Breaking the Taboo

A Conversation on Intelligence

What if the key to unlocking human potential in education, health, and work has been hiding in plain sight, obscured because people are too afraid to use its name? I am talking about intelligence: that fundamental psychological trait that impacts nearly every aspect of life. Despite its importance, there is reluctance to talk about it, and when people do, it is often cloaked in euphemisms like “cognitive ability,” or “reasoning.” Many people ignore intelligence completely, as if that makes its importance disappear.

Why “Intelligence” Makes People Uncomfortable

I understand the reluctance. The word “intelligence” carries a lot of baggage with it. People want to be smart. Parents praise their children for being intelligent. Teachers reward it. Society admires the brainy genius and looks down on a doltish oaf. Everyone would rather be an Albert Einstein than a Homer Simpson.

Things aren’t any better for “IQ.” What started as a neutral term has now become laden with controversy.

The Problem with Euphemisms

In response, many psychologists have tried to use other terms, like “cognitive ability” in the hopes of avoiding controversies. It is an understandable tactic, but one that has not worked. For decades, the College Board (owner of the SAT) and Educational Testing Service (which owns the GRE) have scrupulously avoided the word “intelligence” in describing their tests. Instead, they claim that their tests measure “college readiness” and “reasoning,” respectively.

On the one hand, does the word that people use to describe intelligence really matter? Shakespeare reminds us, “That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” Whether we call it “intelligence,” “reasoning,” “cognitive ability,” or any other term, it is still a general mental ability that helps people solve problems in a variety of contexts.

Euphemisms Create Confusion

But avoiding the terms “intelligence” and “IQ” has not helped the field or society. The proliferation of terms obfuscates meaning and invites confusion. It also prevents people from making connections that provide important insights.

Missed Opportunities in Health and Education

For example, there is an extensive body of research in epidemiology about the importance of “health literacy.” People higher in health literacy are better able to follow a doctor’s instructions, handle long-term health problems, and recognize dangerous symptoms—in other words, just as people with higher IQ would function when dealing with their health. This is why some intelligence experts believe that health literacy is just a manifestation of intelligence. But because the health field has eschewed any connections with intelligence, epidemiologists have been robbed of the insights that intelligence research could provide to improve people’s health.

It is not even clear that avoiding the terms “intelligence” and “IQ” has helped diffuse controversies. Even without being called an “intelligence test,” the SAT is still the most scrutinized and criticized test in the world. For decades, the College Board has altered the test to appease the critics. But during the COVID-19 pandemic when many universities adopted test-optional policies, the College Board failed to explain the benefits of using the SAT for admissions decisions. After all, if colleges only need to measure of the “college readiness” of their applicants, then information from a high school transcript already provides this data. The SAT would be redundant. But an intelligence test provides information high school grades do not. Avoiding any connection with “intelligence” has also robbed the College Board of the ability to use the intelligence field’s 50 years of vigorous defenses against accusations of test bias.

Time to Embrace Intelligence

A better course of action is to embrace intelligence. Intelligence is probably the most important discovery in the history of psychology. No other variable relates to as many biological, sociological, health, economic, and personal outcomes. Many topics in these areas are difficult to understand without a knowledge of intelligence. Intelligence tests are among the best designed tests in all of psychology, and IQ scores are one of the most useful data points for understanding a person.

Why Most People Never See Their IQ

IQ has these advantages, but only when it is available. One hurdle is that very few people take tests that produce IQ scores. This is ironic, because most people in the United States have taken many tests that measure intelligence. But because of the desire to avoid the terms “intelligence” and “IQ,” the tests are called “aptitude tests,” “reasoning tests,” “college admissions tests,” or other names, and they almost never use the IQ scale for their scores. Sometimes there are equations or tables to convert these scores to the IQ metric, but these are rarely accessible to the general public.

The Public Wants This Information

This is a disservice to test takers and the public. There is clearly a demand for intelligence tests and IQ. The MENSA IQ Challenge is a popular web site for intelligence testing, and Google searches for “IQ” are at their highest level in nearly a decade. It is unfortunate that the tests that people are already taking will not give an IQ score that many examinees want so they can use it in their job applications, college admissions, and other areas.

Intelligence and AI: A Critical Connection

Recent advances have increased the importance of understanding intelligence. The creation of large language models and other forms of artificial intelligence have raised new questions about the nature of intelligence. Understanding the capabilities and limits of human intelligence helps engineers and the public have important conversations about how to harness the power of artificial intelligence models and the ethical limits that may need to be placed on them. As artificial intelligence becomes more ubiquitous, the costs of ignorance about intelligence may become very high.

More Accessible Intelligence Testing

Fortunately, intelligence testing is becoming more accessible to the public on the internet. The SAPA Project is a professionally developed personality assessment web site that includes an intelligence test. The Open Psychometrics intelligence test was a pioneering online intelligence test that produced IQ scores for its examinees (although the test is no longer actively updated). The upcoming Reasoning and Intelligence Online Test (RIOT) is advancing these efforts and will be the most sophisticated online intelligence test to date.

Understanding Strengths and Limits

While IQ is a valuable piece of information, it is important to recognize its limitations. IQ measures overall intelligence, but narrower cognitive abilities matter, too. A person’s mix of strengths and weaknesses in their verbal, spatial, mathematical, and fluid abilities has important consequences for job choice, success in school, and other areas. There are many roads to high IQ, and two people with the same IQ can have different combinations of other abilities. The high-IQ person with high verbal ability and low spatial ability will likely thrive as a novelist and struggle in a college physics course. This is why the best tests report more than just an IQ.

Beyond IQ: The Role of Personality and Traits

Additionally, non-cognitive traits are important. Personality, interests, and values sometimes matter as much as overall cognitive ability. For example, a highly neurotic, introverted salesperson is not going to be effective at their job—no matter how high their IQ is. Intelligence tests do not measure these non-cognitive traits (and no psychologist has ever claimed that the tests do). Intelligence is important, but it is not the only thing that matters.

Keep the Message Nuanced

The importance of non-cognitive traits and of narrower abilities should keep the IQ advocates humble. Because intelligence influences many areas of life, it is tempting to give people high expectations for what IQ scores can tell them. This is a mistake. If the intelligence community overpromises, then they will lose credibility when the tests fall short of expectations. A nuanced message that talks about the value of IQ while also being clear about its limits will serve the community and science best (and it would be a factually correct message, too).

Why We Must Say the Word

This nuanced message, though, does not mean that psychologists and the intelligence community should run away from the term “intelligence.” Decades of euphemisms have done no good. Intelligence is what it is, and no one should be embarrassed or nervous to use the word. Indeed, society should be proud of what scientists have learned about intelligence. It is one of the strongest and most reputable areas of psychology, and the tests are impressive scientific achievements. We should talk about that more.

What’s Next

As people discuss intelligence more, my hope is that they will find that it has links to many other important topics. Productive discussions of intelligence often lead to an appreciation of creativity, wisdom, personality, emotional intelligence, and other concepts that include behaviors that traditional understandings of intelligence do not. In my next post for the Mensa Foundation’s Insights blog, I will discuss the importance of these other concepts and why people who value intelligence should care about them, too.