By Sarah Fitzpatrick

Mine IQ was >160 last time I was tested, so I’m fairly sure I qualify.

These are the main things I’ve found that seem to distinguish me from friends with lower IQs:

I tend to be mentally active all the time, I rarely watch TV or sit thinking about nothing (I do meditate to give my poor brain some down time to avoid burnout), I analyse most things in depth and whether it takes me ten minutes or ten days if I have a decision to make (such as which harness to buy for my dog so he can go running) I’ll keep looking for information until I’m absolutely certain I’ve made the best choice I could in that situation.

My mind is geared towards problem-solving, the moment someone tells me they have a problem I’m brainstorming at a rapid rate to come up with a solution.

I’m far less likely to unquestioningly accept the status quo. For example, during the third year of my degree I conducted research to test whether people could identify the meaning of a visual stimulus in under 10 milliseconds. Around 60 years of research and theory said no, but I’d read a couple of papers that suggested the existing knowledge was inaccurate (smiley faces presented for less than 10ms resulted in priming effects), so I wanted to investigate. Two tutors with doctorates told me I was wrong, my research was pointless and I was going to get a negative result and that would impact on my grades. I stuck to my guns (much to the frustration of said tutors, apparently many staff meetings that week focused on my inability to listen to people who knew better) and my results supported my theory to the extent that said tutors gave me a pat on the back. Shortly after that a team of researchers conducted a similar study and obtained the same results. I resisted the urge to blow raspberries 😉

New ideas come to me really easily. Fellow students used to ask me how I came up with research ideas and the question really stumped me because I didn’t actually do anything, there was no genius process, I simply read things and when I noticed a gap in the existing knowledge I looked for a way to fill it.

I care less about opinions. When someone looks down on me because I’m not wearing make-up and I don’t follow fashion it doesn’t bother me, I know their response is the result of ingrained social norms that have absolutely no merit, so I don’t cry into my coffee (although I do feel empathy for people who feel they have to conform to those norms). If I’m discussing something with someone and their point of view is based solely on their own experience and there’s a wealth of data that suggests they’re wrong I’ll mention it and if they continue to press their point of view I’ll nod, smile, and ignore them.

I also used to assume that if I’d thought something through, I was probably right. A situation where I had to bleed a radiator , where I assumed that as the purpose of bleeding an animal was to remove all the blood the purpose of bleeding a radiator must be to remove all the water, taught me that logic does not always lead one to truth. Standing on a soggy carpet, covered in mouldy radiator water whilst a British Gas engineer struggles not to laugh at you will do that to an ego!