Intelligence is not enough

 

Lewis Terman is a psychologist who put a high premium on intelligence. “There is nothing about an individual as important as his IQ, except possibly his morals,” he declared fervidly. He carried out a lifelong research on certain highly gifted children continuously until they grew up into adulthood. His research is the longest-lasting longitudinal study ever conducted.

In 1921, Terman sent a team of fieldworkers to California’s elementary and high schools with the mission of finding out the brightest students. Intelligence tests were conducted on the students suggested by the teachers. The top ten percent of the candidates were given another IQ test. Those who scored above 130 in that second test were administered a third test. Thus Terman selected the most intelligent students of California, no less than 1470 of them.

These students, who came to be known as Termites, were monitored constantly as they grew up. They were tested at regular intervals, the results were analysed, and guidance was given. Their educational progress, married life, illnesses, psychological health and job records were all followed up meticulously. They were the most precious individuals in California as far as Terman was concerned.

Terman was convinced that the IQ geniuses would produce our great leaders in every field – arts, science, government, education and social welfare. He was delighted whenever his proteges went on to win various competitions.

Finally, after years of study, the records of 730 adult Termites were assessed. The top 20% were true success stories. They became eminent lawyers, physicians, engineers and academics. The middle 60% were just “satisfactory”. The bottom 20% did as well as any Tom, Dick and Harry. They were postal workers, struggling bookkeepers, or something as ordinary as that. A few of them were even jobless. One-third of them had dropped out of college. One-fourth had not gone beyond high school. Yet they had outstanding IQs as children.

Terman’s first premise stood disproved. He realised that intelligence alone was not enough for success in life. Further studies showed that success required many other ingredients like supportive parents, conducive social environment, and personality traits.

Christopher Langan had an IQ of 195. You may recall that Albert Einstein’s IQ was 150. “The smartest man in America.” That is how the TV anchor of the show One versus One Hundred introduced Langan to the audience in 2008. Langan was the guest at the reality show in which he had to outsmart 100 intelligent adversaries to win up to a million dollars.

Questioned by the host of the show about his high IQ, Langan said, “Actually, I think it (high IQ) could be a hindrance. To have a high IQ, you tend to specialise, think deep thoughts. You avoid trivia.”

Langan’s high IQ took him to many TV shows and other programmes. One such TV show once hired a neuro-psychologist to give Lancan an IQ test, and Lancan’s score was off the charts – too high to be accurately measured. Langan could read and understand academic books faster than anyone. “He got a perfect score on his SAT, even though he fell asleep at one point during the test,” says Malcolm Gladwell in his book, Outliers.

What did Christopher Langan, the genius with the highest IQ in the world, become in life? A horse rancher. Yes, that is what he is today. He lives in rural Missouri on a horse farm. “I don’t think there is anyone smarter than me out there,” he told Malcolm Gladwell when they met a few years ago. That sounded boastful but in fact the man was defensive, says Gladwell. “Here … was a man,” writes Gladwell, “a man with a one-in-a-million mind, and he had yet to have any impact on the world. He wasn’t holding forth at academic conferences. He wasn’t leading a graduate seminar at some prestigious university. He was living on a slightly tumbledown horse farm… sitting on the back porch in jeans and a cutoff T-shirt. He knew how it looked: it was the great paradox of Chris Langan’s genius.”

Langan didn’t know how to navigate the world of ordinary people. His high IQ made him unsuitable for that world. Gladwell says that Langan’s family background didn’t help any bit to make life easy for him. He belonged to a broken family and went through a lot of misery. That matters much however high your IQ is.

No one rides to the cliff of success alone. “Not rock stars, not professional athletes, not software billionaires, and not even geniuses,” says Gladwell. Some social skills are essential for success anywhere. And some luck too – in the form of family background, opportunities, and so on. There may be exceptions, of course. But the general rule is that intelligence alone is not enough if you want to be a success. The world actually belongs to the mediocre.

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Read the previous parts of this series below:

A: Absurdity

B: Bandwagon Effect

C: Chiquitita’s Sorrows

D: Delusions

E: Ego Integrity

F: Fictional Finalism

G: The Good Child

H: Humanism: Celebration of Life