We have seen in this thread that IQ is strongly hereditary, that children with highly educated parents also tended to have higher IQ's, and especially that male hormones significantly increased IQ (because IQ only testes typically male reasoning skills, like logic and spatial skills). We saw that the higher the IQ, the bigger the gap in numbers between men and women.
Because IQ is so intricately linked to male hormones, it is normal to see a correlation between very high IQ and masculine social behaviour.
The higher the IQ, the higher the sense of individuality and the independence of mind. Exceptionally gifted people care (much) less about what other people think of them, and are less sensitive to praise, and even less to flattery.
Because they care less about the opinion and esteem of others, they tend to be less socially oriented, but also feel less easily lonely. Maybe it is because they have a very heightened sense of the "self".
They feel pressed to tell openly what they think to others, especially when they hear something that conflicts with their reasoning or knowledge. They value more truth, facts and logic than friendship or emotional relations.
Gifted people therefore only care about social conventions they agree with, and (harshly) criticise the others. They live in an inner world where anything that is not rational is wrong and should be changed. It is unconceivable to them to bask in mediocrity. They are born perfectionists (for what they care about).
Their disregard for conventions, combined with vivid, creative and independent mind, often make them coin new words (often just for fun, to see the reaction of those who care about conventions), or use rare words (not by pedantry at all, but just because they like them better). In other words, they recreate the conventions for themselves.
Typical high-IQ people are constantly thinking about something, worried about a problem, thinking about solutions... So they end up having little time and energy left, and little motivation, for ordinary chit-chat. Because they are constantly "navigating in their thoughts", they tend to be more forgetful of trivial things ("damn, I forgot to remove the clothes from the washing machine last night !").
Their strong independence of mind and deep intellectualisation of things results in exceptionally gifted people having stronger individual interests than average ("passions" for some topics or activities). Once they get into something, they want to know everything about it (which can make them look like geeks or freaks to ordinary folk).
High IQ correlates strongly with exceptional concentration abilities. The problem is that it makes such people quite stubborn until they know or understand what they wanted. Such children are known for always asking "why" questions, and never give up until they get a satisfactory answer.
One thing that normally irritates people with high IQ is asking them to explain something (complex), then stop listening in the middle of their explanations. Exceptionally gifted people just can't understand why one would ask a question and not care about the answer, when they visibly do not understand that topic.
At school, exceptionally gifted children are easily bored by lessons, because they understand before everyone else and get irritated when the teacher has to repeat for slower people. If it is a subject they are particularily interested in, they usually have learned everything by themselves before, which can create conflicts with the teacher, as gifted children do not mind correcting the teacher's slightest mistake in front of the whole class (that's their way of showing that they shouldn't be sitting in that class in a humiliating position of inferiority - well, you know how wild and vain kids can be !).
On the whole, exceptionally gifted people tend to be hyperactive, eat a lot and sleep a lot (because the brain uses so much energy), or on the contrary eat and sleep very little (these are exceptions, like Napoleon, probably due to a different metabolism).
At work, they have difficulty understanding why other people can't do as much as they do in the same amount of time, or don't do things as well as they should. They are usually unsatisfied by others, demanding, strict, and feel like they have to do things by themselves if they want them to be done properly...
High-IQ people are very individualistic, but they usually strive for the common good (as well as their own interests). Their passion for things, their sense of logic, and their desire for perpetual improvement, make of them good politicians and philosophers. On the other hand, they usually dislike routine jobs, with predefinied tasks and little space for creativity and a sense of intellectual challenge.
Given their individualism, they rarely bear the authority of other people, and are therefore more often self-made people, free-thinkers and entrepreneurs, rather than conventional academics or professionals employed by a company.
Having a high IQ has little influence on most of the arts, as IQ only testes rational, logic and spatial skills. It may help for sculpture (spatial skills), or classsical music (rational and spatial).
Last edited by Maciamo; 23-06-07 at 17:32.
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