Today I’d like to introduce you to the views of Dr Jordan Peterson on IQ. Peterson is a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto, Canada. He’s an avid YouTuber and has recently published the book ’12 Rules for Life. An Antidote To Chaos.’ He’s quite a character, and has had some exposure in the mainstream press of late.
This video (under 10 minutes) is worth watching if you have an interest in IQ. Peterson has some striking – what might be called deterministic – views of the nature of intelligence and the role it plays in the workplace.
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There’s a lot that can be constructively criticized in his bold claims. But any of the concepts he touches on are well-established, and it’s valuable to put an exaggerated position in the public domain clearly and forcefully for the purpose o stimulating reflection and debate.
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And Peterson succeeds in this! The video has 1640 comments as of 30th Oct 2018! Here are the first two listed:
“I have an IQ of 100 even. I’m perfectly average yet I manage over 30 people, a lot of them are smarter than me. He’s not considering factors such as soft skills, leadership, fearlessness, work ethic and attitude.”.“People with lower IQs are more suited to more repetitive jobs”. I wouldn’t claim to know a billionth of what Jordan knows about this, but most of my friends are above college average IQ and not only have but prefer repetitive jobs. It gives the mind time to wander, causes little stress and leaves their creativity open to hobbies instead of work.”
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Here are some quotes from the video – grouping quotes into topics.
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Fluid intelligence in the workplace
“You’ve got to know there are differences in intelligence. It’s really important.”.“…as you climb hierarchies of competence, the demand on fluid intelligence increases”
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Remember fluid intelligence?
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Competence hierarchies
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“Almost all jobs that are at the top of complex dominance hierarchies require very high intelligence, insane levels of conscientiousness, as well – generally speaking – pretty damn high levels of stress tolerance.”.“As you move down the hierarchy, the jobs get simpler, they’re more likely to be assigned by other people, or they’re repetitive….People with lower IQs are more suited to more repetitive jobs. “.“If you want to be the best at what you are doing, bar none, then having an IQ of above 145 is a necessity and maybe you’re pushing 160 in some situations…that’s making you 1 person in 10,000 or even 1 person in 100,000.”
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Intelligence as speed
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“Why is it that smart people are at the top of dominance hierarchies? And the answer to that, in part, is that they get there first. Right? I mean everything is a race, roughly speaking, and the faster you are the more likely you are to be at the forefront of the pack. Intelligence in large part is speed.”
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Being the wrong brain for the job
“If you go into a job, and you’re not smart enough for that job, you’re going to have one bloody miserable time”.
“You don’t want to be the stupidest guy in the room. It’s a bloody rough place to be. And you probably don’t want to be the smartest guy in the room either because what that probably means is that you should be in a different room…. If you’re right at the top, you’ve mastered it. It’s time to go somewhere a little lower so you’ve got something to climb up for.”
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Being in the right place
“most people have at least one significant weakness in their intelligence-personality makeup and you’ve got to be careful not to place yourself in a position where that is going to be a fatal flaw”..“what you want to do if you want to maximize your chances of both success and…well-being is you want to find a strata of occupation in which you would have an intelligence that would put you in the upper quartile. That’s perfect. Then you’re a big fish in a small pond.”
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The role of personality
“If you’re not hyper conscientious, you’re probably not going to want a job that you have to work 70 hours a week at…because you’re just not wired up that way. You’d rather have some leisure and the more power to you. If that’s how you are wired up there’s nothing wrong with having some leisure.”
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The problem of ‘cognitive capital’
“Jobs for people with IQs of less than 85 are very, very rare. So what the hell are those people supposed to do? It’s 15 percent of the population! What are they supposed to do? Well, we better figure it out because one of the things that’s happening is that as the high IQ tech geeks get a hold of the world, the demand for cognitive power is increasing, not decreasing. It’s a problem that has to be dealt with.”.“It’s illegal to induct anyone into the US army if they have an IQ that is less than 83. It’s about 10% of the population.”.“The fact that neither side of the political spectrum will take a good cold, hard look at this problem means that we’re going to increasingly have a structural problem in our societies because we’re complexifying everything so rapidly that you can’t find employment unless…your intelligent.”.“The working class has been wiped out… It’s the low end of the white collar class that is coming up next. There are still going to be plenty of jobs for people who are creative and fast on their feet and super smart. In fact, those people are going to have all the money. That’s already happening to a great degree.”
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Jobs and IQ ranges
“How smart do you have to be to be different things in life? “
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In answer to this question, he presents the following data (unfortunately he doesn’t cite his source/s).
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Of course there are many exceptions to this classification scheme.
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But is it correct in essentials? Is the picture he outlines basically accurate (statistically speaking)?
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Here are some obvious questions you may want to consider:
- Is climbing the ladder and success at work increasingly all about IQ, conscientiousness and stress tolerance? What else may be relevant?
- To be the best at what you are doing, do you really need an IQ of 140-160? Is there any evidence for this?
- Why might someone have a high IQ but be in an average IQ job?
- How do entrepreneurs and creatives fit into Peterson’s picture of how IQ-job fit works?
- How relevant is IQ to leadership and social/cultural influence more generally. Do the best leaders and influencers have IQs above 140?
I hope you get something out of the video!
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For a follow-up article on Peterson in which his arguments are dismantled have a look at: