greenvison

Hey guys, I just wanted to start this topic to see what people think of the relation between hard work and intelligence.

Are they related?

Is intelligence genetic? Or the smart ones "Work their behinds off"

Or is it that intelligence comes when your interested in something???

is your math score enough to calculate your Iq?

Is it related to your race? ( white,black,asian,Hispanic....)

I am really interested into this one, reply. If you have links to research articles, feel free to post them.

ali153

Technically, when controlling for hard work/effort intelligence is negatively correlated to GPA, suggesting that students who aren't as smart need to put in the extra effort.

greenvison

but what is intelligence? the ability to understand better or QUICKER?

greenvison

come one guys, tell us, are u stupid or not?

Innovative

dude..all the questions are asked are broad i.e. they require broad explanations/reasonings...that's why I'd rather refrain myself from answering any right now...that'd be becoz of laziness/too mcuh work to do other than answering it.

greenvison

if ppl cant answer these, forget about college work =\

beefs

lol, ok...

phand8

intelligence is probably about 70-75% genetic. the reaction range predetermines how much iq wil fluctuate (about 20-25 points). race in general is related to intelligence but any specific individual of any race can be a genius or mentally inept. hard work has nothing to do with intelligence- i have a friend who got a 2310 on the sat despite the fact that hes lazy and didn't prepare in any way, and another who got a 1900 even though he took sat classes and studied a lot...

Innovative

woah! might I be rude too by showing how the question u asked puts u in the same category..well to being w/ if there's such a category!? I don't want to be. so, I won't.

futurenyustudent

Einstein flunked out of third grade. GPA is NOT equal to intelligence.

I'd say genes have quite a bit to do with intelligence itself as well as the orientation of said intelligence (e.g. quantitative, qualitative, humanities/social science, math/science, language, whatever).

JohnWillkins

While I'm interested in an IQ/intelligence vs Hard Work debate, I think it's relatively useless unless you specify what you want to know about it. Is it IQ or hard work that builds success? What is success? Wealth? Fame? You are way to broad here.

My general thoughts on intelligence and hard work are that you can have one, the other, or both and still succeed. Hell, you can have neither and do well in life. Whatever the case may be, intelligence is a thing of nature and nurture. The more intelligent people I have known have grown from households with intelligent parents; parents that pushed them to read, discuss news and politics at the table, helped them with their homework. So was it the fact that their parents were smart (nature) or the fact that their parents started them on the path of being a well rounded/curious person (nurture) that makes them intelligent/sharp people now?

With all that said, I respect hard work far more than I respect plain intelligence. If someone is intelligent but unwilling to work then they aren't living up to their potential. From what I have seen, people who are intelligent but lazy are afraid of failure in some way, sort of a "if you don't try then you can't fail" mentality.

(The "if you don't try then you can't fail" thing is from personal experience and observations of students close to me.)

boho_girl

A Mensa president once said that a student's success in elementary school can often be attributed to intelligent, but from high school, college and and later in life, it's unpredictable as it has much more to do with their willingness to work than the plain intelligence.

Also, what JohnWillkins said: "nature or nurture"?
I watched a documentary that argued over it, and it didn't come up with a clear conclusion, but just let the viewers conclude on their own. What I understood from that documentary is that it's very important to nurture "willingness to study" from when kids are born. I think it was back in 60's, they did an experiment with underprivileged kids from poor suburbs. I think the statistics showed that many kids who grew up there ended up in jail, sold drugs, died young etc etc and basically didn't even finish elementary school.
What scientists did was that they chose several underprivileged kids (and I guess most of them either had single-parent household, and even that parent didn't have much time to take care of them as they had to work a lot) from that neighborhood whom they'd bring on tests and monitor their growth over the course of their lives. They regularly brought them to their center where the kids would play with mentally stimulating games every since they were born (starting with just placing a cube in square opening in wood and eventually passing on to IQ tests) and watched their progress.
The results showed that the kids who were regularly mentally stimulated succeeded in their lives, regularly finished high schools and most of them finished colleges. It was a big contrast with the other children who had the same household conditions but were not part of the testing.
They said it's because they managed to teach them that learning is good.

So I guess what I am trying to say is that intelligence by itself certainly helps in many situations, but it is not enough. It has to be fostered and nurtured regularly in order for anyone to achieve their full potential. And that involves hard work! =)
But if we talk about success, I think the most important ingredients are intelligence, willingness to work hard, passion and of course, luck

greenvison

Well John has an interesting point, success is of different types and here i am speaking of academic success. boho said something about luck. Believe it nor not I think has signifcant weight in ones career. My teacher often tells me to look for new strategy games for his 8 yo son. He tells me that the ability to solve a problem at a younger age exposes the kid to think in different ways as he grows up.

mj93

as fort minor once said

10% luck
20% skill
15% concentrated power of will
5% pleasure
50% pain

...and one hundred percent reason to remember the name

that's what it is, yo

boho_girl

A quote on success :

"Success is simple. Do what's right, the right way, at the right time."
- Arnold H. Glasow