A high-IQ society is an organization that limits its membership to people who have attained a specified score on an IQ test, usually in the top two percent of the population (98th percentile) or above.[1][2] These may also be referred to as genius societies.[1][3] The largest and oldest such society is Mensa International, which was founded by Roland Berrill and Lancelot Ware in 1946.[4][3]
Entry requirements
editHigh-IQ societies typically accept a variety of IQ tests for membership eligibility; these include WAIS, Stanford-Binet, and Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices, amongst many others deemed to sufficiently measure or correlate with intelligence. Tests deemed to insufficiently correlate with intelligence (e.g. post-1994 SAT, in the case of Mensa and Intertel) are not accepted for admission.[5][6][7] As IQ significantly above 146 SD15 (approximately three-sigma) cannot be reliably measured with accuracy due to sub-test limitations and insufficient norming, IQ societies with cutoffs significantly higher than four-sigma should be considered dubious.[8][9][10]
Societies
editSome societies accept the results of standardized tests taken elsewhere. Those are listed below by selectivity percentile (assuming the now-standard definition of IQ as a standard score with a median of 100 and a standard deviation of 15 IQ points). Since the 1960s, Mensa has experienced increasing competition in attracting high-IQ individuals, as various new groups have emerged with even stricter and more exclusive admissions requirements.[11] Notable high-IQ societies include:
| Name | Established | No. of members | Approx. no. of countries | Eligibility / Rarity | Approx. IQ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mensa International | 1946 | ≈ 145,000 (as of 2022[update])[12] | 100 | Top 2 percent of population (98th percentile; 1 person out of 50) | 130 |
| Intertel | 1966 | ≥ 1,700 (as of July 2024[update])[13] | 40 | Top 1 percent (99th percentile; 1 out of 100) | 135 |
| Triple Nine Society | 1978 | ≈ 1,900 (as of September 2022[update])[14] | 46 | Top 0.1 percent (99.9th percentile; 1 out of 1,000) | 146 |
| Mega Society[1] | 1982 | 36 (as of October 2024) | Unknown | Top 0.0001 percent (99.9999th percentile; 1 out of 1,000,000; not reliably measurable with current tests) | 171.3 |
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ a b c Groeger, Lena (January 1, 2015). "When High IQs Hang Out". Scientific American. Retrieved January 29, 2021.
- ^ "The rise of children joining high-IQ society Mensa". BBC News. November 26, 2019. Retrieved January 29, 2021.
- ^ a b "American Mensa Celebrates Its Diamond Jubilee". American Mensa. Retrieved January 29, 2021.
- ^ Percival, Matt (September 8, 2008). "The Quest for Genius". Retrieved June 26, 2015.
- ^ "Qualifying test scores". American Mensa. Retrieved January 24, 2019.
- ^ "Intertel - Join us". www.intertel-iq.org. Retrieved January 24, 2019.
- ^ "Test Scores". www.triplenine.org. Retrieved January 24, 2019.
- ^ "IQ values explained". www.triplenine.org. Retrieved January 24, 2019.
- ^ Perleth, Christoph; Schatz, Tanja; Mönks, Franz J. (2000). "Early Identification of High Ability". In Heller, Kurt A.; Mönks, Franz J.; Sternberg, Robert J.; et al. (eds.). International Handbook of Giftedness and Talent (2nd ed.). Amsterdam: Pergamon. p. 301. ISBN 978-0-08-043796-5.
norm tables that provide you with such extreme values are constructed on the basis of random extrapolation and smoothing but not on the basis of empirical data of representative samples.
- ^ Urbina, Susana (2011). "Chapter 2: Tests of Intelligence". In Sternberg, Robert J.; Kaufman, Scott Barry (eds.). The Cambridge Handbook of Intelligence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 20–38. ISBN 9780521739115.
[Curve-fitting] is just one of the reasons to be suspicious of reported IQ scores much higher than 160
- ^ Schregel, Susanne (December 1, 2020). "'The intelligent and the rest': British Mensa and the contested status of high intelligence". History of the Human Sciences. 33 (5): 12–36. doi:10.1177/0952695120970029. ISSN 0952-6951. S2CID 227187677.
- ^ "About Us". Mensa International. 2022. Retrieved September 9, 2022.
- ^ "Intertel - Home". www.intertel-iq.org. Retrieved July 6, 2023.
- ^ "What is TNS?". Triple Nine Society. 2022. Retrieved September 8, 2022.
Further reading
edit- Kaufman, Alan S. (2009). IQ Testing 101. New York: Springer Publishing. ISBN 978-0-8261-0629-2.
- Shurkin, Joel (1992). Terman's Kids: The Groundbreaking Study of How the Gifted Grow Up. Boston (MA): Little, Brown. ISBN 978-0-316-78890-8.
- Frederic Golden (May 31, 1992). "Tracking the IQ Elite : TERMAN'S KIDS: The Groundbreaking Study of How the Gifted Grow Up, By Joel N. Shurkin". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on November 8, 2012.
- Terman, Lewis Madison; Merrill, Maude A. (1937). Measuring intelligence: A guide to the administration of the new revised Stanford-Binet tests of intelligence. Riverside textbooks in education. Boston (MA): Houghton Mifflin.