IQ, short for intelligence quotient, is one of the most widely cited and versatile tools in psychology, spanning thousands of studies across more than a century of research. Aiming to measure the innate intelligence of the human population, IQ tests work by aggregating the scores from several distinct tasks into a singular number representing the person’s cognitive ability. The tests also have numerous methodological flaws that we’re only just beginning to understand.
“I think IQ testing has done far more harm than good," says British Psychologist Ken Richardson, author of Understanding Intelligence. “And it's time we moved beyond the ideologically corruptible mechanical model of IQ to a far deeper and wider appreciation of intelligence.”
