require much intellectual ability.

[kinghtalexis]

I haven't taken any IQ tests, but i have always been in some or the other brain teasing exercise of games. I have been a college level chess player and I love playing. I frankly don’t know if I have high IQ, but i have been labeled by people to be having high IQ. Personally speaking I can’t make quick decision until i analyze it, but since in life one often has to make quick decisions, so I have started making decisions on my past experience. Something like if an x situation occurred and my decision helped me or failed me, I accordingly make my decision if the current situation is any near x one.

[cacheborn]

I am reading 'The Creating Brain' by Nancy Andreasen and I think all the people who have responded in this thread might be interested in what she has to say.

She is in a unique position to write a book about creativity. She has a PhD in English Literature. After teaching English for three years, she decided to become a real doctor, eventually getting residency in psychiatry. She has done 30 years of research in neuroscience.



There are several interesting facts that emerge from the book. One is creative people do not necessarily have the highest IQ. Creativity and IQ follow a linear trend up to a point, after that they are not related. Highly creative people have IQ's between 120 and 150.

Nancy also says :

We are literally remaking our brains—who we are and how we think, with all our actions, reactions, perceptions, postures, and positions—every minute of the day and every day of the week and every month and year of our entire lives. Your brain is being changed by the process of reading this book. (For the better, I hope.)

I would wholeheartedly recommend this book to all those who are interested to know more about our brain and creativity.

[ButterflyWoman]

Originally Posted by cacheborn

There are several interesting facts that emerge from the book. One is creative people do not necessarily have the highest IQ. Creativity and IQ follow a linear trend up to a point, after that they are not related. Highly creative people have IQ's between 120 and 150.

Those scores are still above the average. 120 is the edge of the high end of the "normal" range (89th percentile). An IQ of 150 is well above average, and certainly into "genius" range (in the 99.91th percentile). Basically, people with an IQ in the 120-150 range are still in the top 10%.

I'm still interested in the book and I'm not arguing with you or the book's premise. I'm just pointing out that 120-150 is well into Mensa territory as these things go.

[cacheborn]

Originally Posted by ButterflyWoman

Those scores are still above the average. 120 is the edge of the high end of the "normal" range (89th percentile). An IQ of 150 is well above average, and certainly into "genius" range (in the 99.91th percentile). Basically, people with an IQ in the 120-150 range are still in the top 10%.

I'm still interested in the book and I'm not arguing with you or the book's premise. I'm just pointing out that 120-150 is well into Mensa territory as these things go.

I agree. I did not elaborate. This was the conclusion of studies of various groups who are intelligent. What they found was all creative people have high IQ, but all people having high IQ are not creative. So simply having a high IQ is not enough. I quote from her book.

Roger MacKinnon, another California psychologist who studied creativity in the 1950s and 1960s, examined architects using a variety of measures, including intelligence. He divided the architects into three groups on the basis of creativity (highly creative, somewhat creative, and not creative). All three groups earned nearly identical scores on several different IQ tests, with an average of around 120 for each group. Thus those who were highly creative were not more intelligent than the less creative. Intelligence is somewhat related to creativity, but it is also different.