What defines a genius?

Question

Is it IQ or something else? Also, do you believe that with genius comes insanity or some kind of social problem? If so, why? Thanks!

Answer 1

There are different types of intelligence. They are a set of thinking abilities/skills that each person has in one degree or another; so when intelligence testing is done it includes an attempt to measure every type of thinking ability. An IQ test usually tests all types of thinking skills, combines the results, and yields the "IQ Score" (which is a composite).

A person could be "slow" in most areas but have amazing musical ability. That isolated ability would be considered "musical genius", although the person, himself, would not generally have a "genius IQ".

There are people who have IQ's (a score that is supposed to measure overall ability to learn and process information) that are way above average. There are difference scales, but a common one places the person with an IQ of 120 as "nicely above average", and person with an IQ of 130 as "way above average" and people with IQ's over 140 as "superior". The organization, MENSA, which is for "geniuses" to get together, has, I think, a "top-two percent" rule for membership.

A person with a nicely above average IQ can do "extreme studying up" and become very knowledgeable about a subject. The additional knowledge will facilitate better thinking in that individual - so it is possible for someone to be "freakishly" knowledgeable without necessarily being an "innate" genius. Also, though, different areas of the brain can be encouraged to develop by different activities; so the person who has studied up extensively enough may actually increase his brain functioning in one way or another. These are things to keep in mind when considering intellectual abilities.

There has been some connection made between math/science geniuses and mental illness, but this may not necessarily be what it appears. There is the chance that the person with an over-developed "math skills" part of the brain may not be equally (or even adequately) developed in other parts of the brain (say, in the area of "human/verbal" skills). This could account for any correlation between math-type genius and mental illness. It is the human understanding type of thinking that gives people coping skills in times of stress. It is also that type of thinking that makes a person know how to relate to others, regardless of whether that person has a very high IQ.

There is even the chance that the child who has not had the nurturing that would encourage the "human understanding/verbal" part of the brain may gravitate toward math or science activities simply because he does lack social intelligence. I'm not even sure that the nicely (or even way) above average child who lacks social ability and understanding of himself and other humans may not create his own "genius" by her fervent pursuit of a subject like math, which, I've been told by a "heavily math" person, is just fascinating because of how it all works and goes together so perfectly. There may even be a "cultural draw" to becoming fascinated with math/science because those are subjects people tend to associate with genius and with respectability and even earning potential. These are my guesses as to what could explain any association between math-type geniuses and mental health problems. I think, though, that any such correlation has been over-blown as a result of high-achieving math/physics-type people like Einstein, Newton and others fame. These people had the type of drive required for their achievements, and they may have had the willingness to forego other things in life in order to pursue their work. This, itself, shows a certain amount of lacking in the human/verbal type of thinking; so there could be any number of people of ability equal to someone like Einstein's who have not become famous because they may have had a more balanced intelligence that actually prevented them from pursuing their work with as much intensity as someone like Einstein had.
In other words, people like Einstein are not representative of all highly intelligent people; and it may be their very lack of human abilities that allows them to become so famous (and to create the impression in society that all geniuses must be a little "off" in some way, if not mentally ill).

There is such a thing as across-the-board intelligence that is high enough to be considered genius; and this well balanced type of intelligence would allow its possessor to be very, very, skilled in social situations and relationships; so that it would actually make someone more socially skilled rather than less. A well balanced high IQ also helps a person just know how to be a person better. There have been studies done that concluded that highly gifted school-age children tend to grow up more well adjusted adults (although, of course, this study has also been challenged).

The problem for people who "specialize" more in human/verbal intelligence is often that schools tend to lose these children. These are children who can easily get average or better than average grades, so the fact that they are grossly underachieving is not obvious to anyone. These children are more "world/human-centered", so they can see school as "make-believe" or see the need to be Number 1 as an immature emotional need for attention or acceptance. People with this type of leaning when it comes to intelligence tend to think, "There are children starving in India. Why should I care about why a plant turns green?" This type of intelligence means a child may be a better thinker than his parents or teachers or most of the other kids in class; and it is complicated by the fact that this socially skilled individual knows how to hide the superior thinking ability in order not to stand out or become known as "the smart kid".

