Pieplup wrote:
eyelessshiver wrote:
I've had some obsessive issues with things...not lists exactly, but one example would be these high range IQ tests and scores, most recently. I took like over 100 of them in a few years (full tests filled with dozens of items), and sometimes literally the entire day was spent..and the next day, and the next. When I was working at my old job, I wouldn't have much scheduled on any given day...people would cancel on me or something, and I'd just spend the whole day there in the office working on a test (when I had other stuff I could've been doing but none of it seemed pressing and wouldn't take long anyway).
And many of the tests were pretty repetitive. If I wasn't physically looking at a test, I'd have memorized some items and would be trying to solve them in my head. Sometimes I'd spend like one or two weeks straight on a test...kind of like someone might blast through books, or a video game. But then oftentimes, the score would come in and I'd be "low-key" crushed. It got to where if I wasn't scoring in a certain range any given test, I would be disappointed. And I kept shooting for higher and higher scores, so it was harder to please myself. It's true that some scores I was happy with, as some were indeed in the range I was shooting for, but the disappointments were very pronounced. Also the scores would come in via email at weird and inconsistent times, because most of these people live overseas...I even waited weeks sometimes, so I'd be checking my email throughout the night for score reports. Or I'd get the report while I was out with my wife or trying to have a good time with my family doing something and I'd be let down.
I think it got really bad, I had to tell myself to take a break. I'd get really addicted to the feeling of a high score, but more often the raw score was at least a couple points lower than what I was hoping for and expecting, which can make a big difference in your balanced score. Also I'd realize after having a test scored, that I made a mistake or overlooked something easy. The few times I was thrilled, I got addicted to the feeling of ego gratification associated with what I deemed to be a high score. Then that became more and more rarefied over time. The issue was I really got hooked on both working on them (solving them, the enjoyment of this) but for me the score report didn't always totally match up with what I expected, and that often ruined it for me and led to frustration. So while there's a part of me that loves solving the items...many of the numerical and spatial items in particular can be really elegant and challenging...I think there's an unhealthy aspect to the whole thing as well.
Not totally related to the lists numbers thing, but I can relate in some ways...since sometimes I would be going over a number sequence in my head or something like that...
i get teh same way ometimes but you gotta saks yourself if you are pending all this time on it is it really valid? I also wanted to say one more thing about this...because I think it's important for you to understand this, and realize that there is objective validity in this matter. It's the validity itself that draws me into such pursuits (i.e. needing to have my answers objectively checked and scored by a third party); this isn't just happening internally. Spending more time on it in theory adds to the validity, because it means I didn't miss anything within my capacities. Now if I think you mean what you do mean, then you're suggesting that the IQ score itself, derived from the raw score, will be less valid due to all this time and practice. In response to that, I also apply the same previous logic related to: more time taken means more validity, because this means items were not missed. However, there are unknowns here. There are others taking the tests. Are they taking all the time that is afforded to them? We hope so, but we can't assume so. It seems likely that at least some of them, probably those with lower scores, could do a bit better if they worked harder. So by this logic, it's actually the others that lead to the distortion of the scores (not my fault, but something to take into account). Now, doesn't it make more sense for me to work my hardest...to see what I can truly accomplish, than it does for me to shoot myself in the foot and rush? Because surely there are also others out there who are taking longer than I am. Some of these tests I took were in just a few hours...rushed attempts, probably I could've done better. Others, I spent many hours, more likely to be non-rushed attempts. So you can see it's not so simple, and that the less valid attempts are actually the ones spent less time on. The score though can be inflated if it's very high. Knowing what I do about psychometrics, math, stats, etc., I know that a score is more likely to be inflated if it's over 160 (increasingly so, the higher it goes) due to the way statistics operate at that level. So of course I apply that to my own scores.
As for the IQ scores themselves, these are just *estimates*, so I feel they're never valid or accurate (this also applies to your gold standard IQ tests like the WAIS, etc). Of course there are correlations between the untimed and timed IQ tests and you can get a good idea of this correspondence, i.e. what your theoretical IQ would be. I see all IQ scores as theoretical, because they are. I'll give an anecdotal example of a friend of mine I made in IQ societies. He has an incredible WAIS score of 175. He and I both took a huge number of untimed tests as a hobby, probably some were more rushed than others, but at least some took large blocks of time and were thorough trials. For the most part he did slightly better than I did, but our averages were pretty close...and both of us had averages quite far below 175. So in his case anyway, his untimed tests, despite allowing him all the time he wanted, and receiving many different explorations into various tests and attempts etc., all landed him with scores lower than his estimated (supervised test) IQ score. So they're just estimates. Therefore, I don't take any of them as hard evidence or fact, but you can get some idea. I personally feel I have a decent idea of what my IQ theoretically *would be* on a supervised test, without having taken one, due to these correlations. And I never intend to take one because I don't care that much. Really what I liked about this as a hobby is solving the items...it's really fun and gives you a feeling of mastery.
And of course a person can have no evidence that they can score at a certain level unless they do so. Keep in mind all the tests are different with some overlapping items due to compilation-style or revised tests by the same author -- it breaks copyright laws to reuse items from other authors. So generally you can do a little better with practice, trying tests that have similar items that are inherently different. But it's not like anyone is giving out the answers here, they're all self-discovered. And someone like me wants to really know how much better I can do with practice. This is where the personal realization and knowledge aspect comes in, because I don't want to just assume "I could do better", I want to actually prove it to myself, and to know precisely the degree of the improvement. I'm not one for theories as much as hard evidence. So I wanted to see what I could do. For a while I was trying numerical and spatial tests and I couldn't score higher than a certain range (I was doing better on verbal). The items around that level get trickier in various ways. Eventually I guess I started to see the patterns, probably due to exposure to items, practice, and also just my brain getting smarter, and was able to get to the same level as verbal. I mean fwiw there's no evidence your IQ is really set from birth and can't change. So I was wanting to see the upper limits of what I could do. Doesn't mean the IQ scores are necessarily accurate (this is why I do averages and such), but it shows what I could actually do with more time and effort.
What my actual IQ is I'm not even sure matters because there's no way to know (including supervised tests; this is not really the essence of IQ, this is a marketable product of IQ). But at least with more data points, I can do better estimates...to eliminate the doubt that I wasn't trying my hardest before. There's a reason they let people take the SAT multiple times -- and they'll take whichever score you report. It's because the test changes, you don't get the same problems...so while you can study the kinds of items you'll find on the test, you need to apply that kind of reasoning to a unique test trial.
Most things in life become more valid with more time spent. Do you look at a kid who is 7, playing the piano for the first time and struggling to play a simple ditty, and say "this is the best raw exhibition of his talent", or do you wait 25 years to see how he develops? When in doubt, tt's always better to put more time in and see what one can achieve.
I knew a guy who had some early scores that were kind of low (for high range standards), and within a few years went on to become one of the most respected and high-scoring numerical test-takers in the hobby. Whether those higher scores are "actually his IQ" or not is maybe beside the point...the point is you could hardly find anyone better at numerical tests by the time he had developed a little more. You do just need to put time into these tests because they're hard (to achieve your maximum). You don't tell a guy to not practice his instrument because it'll "invalidate" the results (the opposite is true). Well this is kind of how I see it anyway. I hope it makes some sense to you and I won't have to go into it again.
16 Aug 2020, 3:30 pm
