THE World Population Review website recently ranked the Philippines at 111 among 199 countries, with an average intelligence quotient (IQ) of 81.64. For a standard deviation of 15 percent, an IQ between 85 and 115 should be noted as average. The viral social media posts and shares about the Philippines at the bottom of the Asean IQ list have generated mixed reactions, from blaming game to questions of methodologies to sour-graping denials and sweet-lemonading rationalizations.

But who really cares about IQ when it is an old measure and when there are other more contemporary measures of diverse and functional intelligences?

The rational and material intelligence, based on “what I think” is measured by the intelligence quotient (IQ) which was introduced by Alfred Binet in 1905. The concept coincided with the period of the Second Industrial Revolution (1870-1914 ) that witnessed the expansion of electricity and petroleum and which reduced the need for human physical strength as required by the First Industrial Revolution, hence shifting to the value of human cognitive intelligence.

Other intelligence

The Third Industrial Revolution began in the 1950s. During this time, computers and communication technologies in the production process led to automated production which reduced the premium on human cognitive intelligence. Hence, shifting to the right-brain linked power of emotions as source of human energy, information, connection and influence for personal, emotional and social abilities. The emotional or social intelligence, anchored on “what I feel,” is measured by emotional quotient (EQ). As early as the 1930s, psychologist Edward Thorndike described the concept of “social intelligence” as the ability to get along with other people. While the term “emotional intelligence” was first defined in 1990 by psychologists John D. Mayer and Peter Salovey, it took the 1995 release of Daniel Goleman’s book Emotional Intelligence to popularize the concept.

The concept of EQ reduced the value of IQ as indicator of and contributory factor to success and happiness. And other forms of intelligence have since then been theorized and measured.

Adversity quotient (AQ) was introduced by Dr. Paul Stoltz in 1997 as a complementary framework which tells us how well one withstands adversity and the ability to surmount it and predicts who gives up and who prevails. AQ is anchored on cognitive psychology, neurophysiology and psychoneuroimmunology. Then the spiritual intelligence was introduced on the foundation of “what I am” and is measured by the spirituality quotient (SQ). It was attributed to Dana Zohar and Ian Marshall in a pioneering book SQ Connecting with Our Spiritual Intelligence, published in 1997. SQ can make us more purposeful, meaningful and responsible, regardless of our religion.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution originated in 2011 from a project in the high-tech strategy of the German government. The concept of the Fourth Industrial Revolution was however coined in 2016 by Klaus Schwab, the founder of the World Economic Forum. This must have prompted the introduction of digital intelligence quotient (DQ) which was first coined with its framework, created in 2016, by Dr. Yuhyun Park. Digital literacy, as defined by the Unesco, is the ability to access, manage, understand, integrate, communicate, evaluate and create information safely and appropriately through digital technologies for employment, decent jobs and entrepreneurship. At the onset of the Fifth Industrial Revolution, expect the emergence of more intelligences.

Given these concepts of intelligence, with even the assertion of multiple intelligences, are we still giving a premium to the measure of IQ?

National IQ and its implications

When IQ does not predict effectiveness and efficiency, success and happiness of persons, what do we get from its national average?

In 2012, the book Intelligence: A Unifying Construct for Social Sciences was published. It is a 530-page book by Richard Lynn, a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge and professor at the University of Ulster, and Tatu Vanhanen, emeritus professor of political science at the University of Tampere, Finland. The book attempts to develop the psychological construct of intelligence as a unifying explanatory construct for social science.

Authors regard national IQs as measures of general intelligence defined as the totality of cognitive abilities. These IQs have been culled from two sources — the administration of tests of intelligence, and the administration of tests of mathematics, science and reading literacy. They are also aligned with TIMSS (The International Math and Science Studies) and PISA (Program for International Student Assessment). They computed the Philippines’ final national IQ of 86.1. They have justified the validity and the reliability of national IQs. The study is not without critics but appears to have empirical justification and statistical soundness. The study included the Philippines, but it isn’t only about the Philippines. We can only reject the findings or be mindful of its findings for our perusal.

Given the following empirical findings, one can decide if we should still care about IQ.

The more intelligent nations have been much more effective in the application of education and intellectual resources to inventions and research activities than less intelligent nations. National IQ is a permanent factor behind global economic inequalities. National IQ explains the global variation in per capita income and in poverty measures.

Global differences in the levels of democratization, women’s representation in parliaments, gender inequality in human development and corruption, can be traced to differences in national IQ. The more intelligent nations are able to construct qualitatively better political institutions than less intelligent nations. The level of democratization may continually remain higher in countries with high national IQ than in countries with low national IQ.

IQ and corruption

The extent of corruption is significantly related to the level of national IQ, to the level of democratization, to the degree of resource distribution, and to the level of per capita income. Corruption is more extensive in poor countries than in rich countries and in less democratized than in more democratized countries.

Health conditions tend to be significantly better in high national IQ countries than in low national IQ countries. Life expectancy at birth and Infant mortality rate are most strongly related to national IQ.

The results of empirical analyses indicate uniformly that more intelligent nations tend to be better able to improve human conditions than less intelligent nations but they are less successful in reproduction. We should expect some decline in the average genotypic intelligence of the human population. A lower rate of fertility has helped more intelligent nations to safeguard better living conditions for their members.

The positive correlation suggests that the populations of high IQ countries are more energetic and alert. People in more intelligent nations tend to be happier than people in less intelligent nations, but the high levels of per capita income, democracy and literacy, as well as long life expectancy and low level of corruption, tend also to increase average happiness in nations. This means that the happiness and life satisfaction of many people is independent from national IQ and environmental social conditions. Many people can feel happy or unhappy both in rich and poor countries as well as in democracies and autocracies, or in highly corrupt and in less corrupt countries.

As we believe that we cannot improve what we cannot measure, we tend to measure everything we wish to improve. Given the measurable connections between national IQ and various aspects of our lives, we may now move to improve the variables that show causation and correlations. We cannot just afford to ask, “so what?”