VAGUE memories of the day our P7 teacher sat us all down with paper and pencil and asked us to pick our own brains came trickling back with the news that the BBC is to set aside an entire Saturday night's viewing in order to test the nation's IQ.
It was a funny wee test which involved questions such as ''pig is to piglet as sheep is to . . ?'' and ''Spot the odd one out . . . trains, planes, car, boat, apple''. Little did I know it at the time (little did I know anything at the time), but this was, in fact, an IQ test.
In mid-sixties Scotland we all did it. Together with the Qualification Examination, it determined the path of our future education. A good performance meant a good class in secondary school. A poor one meant, well, woodwork.
To this day, I haven't a clue what my Intelligence Quotient was (no-one told us), but here's a clue: in first year at high school I was dumped in technical drawing while my best mate did Latin.
Now I discover that, in addition to being unaware of my IQ, I am also blissfully ignorant of my EQ. In fact, I didn't know it existed until someone dropped the initials into the conversation the other day. They stand for Emotional Quotient, a term dreamed up in the early nineties. Though it might sound a bit too touchy-feely for comfort, it's genuinely recognised as a significant indicator of a person's future success, both personal and professional.
In business, it's all about being a team player these days - even for the boss. It's no good just being clever, smart, good at your job. You also have to fit in. In the increasingly competitive recruitment market more and more companies are testing potential employees' capacity for stress and emotional awareness. EQ, then, is the new rock'n'roll.
All very well, but what is it? Tricky one, that. Frankly, it all sounds a bit New Age to me. There are said to be five principal components of emotional intelligence. They are self-awareness, managing emotions, motivation, the recognition of emotions in others (that'll be empathy), and the handling of emotions.
The problem is that these are the kind of skills which kids used to be taught at home by their mums and dads. But these days, with both parents often out working and television taking over children's lives, they're not being properly developed.
Consequently, we're seeing more young people suffering depression, more youth violence, and greater interpersonal conflict. And it's partly because we haven't learned to handle our emotions properly.
Transfer that into the workplace and you've got the tyrannical boss who threatens, bullies, and criticises their staff. Emotionally intelligent? Emotionally stupid, more like. The EQ test, then, is designed to accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative, employee-wise.
The EQ test would appear to be more closely aligned to the concept of psychometric testing (which measures different forms of human intelligence, such as ability, aptitude, and an individual's strengths and weaknesses) than with the old IQ test.
Selling these tests is a major business. It's reckoned that 85% of human-resources managers use psychometric tests for recruitment purposes. Often, however, they're not worth the paper they're printed upon. Potential employees' answers can depend on the mood they're in at the time they sit them.
Certainly, they don't appear to impress Professor John Williams, Mensa's senior consultant psychologist. He said: ''These tests usually combine intelligence testing and personality testing. From the testers' point of view, so far as the intelligence side is concerned, you can't pretend to be able to solve problems. However, in terms of the personality side, you can pretend to be, for instance, an introvert or an extrovert.
''All you need is a layman's awareness of what is required. Questions like 'Do you often find you have not planned for something that comes along?' or 'Do you often lose your temper with people?' The right answers are obvious.''
The professor added: ''I was interested in this in my early career and I hadn't encountered it for a long time until quite recently when I visited a human-resources exhibition at Olympia. It was like a witchdoctors' conference. It really was just amazing, with all kind of things on sale, like relaxation exercises, improving your mind through diet, a whole lot of 'inspirational' stuff about 'Think Positive' and 'Think Success'. It was a psychometric nightmare.
''I've met some people who have been through the mill in business management and, frankly, they don't impress me very much. I've had to work for them and they really don't know what work is; planning and getting the job done.''
But back to the old IQ tests. On most tests, the average IQ is 100. Anything over the 148 mark takes you into the Mensa category (while anything under 80 qualifies you for the under-achievers club I'm planning to start).
I like to think that my abject failure on the early education front was
down to the fact that I was ''a late developer''. At least, that's my story and I'm sticking to it. The sad truth is that, as a kid, my head was full of broken biscuits. Indeed, some crumbs of discomfort remain lodged there even to this day.
It is, however, nice to know that the test which so many of us sat all those years ago was fundamentally flawed. In fact, it wasn't really a proper IQ test at all.