The emotionally well adjusted person with this type of intelligence may go to an average college (because he got less than super-great grades in high school) or may drop out because he finds college as unmotivating as previous education was. This type of genius hides in society. He may run a particularly impressive service station in your town, he may be your plumber, or she may be the mother who stayed home with her children because she knows how skilled she is in understanding humans and knows no day-care worker could be as skilled in helping her children develop their own brains.

The well-rounded highly intelligent person does not lack innate ability to understand math concepts. He just wasn't interested enough in it to build a knowledge base that would make him a wiz. There is, I suppose, the chance that some people who are math-geniuses may either have a higher ceiling of ability in that area; while the verbal/human type of intelligence may mean that person has a higher ceiling in that area; but I tend to assume (possibly incorrectly, I realize) that all genius-level-IQ people may start out (at birth or in early childhood) with a similiar potential for development; but nurturing (either successful and complete or lacking) may make the difference.

Socially, people at the highest end of the bell curve (if they're not damaged emotionally) don't necessarily have any problems, particularly if they're really skilled at understanding people. The biggest problem could be that children who are highly gifted may raise themselves and feel that it is up to them to pave their own roads; because they know their parents are not as intelligent as they are. If, however, parents have done a good job at making the child (in the first three years) very emotionally solid and mature, the child does a good job of raising him/herself.

People like this may also educate themselves because the schools may not offer sufficient substance on any subject and teachers may clearly show insufficient thinking ability in the eyes of this type of student.

Individuals at the high end of the bell curve may tend to be isolated but not appear to be (because they're skilled at hiding it). Those with a solid emotional foundation may do a better job of coping, but those without the benefit of such a foundation in early childhood may be at higher risk for emotional damage because 1) they are more tuned-in emotionally than "average" people and 2) they are not as skilled at dealing with isolation as the emotionally well adjusted intelligent person is.

There is, of course, a "range of genius", which can run from merely being in the top-two percent of the population when it comes to IQ to being someone who possess extremely rare and phenomenal ability (such as the three-year-old who may write a symphony). There is also the amazing and isolated "genius-level or beyond" skill associated with savants, who otherwise have very low IQ's.

As with any group of people (and geniuses are just people after all) one can't really generalize about what problems they may or may not have. You could have the high-IQ person who has not had a solid emotional foundation and who develops problems, as with "average" people. You could have the super-high-IQ person who would be considered a "psychiatrically perfect specimen" in terms of emotional stability and social skills; but this person could have some degree of social problems as a result of how he is treated by others. Very intelligent people are often misunderstood because they use a "big-picture" reasoning approach (and the picture they see is larger than that which others see), and other people may not understand their reasoning process. They may feel constantly mentally/emotionally assaulted either because people sometimes compete against them relentlessly or want to take them down a peg or want to prove that "because you're so smart you must have mental insufficiencies in some way". They may live with being chronically understimated as well. In other words, people of very high intelligence may not have a single flaw in their mental health or abilities; but they tend to run into problems as a result of other people's lack of understanding, assuming the intelligent person thinks "that's all that matters in life", insecurities, competitive nature (if I can be right and prove this genius wrong it means I'm smarter than a genius), or even hostililty and envy.

There is also sometimes the problem with people who have nicely-high IQ's (120 or so) and who have become accustomed to being among the smarter in any group (particularly school) and being close enough to average that they can thrive in an academic setting, who have come to see themselves as "THE" most intelligent and as the measure of what is "normal". As a result, with their lack of understanding of the reasoning and even personalities of people with exceptional IQ's (or even with their lack of understanding IQ versus academic achievement) these people (who tend to graduate college, take their places in the professions, and generally get to say how things are and what should be believed) have, in some instances, assigned incorrect attributes to people with very high IQ's or even have generally contributed to a gross misunderstanding of very bright people.

