Some thoughts on IQ and EQ

I've always thought IQ was really well-done. The basis of it was the g-factor, this result that if you take student's scores on various subtests (math and music, English and math) and correlate them, you see a positive and not negative correlation. The correlation is pretty strong. It's interesting that there is a positive correlation, because you could have reasonably seen a negative correlation from energy spent on music leading to less energy spent on math. Because of this, people created the intelligence quotient, which measured the underlying common factor. IQ is now very well mapped-out in so many ways, e.g. Intelligence: A Very Short Introduction.

There is one thing that's not completely mapped-out for me. There was an article I found from a very long time ago in my mother's education journal that showed that if you take inner-city students and move them to a richer environment, their IQ jumps by 30 points. To me, that suggests that there is a capacity that we can achieve as humans, not that IQ is set in stone and that's it. My IQ in particular has fluctuated from 100 at 4 years old to 130 at 8 years old to a self-tested 160 at 17 years old at my then-friend's request. Who knows what my capacity is. But if I keep on thinking, I might achieve it. I give credit also to my friend Sally Zhen for coming up with the same idea probably a year after me, maybe a few years.

If you read about the emotional quotient, or EQ, it sounds like it's more important for getting ahead in the workplace and in life than IQ. But one thing I noticed while reading the book on it by Daniel Goleman is that they haven't found the one test that nails it. The tests are in disagreement. I have a theory that might be worth testing. It could be that the subscores on the test-- maybe one for nailing yourself, one for nailing social situations, one for figuring out what to do to get ahead-- are not so strongly correlated, so it's hard to pull out the common factor like they do for IQ.

These are the random thoughts of someone who is not a psychologist.