In a study just published in the journal Intelligence, Pitzer College researcher Ruth Karpinski and her colleagues emailed a survey with questions about psychological and physiological disorders to members of Mensa
Ah, it's this study. Yeah, absolutely worthless. Mensa =/= high IQ, it's a very specific subgroup of people willing to pay money to join a club that then confirms they've got a high IQ. Not representative of general high intelligence at all.
Editing because this is pissing me off:
The results of this study must be interpreted cautiously because they are correlational. Showing that a disorder is more common in a sample of people with high IQs than in the general population doesn’t prove that high intelligence is the cause of the disorder. It’s also possible that people who join Mensa differ from other people in ways other than just IQ. For example, people preoccupied with intellectual pursuits may spend less time than the average person on physical exercise and social interaction, both of which have been shown to have broad benefits for psychological and physical health.
First of all, practically any psychological study is correlational, and that doesn't matter because who the fuck cares if causality goes one way or the other? If you've got the correlation, that's enough! It's like early studies showed there's a correlation between smoking and lung cancer. Are you going to not treat people and not tell them to stop smoking because "it's just correlation"? NO! The causality is neat to know to help discover future treatments but it's not necessary. can't believe something called "scientific American" would fall for something like that.
Also, "It’s also possible that people who join Mensa differ from other people in ways other than just IQ"? It's also possible they differ from other people with high IQ meaning they're not a good sample and the results can't be generalized to all intelligent people, making this study worthless. Again, this was my first thought on seeing this, and led the discussion when this was posted on HN, but something called "scientific American" can't find the single greatest flaw in a study and just copy-pastes a press release?
I'm tired so I'm honestly not sure how to interpret your intent in the second sentence (should I be jealous I'm apparently not high IQ/depressed etc enough?). But the first one does help make sense of what I read.
Ah, it's this study. Yeah, absolutely worthless. Mensa =/= high IQ, it's a very specific subgroup of people willing to pay money to join a club that then confirms they've got a high IQ. Not representative of general high intelligence at all.
Editing because this is pissing me off:
First of all, practically any psychological study is correlational, and that doesn't matter because who the fuck cares if causality goes one way or the other? If you've got the correlation, that's enough! It's like early studies showed there's a correlation between smoking and lung cancer. Are you going to not treat people and not tell them to stop smoking because "it's just correlation"? NO! The causality is neat to know to help discover future treatments but it's not necessary. can't believe something called "scientific American" would fall for something like that.
Also, "It’s also possible that people who join Mensa differ from other people in ways other than just IQ"? It's also possible they differ from other people with high IQ meaning they're not a good sample and the results can't be generalized to all intelligent people, making this study worthless. Again, this was my first thought on seeing this, and led the discussion when this was posted on HN, but something called "scientific American" can't find the single greatest flaw in a study and just copy-pastes a press release?
Think of it more as Science-y, or Science-ish American. As for the article, someone's jealous-y, or jealous-ish.
I'm tired so I'm honestly not sure how to interpret your intent in the second sentence (should I be jealous I'm apparently not high IQ/depressed etc enough?). But the first one does help make sense of what I read.