High Range IQ Tests Made Easy, Part II

A Little HRIQ Psychology

I wanted to talk a bit more about the differences of intelligence or IQ and metaintelligence or metaIQ. Namely, consider a line of ever increasing complexity in a game like, chess. That is, what separates a grand master from a novice. Well, it is one of ever increasing ability to handle the complexity of the domain of chess. That is, of ever increasing “tests” of intelligence along the singular domain of chess. Notice, we do not change the domain, that being chess and its rules. However, what we see changing is a line of ever increasing complexity, constrained of course, along a single dimension constituting the game of chess.

And this is exactly my point. There exists within this domain no arbitrary redefinition of the game. If so, we call it a new game, like Kriegspiel, a variant of chess and we understand the rules, explicitly. Still, though, within the hypernym of chess.

Now let us return to the metaIQ tests, or HRIQ tests in existence today. They, like I said in part I of this monograph, do not test intelligence but instead test something I call, metaintelligence. The easiest way to see the differences between intelligence, a measure of one’s ability to handle or manage ever increasing levels of complexity and metaintelligence, with the possible definition being one’s ability to handle or manage ambivalence and ambiguity, a measuring basically of equivocation; is to introduce the idea of the metaIQ trap.

What is, a metaIQ trap? Basically, this is the test designer introducing variables into the testing environment that “subvert” one’s intelligence, in other words, the reason these instruments test metaintelligence and not intelligence is for the very reason that they subvert the very idea of intelligence and it’s testing. What these HRIQ test designers do is create situations where a person’s own intelligence (especially higher IQ above 130) pattern seeking, or self awareness, all very healthy and necessary states of being an intelligent human; works against them or, to put it bluntly, misleads them. Almost like cognitive booby-traps built out of overthinking. It’s like a game of cognitive poker, not chess, where bluffs, red herrings and the like are the name of the game.

Here are a few ways people might use or interpret this idea:

What “metaIQ traps” might refer to,
• Over-analysis loops: When someone with IQ over 130, that is, smart enough to see multiple interpretations, get stuck evaluating possibilities instead of acting.
• Assuming complexity where none exists: High IQ thinkers sometimes default to “the clever explanation,” missing the simple one.
• Self-referential reasoning spirals: Thinking about thinking about thinking — until the original question is lost.
• Mistaking pattern recognition for truth: The high IQ brain connects dots even when the dots don’t belong together.
• Intellectual ego traps: Believing one’s high intelligence protects them from bias, which ironically makes them more vulnerable to it.
• Predilection for complexity: In essence, for the high IQ thinker, the simple is complex and the complex simple.

So, subverting the idea of intelligence testing leads, ironically, to the very thing I pointed out, namely, not testing intelligence but testing instead, metaintelligence. Why? Well, if you subvert intelligence, it becomes the very thing working against you, so the fact of not testing it seems as if a no brainer. Although this idea of metaintelligence might be something in and of itself, it is definitely not intelligence testing.

If I must suppress my natural inclination towards complexity, that is suppress my natural inclination to spot patterns, analyze, etc. within increasing complex data, then how am I testing intelligence? I must, I guess, think dumb in order to improve my ability to do well on such a test. What, in fact, is the dumbest explanation I could come up with given a metaIQ problem? If, for instance, I am given the problem:

PET, LADDER, DINT

and asked for a four letter word that connects the three, what would it be? Well, this is an example of intelligence subversion. Why? Because, you would probably answer STEP, and you would be right. However, intelligently reaching this answer would be considering the idea of maybe a step pet, for instance, a pet that maybe a wife, husband, etc. brings into a new family relationship, like a stepchild, and of course, stepladder, and finally, the indentation left by stepping of sand or mud, for instance, a dint. And how wrong you would be even though you got the right answer. See the ambiguity? In the land of metaintelligence, you need to suppress out this inclination for connecting the dots, and instead, look at the problem from a nonsense point of view, that is, PET, spelled backwards is TEP, place an S in front, voilà, STEP. Stepladder would still follow, and dint would simply be the antonym of step. This reduction, you see, does not follow the human minds’, and especially high IQ minds’, inclination for following the path of complex interrelations of words and concepts. Instead, it simply subverts that idea. And in this case you would be lucky you considered the answer through intelligent reasoning. Still, in most cases you would be utterly wrong. There are, of course, many other acts of subversion and all are being used in the postmodern land of metaintelligence testing.

So, if you care for testing your metaIQ, remember, think dumb!-and, ironically, you will be much smarter, at least metaIQ wise.

Kenneth Myers