IQ Stories

by larc 13 Replies latest jw friends

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  larc

  The world of psychological testing is a fascinating place, so I thought I would share part of my story with you.

  When I was in graduate school, one of my professors asked me if I would like to work in his private practice administering psychological tests. Of course, I was excited at the chance of having this opportunity. Well, the first day on the job was unusual. The first client I was to test went with me from the waiting room to the office, and during our short trip he said in a high voice, "I am still a good Christian." That sent a chill through me, which I still remember today, obviously. Well, the rest of the session was uneventful.

  Over the next four years, I tested over 2,000 people. Most of them, I don't remember, but others stick out in my mind. I remember the young girl who was sizophrenic and talked to an imaginary friend when I asked her questions. I remember the person who showed up in a pretty green dress, who was a man that was the size of a football player. I remember the guy who showed up so drunk that he puked outside the office. I remember the woman who was judged as mentally retarded, and she was not. I remember testing someone I knew from high school, and the tests clearly showed that he was brain damaged from heavy drug use. He died a year later. Last, but not least, I remember testing a JW black male, who had a very high IQ, who left the religion when he told his mother he was homosexual. I knew him through my childhood.

  Well, "hands on" experience and theoretical knowledge combined is the best combination.
  Don't ya think?
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  cellomould

  Larc,

  just curious...do these examinees know before they arrive they will be given a test?

  Do the connotations inferred from the word 'test' affect the results?

  cellomould

  "You're crying 'why am I the victim?' when the culprit is YOU" Stevie Wonder
• 

  larc

  Yes, they knew they are going to be tested. Most of the clients were from a state agency that helped the disabled. A few were from a small town who wanted to screen candidates for the police department.

  Now, your next question is a very important one, does the connotation of the word "test" affect people? Yes it does. It is very hard to determine the magnitude of these effects. However, with certain basic tests, such intelligence tests the reactive effects of being tested should be minimal. Their may be a few cases where people have extreme test anxiety that they performe poorly as a result. I can not remember seeing such an example of anxiety at this level. If there is anxiety when administering the WAIS, it will show up on a subtest, digit span, a measure of short term memory. Short term memory does not function well when you are anxious.
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  cellomould

  Thanks Larc,

  my short term memory is pretty terrible all the time. Does this mean I am anxious?

  cellomould

  "You're crying 'why am I the victim?' when the culprit is YOU" Stevie Wonder
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  larc

  Cello,

  I don't know what it means. It could mean your 90 years old. It could mean that you have so many important things on your mind that you don't care about the trivia around you. So some where in these extremes, I am sure you fit.
• 

  Amazing

  Hi Larc: Most interesting post. My experience has been that of 'testee.' Working in the nuke industry, we had to pass a battery of psych tests for our security clearances ... and to make sure that we were mentally stable and not likely to do something stupid that would cause harm to others or ourselves.

  I personally never felt intimidated or worried about such tests. Among the most commonly used was the MMPI along with other tests. I still have a copy of the 600 or more questions. After our several tests, the company psychologist would interview us mostly to discuss the results, especially if any of the results revealed something of concern.

  I recall one meeting in the mid-1970s where I was called in to discuss a 'concern' with my psych test when I was hired to work on a U.S. Dept. of Energy project, and I needed a 'secret' clearance. The doctor told me that my test was basically fine, but he was worried about some 'stressors' in my life ... I asked what he meant, and he noted several 'happy' events happening all at once, such as getting out of debt, moving away from a problematic JW congregation, and landing a great new job, etc. ... I said yes, those were all positive changes ... so does that make me nuts?

  He said no, but then he shocked me by saying that even too many good things happening all at once, like winning the lottery, getting married, buying a home, getting a new car, landing a great job can cause stress ... and that our mind and body still see the stress, even though we associate the stress with happy things ... he said that evidence shows that even happy stress, if enough and condensed in a short period of time, can cause emotional and mental difficulties ... and so he wanted to have an additional interview to be sure that I was not choking with too much happiness.

  We both laughed. But it was an education for me ... and so I have been sure since then to not have too much fun - all at once. Just kidding ... but it made some sense to me. Anyway, he passed me on, and I enjoyed my new job.

