Results from the Human Genome Project strongly suggest that genes explain only 5% to 10% of intelligence.
Motivation looks increasingly crucial. If having to be “driven” is what’s essential, it calls into question the premise that it is necessarily “a good thing” to have a “bright” high-achiever for a child.
This may be borne out by a recent study of 5 250 British children. Their IQ was measured at age eight and then their proneness to depression evaluated when they were 11, 13, 14 and 17.
The higher a child’s IQ score at eight, the lower his or her likelihood of being measured as suffering from depressive feelings aged 11: 7% less likely. Understood in terms of motivation, this might be what you would expect. If you spend each day at school struggling because you find it hard to cope with reading and writing (frequently being made to feel like a failure), or perhaps because you are simply unmotivated by the academic agenda of school life, it is not surprising that you are at greater risk of depressive feelings. Likewise, if you have a high IQ and find schoolwork easy, your ability could be a source of esteem.
However, the fascinating thing is that the pattern reversed at 13 and 14: a high IQ at age eight predicted an increased risk of depression — 4% greater at 13, 3% at 14. To put it the other way round, if you had a low IQ at eight, you were less likely to be depressed at 13 and 14.
This could be because the older high-IQ children may have invested their self-worth in academic performance. By then they are working towards the equivalent of matric exams and getting almost daily feedback on their performance as well as objective measures on test results.
Testing damages
Although overall they would be likely to be scoring higher than low-IQ children, because they care so much more about results, they find testing damages self-esteem more. They get a boost when they do well but, sadly, the disappointment far outweighs the successes in its impact. Indeed, studies of 15-year-olds show that the closer clever ones get to exams, the more prone they are to emotional problems.
In contrast, by 13 or 14, children who had a low IQ at eight may have long since stopped evaluating themselves according to school performance. They may have learned to seek esteem in other domains. If following stereotypes, many of the girls could already have started to look upon their attractiveness to boys as a much more important source of esteem. Many of the boys will have turned to sport or rebellion (shoplifting, alcohol, drugs) or their pulling power with girls as their sources of esteem.
In considering their findings, the authors steadfastly ignore these factors or the growing body of evidence suggesting that teenagers from the higher social classes — who also tend to get higher IQ scores and grades in exams — are at greater risk of emotional problems than ones from lower-income homes. This extends to university students when compared with non-students as well.
There seems to be widespread reluctance to face the fact that being ambitious, competitive and high-achieving can be very bad for your mental health — or, in some cases, is an expression thereof. Teens with top grades are four times more likely to develop bipolar disorder subsequently.
As degrees become more expensive and jobs for graduates scarcer, parents should not worry if their children seem intent on being plumbers or hairdressers. Many of us with highly educated minds are not necessarily made mentally healthier by manifesting our “brightness” in this way. — Guardian News & Media 2011
IQ-depression study: Glaser, B et al, 2011, Psychological Medicine, 333-41