One other thing to bear in mind is this: Up until the fairly recent past there was a gross ignorance even among professionals when it came to intelligence. (Hitler got eugenics information from Harvard University, which gives you an idea of how ignorant even some of the most prestigious universities could be as recently as then.) With such a gross misunderstanding of high intelligence had to have come an associated higher incidence of mental health problems stemming from the isolation of the very intelligent individual in a world that not only didn't understand him, but that may have mistreated him. In other words, any existing evidence that may associate high intelligence with mental illness is likely to have been based on people who have grown up in a time when that intelligence was not understood and may even have resulted in that person's essentially being treated abusively as a result of it. I would like to see the same studies done twenty years from now because I believe the participants of such a study, who grow up in this time we live in, will show very different results.

With a general ignorance about high intelligence, highly intelligent people can have to deal with a world that believes high intelligence cannot possibly include a lot of common sense (which it can and often does) or that high intelligence is "flighty, dreamy, and creative and never a matter of having great business and financial sense" (which is absolutely not true). There is even ignorance about what a highly intelligent person must look like (Einstein) and sometimes absolutely ignorance about the fact that a highly intelligent person could be a little girl like, say, Charlie Brown's little sister or even a little boy who comes across kind of like Bart Simpson.

High intelligence can actually make life easier for a person. He may have an amazing ability to know the most effective and efficient way to clean his house in the shortest amount of time. He may have an uncanny tendency to be able to diagnose medical problems or what's wrong with his car - just from having lived and being tuned in to things. He may be able to do some basic computer repair on his own, recreate a great dish he had at a restaurant by figuring out what spices and process was involved, or remember the dates of every notable day in his life. High intelligence (of the right kind) can be nothing more than doing things or learning things more easily and faster - which makes high intelligence a handy thing to have. The ability to make things look easy, get them done fast, and be able to have free time to pursue one's "more important" interests, though, can make others think that the highly intelligent person is lazy.

Whether the child who enters school with a leaning toward math has entered with some subtle inadequacy in emotional soldiness or not is something that probably depends on each, individual, child. If these "math kids" experience social problems it would point to the fact that they may have started out with some emotional inadequacy or insecurity, which would mean that children in this particular situation could have more social problems in school than average. At the same time, children who are not "tuned in" socially often are less concerned about fitting in and more concerned about achieving and/or competing; so whether they are on the outer side of the school social situation may not matter to them as it would to the "human/verbal" student, for whom belonging and not feeling different is a more important thing.

Something else to consider when it comes to associating mental illness with genius would be this: Consider the statistics about mental conditions associated with low IQ's or average IQ's. I don't have those statistics, but there is a broad range of mental health conditions associated with all IQ's. Consider, too, that there is so much hidden genius in society that statistics regarding percentages are probably not accurate. Even with something like autism, there is a range of IQ's from very limited to very high.

So - finally - in answer to your question about genius and insanity: No (for the most part).

In answer to the part of your question about social problems: Sure. There can be social problems, but they tend to be manageable if the person with the high IQ is well adjusted emotionally.

People who have average intelligence (I mean average right around 100 on the scale, not nicely above average.) are amazingly lacking in social skills sometimes. They often lack understanding of others in society. They often do things that someone with a higher intelligence may realize is wrong (for example, the person who is capable of hurting animals because he doesn't realize how intelligent they are or that they have their own emotional issues is more liklely the person of average intelligence). Because people of IQ's of 100 don't understand why others do things they can tend to be angry at the world or to feel threatened by people who are more intelligent. My point is that life through the eyes of the person with an IQ of 100 is far more of a challenge, including socially and relationship-wise than it is for the very high-IQ person.

For the emotionally well adjusted person, "genius" isn't a big deal. For people who have a good understanding of what it is and isn't, "genius" in a family member or friend isn't a big deal deal either.

Too many people worry about whether they're intelligent or whether other people know how intelligent they are or whether someone else is more intelligent than they are.....

The measure of a person is in hiis character; and it doesn't take a genius to be of excellent character and integrity; but at the same time, a "genius" may - in addition to his intellectual abilities - be every bit as much of solid character and sound mental health as anyone else, and sometimes more so.

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What I've said above is what I've learned as a result of studying this subject for several years. What I'm about to say, however, is only my opinion:

I believe that most, if not all, healthy newborn babies (who do not have even some minor form of brain injury) have the potential of becoming at least the "run of the mill" level of genius (which would mean having an IQ now considered in the top two percent of the population). I believe that all those people in the fat part of the bell curve (average IQ) are the result of having parents who did an average job when it came to building synapses in their baby's/toddler's/preschooler's brain.

