How Do People With IQs Over 180 Think and Act?

A response to a Quora question, lending some experience from the high IQ community.

Author: Christopher Matthew Cavanaugh

"How do people with IQs over 180 think and act?"

For context, see the original question here:

My answer:

A biographical investigation into exemplars may suggest traits for your character.

You may want to list out notable people with high intelligence. These are not always famous physicists, mathematicians, scientists, and philosophers, but some are, so I would include them. More interestingly, you should include those who are not.

Once you have a list of people, do the following:

Watch YouTube interviews with them. (not videos about them, but videos of them speaking). See Richard Feynman (unknown IQ, although he said it is 126. He is a prodigy, ignore those claims), Bertrand Russell, and others.

Read interviews and articles by members of the elite high IQ societies, such as Mega and others. Mega has a journal with many contributions, from authors you could investigate: The Mega Society.

Read about the Terman Study.

Here’s a good interview:

Paul Cooijmans: Independent Psychometitor; Administrator, The Giga Society; Administrator, The Glia Society (Part One)

Read classic papers on the topic of the needs of the profoundly gifted. This will give you some insight into their thinking and behavior as well. “The Outsiders”, by Grady Towers (late member of Mega, article via the Prometheus Society), is a classic:

The Outsiders | Grady M. Towers

This should give you some more to work with. Here’s one additional article on the exceptionally gifted:

http://www.mattanaw.com/exceptgt.pdf

While I am not in the HighIQ range you are looking for (you are looking for folks in the millionth percentile), I have received feedback from very smart people indicating that some may share the characteristics listed in my article here:

The Burden of Having Too Many Ideas

Another popular article these days is “The Inappropriately Excluded”, which discusses the trouble some very intelligent people have with maintaining suitable employment.

The Inappropriately Excluded

Relatedly, there is this article from the Mega Society on having too many aptitudes. Very smart people can be into everything and often resist specialization. Some can master multiple fields and do not like to be constrained by narrow occupations.

The Too Many Aptitudes Problem

Perhaps this can guide you to imagine how extremely intelligent people might behave, although these articles are skewed towards the special needs of intelligent people. Most have unique needs but that shouldn’t cause one to assume any great dysfunction. It depends on the individual like with anyone else.

I would say the best sources are real life interviews with highly intelligent people, as mentioned above.

Answer also available here on Quora:

[Mattanaw was not the author of the Quora question. Only the answer.]