According to Effie MacLellan, senior lecturer in education at Strathclyde University's Jordanhill campus (and a qualified psychologist), the real thing would have to have been conducted on a one-to-one basis between pupil and tester. And even then, as an objective test of intelligence, it would still have been suspect.
''The suggestion that there is a finite thing called ability or intelligence is part of the problem. However you
performed on that day when you were 11 or 12 sealed your fate. There was no reliability to it. And often the test papers were marked by students,'' she explained.
But why were the results kept on a ''need-to-know'' basis?
''Well, they didn't tell you much about anything in those days,'' added Ms MacLellan. ''I suppose it was just part of the culture. There was certainly no educational reason to keep the information confidential.''
The school IQ test virtually disappeared from the cirriculum shortly after my assumed failure (though I don't think there is any connection). The introduction of the comprehensive secondary education system effectively made them pointless. Since then they have been beset by controversy, accused of being socially, culturally, and even racially biased (American psychologist Arthur Jenson made the ludicrous claim a few years ago that blacks have naturally lower IQs than whites). They've also been branded as labelling a child's mental abilities at too early a stage in life. And then there is the perceived difficulty of defining the very ''intelligence'' which they're supposed to measure in the first place.
In the 1950s the aforementioned Professor Williams worked at Moray House, Edinburgh, where he helped set IQ tests for Scottish schools. From what he says now it was perhaps as well that our results were not made known to us.
''Children who were aware that they had especially high IQs sometimes did find that they had problems. It's all right having a high IQ, but knowing that you have one seems to cause social problems; like problems of exclusion at school. However, generally speaking, people with high IQs are better adjusted,'' he said.
Professor Williams also pointed out that a person's IQ can change ''quite substantially'' over the years.
''An IQ determined at the age of six is almost no use in predicting what your adult IQ will be. At about the age of 10 or 11 there is a sort of vague relationship but, in the case of boys in particular, they have a lot of brain development still to take place. That doesn't stop until they are 15.
''Girls have their biggest brain-growing spurt at 11 - and then another smaller one at 14. Boys don't have such a big growth at 11. They have this massive one at 15. So it's true to say that your IQ can change as you get older,'' he explained.
Personally speaking, like most
people, I'm perfectly happy going through life blissfully unaware of both my intelligence and my emotional quotients. If my IQ is particularly high, which I doubt, then I reckon I'm in bad company. How many times have you read newspaper background reports about psycho serial killers and sociopaths which refer to the fact that they've got extraordinarily high IQs?
And, to be honest, would I really want to be on the same intellectual level as, say, Madonna (who has an IQ of 140, apparently), Sylvester Stallone (170), Geena Davis (140), Sharon Stone (154), or James Woods (180, making him brighter than Einstein)? Or would I prefer to be down at the shallow end of the gene pool with the likes of Marlon Brando (who has a famously mediocre IQ) and Paul Merton (whose failure in the 11-plus
didn't prevent him from becoming one of the cleverest and sharpest comics in the business)?
the Eq
HOW ARE YOU EMOTIONALLY?
You and a close friend have worked together in the same firm for years. Having just completed a work task of which you are particularly proud, you suddenly discover that your friend is leaving the company for a better job. What feelings do you have?
a) Proud, jealous.
b) Proud, resentful, disappointed.
c) Angry, disappointed, contemptuous.
A friend has borrowed something small but high in sentimental value to you. You've asked your friend to return it but they have failed to do so. What do you do?
a) Give your friend the cold shoulder until the item is returned.
b) Admit to your friend how important the item is to you and why you want it back.
c) End the friendship on the basis that you don't need a friend who disrespects you and your feelings.
d) Let it go. Friendship is more important than material possessions.
There are, of course, no right or wrong answers to these questions. They are simply designed to identify your emotional type.
1 41
2 LIFE
3 POST
4 71. Star = 2, triangle = 31, square = 19
5 LOST, LOTS, and SLOT
6 COCONUT - 23p, FIG - 13p, LETTUCE - 17p (Add the alphabetical value of the first and last letters)
7 97
8 B (The bottom row of a keyboard)
Scale: 4/8 Very good
5/8 Excellent
6+ Mensa standard
Share