IQ vs. EQ

Intelligence has always had a very positive connotation. When seeking out a mate, next to having a sense of humor, having half a brain is amongst the most attractive qualities. We pursue higher education, honestly mostly to master a high paying career, but also to gain knowledge in a field. Even in grade school, students are tested at a constant rate, subconsciously reinforcing the idea that you are inferior if you aren't deemed as 'smart' enough. For the most part, none of us have the desire to be associated with stupidity.

Naturally, intelligence varies in importance from person to person. Most are content with being just smart enough to get by, and in our modern world, that isn't asking much at all. Our day to day lives don't require much more brain power than average unless being put in a situation involving trivia, challenging puzzles, or perhaps a complicated math problem. In our day and age, however, if you don't have the ability to achieve such a thing, you could easily decide the challenge isn't worth your time, walk away, and get back to enjoying a life of simple challenges, such as subtracting money from your bank account to purchase groceries. The demand for superior intelligence is just not strong.

For some, however, to be intelligent -daresay, the most intelligent- is a driving motivating factor in their every day lives. I, for example, fall into this category. Of course, this isn't to say that these people naturally believe they are instinctively bright. On the contrary; my biggest insecurity is that I'm chronically the least astute in the room, regardless of who populates that room. This wouldn't be an issue for me if I didn't care about the value of higher intellect.

In 1904, Alfred Binet and Theodore Simon developed the first version of an IQ test. Finally, there was a way for mankind to measure the abilities of our brains.  All that needed to be done was to answer a selection of questions testing your skills in determining patterns in numbers, letters, and shapes. Your score would be a number between 1 and in rare cases, above 145. It was all so simple.

For years, we would use IQ tests as a trusted tool to determine who amongst us was more intelligent, thus more capable. In some cases, the test would be used in the process of hiring people for jobs. Versions of this test are still around, and for the most part respected. A quick search for an IQ test on the internet will grant you thousands of links to pages with similar questions in patterns, etc., followed by a cute little number that bluntly determines your supposed level of intelligence, and therefore, your self-worth.

Recently, I had Googled 'free iq test' to occupy some time, as I'm the kind who recreationally takes these sort of tests (I'm real fun at parties). Of course, this was the first link at the top of the page. Nothing fancy. If I wanted something more dependable, I may have paid for a result in one of the other tests. But seeing as I'm lazy and consistently poor, there was no way I was going to do that. I took ample time for each question to really reason on which answer seemed the most sensible. I found that puzzles involving patterns were my strong suit, whereas anything mathematical definitely wasn't. It took me about 15 minutes to complete. I submitted my result. The page loaded, and on my phone screen was the number '135' written frankly in red. Naturally, I didn't know whether this was good or bad until I checked charts online. What I had found was that 135 falls in a category of "superior intelligence". Whoop-de-doo, I thought. Not too shabby. (Not forgetting the fact that this was a free test on the internet and that the nature of the test wasn't 100% dependable by any means)

I began brewing on this newfound knowledge, slightly more confident in my abilities than my self-esteem normally allows. I was no Hawking, but I was in a group of 2% of the population that score in such a way. I never discussed it with my peers, because there was no real way to bring it up in conversation without sounding like a cocky narcissist, which isn't me. Later that week, though, as is typical for my family, we stumbled into a used book store, and I ended up in the psychology section in the back corner. I skimmed through a few different books, often rereading old sentiments I've read before, thus inspiring me to keep searching. Among one of those books was "A Whole New Mind" by Daniel H. Pink. The book suggested (and quite convincingly) that in our modern world, those with high IQ's won't necessarily get any farther in life than those with average IQ's, and that the demand for a high EQ (i.e. Emotional Intelligence) is more prominent than ever. I found Pink's arguments intriguing- in a sense, those who understand the subtle art of getting along with others are more likely to manipulate their environments to gain success. Our world is people-centric. Therefore, if we ourselves understand people, we'll be better off in the world. In the back of mind, I always knew this, but it stung so much more to read it plainly in a book by a psychologist.

So I went home and reasoned that it was only fair that I take an EQ test online just to compare, even if the results weren't entirely reliable. The first link I clicked on Google led me to a set of questions that were all situational and somewhat moral. ('Imagine you have a 5-year old son who has been hypersensitive about new people and places since he was born. What do you do?') I put just as much thought and consideration to each question as I did on the IQ test. And my result, like it was some kind of cruel joke, came out to be a whopping 20. It gave no concept as to what that meant in relation to the rest of the world other than a taunting "Not So Good!" written in green underneath. I laughed to myself and stared off into the distance (probably coldly, consideringmy result) and began to brew over what this meant. In some of the questions, I made a special effort to choose what I thought was the nicer option. I thought I was actually a warm, loving person afterall. But according to this quiz, psssh, nope.

In all sincerity, though, both of these tests, although seemingly well-researched, are complete crap. Neither have any power over your self-worth, how smart you are, or how kind you are to others. I read somewhere once that "IQ tests test your ability to take IQ tests". Truthfully, although it may give you a generalized idea of where you stand in relation to others, it's all relative. We really are all intelligent in differing ways. Evidently, I'm a genius at detecting patterns, but I'm a total numbskull when it comes to basic social graces. And really, neither is better than the other. You have just as much potential in this life as the next person regardless of what you score on either of these tests. You neither pass or fail. In conclusion, we need to unlearn the concept that was beat into our minds in school; we are not our test scores.

But hey, there's no harm in letting it quietly boost your ego.