I believe that the people with IQ's on the still-fat-but-narrower end of the bell curve (110, 120 or so) had parents who did a better than average job of building the brain's synapses but not a superior job of it. And I believe that the people who have IQ's at the narrower end of the bell curve (top five or two percent) had parents who did a very excellent job of building synapses in the brains of their children.

I'm not saying the other parents all did a bad job. I'm saying I believe they didn't do an excellent job when it comes to knowing how to build brain connections at the time in a child's life when those brain connections are being formed and must be formed through a type of nurturing that forms them.

You can have a bunch of kids compete on a track team, and the winner is considered the best. You can have a spelling bee, and the winner is considered the best. You can have a beauty pageant, and the winner is considered the best. IQ is the only area where the people who score the highest points are considered "anomalies" and outside of the mainstream. If people understand that, for the most part (and excluding phenoma like savantism or things like the music talent of people with Williams' Syndrome) higher IQ scores pretty much may mean being the best when it comes to thinking ability/skill (obviously, I'm not saying the best at anything else, including character).

It seems so bizarre to me that when it comes to high IQ's "the world" tends to ask "what peculiar thing happened to make this freakish ability?" or "what must be wrong with this person?" !!! Just as Tiger Woods' father gave his preschooler a golf club (and look what happened), many parents know exactly what to do in order to give their children an edge in thinking ability and in order to build all the potential connections there are to built.

I believe there is nothing mysterious about most "genius". Its just a matter of a good set of synapses having been built at just the right time. Further, I believe that the fantastic but also tragic fact is that parents don't need to be geniuses to build the right type of synapses - they only need to be really, really, great at nurturing - and too many people (the majority, obviously) just aren't quite great enough to turn IQ's of 165 or higher into what the majority of people have.

I believe that the right mother with nothing more than a perfect ability to nurture (which isn't all that impossible or rare a thing, or else shouldn't be) could walk into any nursery in any hospital in any neighborhood in this country or another one, adopt one newborn, and four years from now have a child who has the IQ of a genius.

There is a thing in human nature (all nature - and the less intelligent a person is the more governed by his biological wiring he his) that makes the majority of any creature group want to either force the few that are different to conform or else even destroy any who are different. (I've read that in the barnyard the hens will try to peck to death any other hen who is different from the hens who are alike.)

The bell curve has served a purpose in terms of understanding the spread of intelligence throughout a population, but it has been used in a way that has done a severe disservice to highly intelligent people. People often view the bell curve this way: "Here's the fat part. Everyone in the fat part is normal. Everyone on either end is not normal. There are the people with retardation. There are the geniuses. People at both ends of the scale are the abnormal ones for one reason or another."

If an individual's intelligence and emotional adjustedness were displayed on a bar chart the world may stop associating high intelligence with peculiarity and mental illness and start to see those with the tallest bars as people who won life's lottery when it came to getting very excellent nurturing as a child.

(As I said, this is a subject I've studied for several years. I thought I'd offer the above because it gives me the opportunity to get "out there" on the Internet some ideas that I don't think enough people seem to understand.)

Answer 2

The technical definition of genius specifically relates to IQ score. I think that being very smart does have some social issues associated. We are generally overly perceptive and calculative and that hinders our ability to "just let go" sometimes. Everything becomes an intellectual challenge. Not major issues, and there are always exceptions. If I had to choose, I would take this over being a drooling mouth-breather any day.

Also, EQ is generally accepted as a better way to determine potential for success in life.

Answer 3

I believe being a genius is relative. For instance, in some circumstances someone can be a genius but in others they cannot. In our world today, being labled a genius comes naturally when people view your life and see things like, your 12 and entering your junior year in college, you have a really high IQ, you have a huge ablity to retain knowlege in specific areas such as engineering or medicine. Genius is relative because to say a doctor is a genius would be true, yet to say that a person who mathmatically invented a cure for cancer and diabetes is a genius would be true as well. Genius is relative and it is up to the person to decide.