  Maybe in some odd way, if that aspect of too much happiness all condensed at one time still holds true today in the psych profession, then maybe the reason some ex-JWs might have some extreme behavior is that we are so damn happy upon leaving he Borg, that we go a little goofy for a while - what do you think?
• 

  larc

  Amazing,

  An interesting account you gave us. The term that pschologists use for this is "cluster of life events." They have a test for this, and yes, they include positive as well as negative life changes. In one study, they tested 2,000 men in the navy who were about to board a ship. Their measure of the effects of stress was straight forward. It was the number of trips to the sick bay. They found that those in the top 10% regarding life changes reported in sick twice as often as those who had minimal changes before their arrival to the navy.

  I have an MMPI story to relate. When I was in the corporate environment, I was asked to visit a plant manager at one of our microelectronic facilities. The plant manager as in his early fifties and was having panic attacks. He was very concerned about an early death. Most of his family, parents and siblings had died in their 50's. He went to his physician who could find nothing physicaly wrong with him. He referred the man to a clinical psychologist who gave him the MMPI. His score was way beyond the normal limits on the depression scale. The psychologist put him on a biofeedback program. After a period of time his depression and anxiety lifted and his medication was cut from 17 pills a day down to 4. The retest of the MMPI showed all of his scores were within normal limits.

  Now, comes my role in this. This plant manager was a hard driving engineer who spear headed research on the computer chip back when the company was in the mechanical era. During this time he developed a dislike for HRM people, as he saw them as an impediment in his life. As a consequence, the corpoarate HRM people were afraid that this man was going to sue the company because of his mental problems. I worked in the Engineering and Manufacturing division in the HRM group. Fortunately, my boss had enough insight and realised that we should try to help this man, not ignore him as the corporate people had. I was sent to the facility to interview the psychologist, the physician, the plant manager, and some of his subordinates to try to determine the man's state of health, when he could return to work and in what capacity. The man was making very significant progress, but he had enough insight to realize that he would have step down to a less stressful job.

  He was very thankful for my visit and our show of concern for his welfare. Also, several of the executives in the division had sent their expressions of concern as well. This was one of the most rewarding assignments for me at that company. I am glad that we took a proactive stance in helping this man. I think that if we had been inactive like the corporate people, we would have created a self fullfilling prophecy. The man would have grown resentful of our ignoring him, and he may well have sued the company.

  Well, that's my story for today folks.
• 

  larc

  Folks,

  I thought I would elaborate on one of the persons I knew from high school, who had brain damage from drug use. I knew him in high school. He was a year younger than me and was a shy, introverted, intelligent person. When I met him many years later in the testing session, he was a different person. His voice had changed from a shy, quiet voice to a deep macho voice. It was quite a shock to me. During the interview with him, I learned that he had taken a whole host of druges in heavy quantities.

  Next, I administered the WAIS, which, at that time had 11 subtests, 5 verbal tests and 6 performance tests. Now, all of these tests correlate, which simply means that how you perform on one of these subtests should be similar to how you perform on the others. Whenever there is a major difference, then that alerts the diagnostician to a potential problem. Well, in Gary's case, he scored higher than 95% of the population on verbal skills. However, on perceptual-spatial skills he only scored at 50%. Now, this is a major difference, and one that hardly ever occurs. Such a difference indicated brain damage from heavy drug use. As I mentione in my first post, Gary died a year later.

  Well, another happy story from your old uncle Larc.

  Over the time that I administered 2,000 IQ tests, I only tested 4 people that I knew. It was not fun in any of those cases.
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  waiting

  Howdy larc,

  Oddly enough, I've never been given any kind of test like that. Typing & math only. *sigh.*

  One of the funniest scenes (in a wacko way) was in the movie Armageddon. The government psych. was giving tests to determine if some *unique* oil drillers were capable of fulfilling an important mission for the goverment.

  The psych. were just so irritated! So many psychos! lol.......if you haven't seen the movie - you might like it. I loved it.

  Always enjoy your posts. Thanks.

  waiting

  ps: If you like movies.....Donnie Darko is great, imho.
• 

  crownboy

  Hey larc, interesting stories.

  In all your years of testing, have you yourself ever taken an IQ test? If you did, did you score high?

  Is the "correlation" on test the same "g-factor" that the writers of the Bell Curve were talking about? Not much knowledge on the subject, but it's pretty interesting.