• Question: is your IQ dependent on your genes, brain mass or just how hard you work?

    Asked by Bantersaurus-rex 21 to Adrian, Iroise, Joe, Rachel, Ria on 10 Nov 2016.
    • Photo: Iroise Dumontheil

      Iroise Dumontheil answered on 10 Nov 2016:

      A bit of everything. IQ is typically measured by asking people to do a series of tasks/tests and seeing how well they do on these tests. If you practice these tests a lot, then you would score higher!
      But in general, cognitive abilities improve during development, and are in parts due to genes (for example I studied a gene coding for a protein called COMT, which plays a role in brain function, and people with a particular version of the gene have a higher working memory- they can remember more things for a short period of time- than people with another variant), but also due to stimulation and support during development.

    • Photo: Ria Vaportzis

      Ria Vaportzis answered on 10 Nov 2016:

      Like most things, IQ depends both on genes and environmental factors. However, there is a lot of debate about the ways of measuring IQ and whether these are the best ways for measuring intelligence. As IQ is tested by a series of questions (like a multiple choice exam) some argue that people who have higher education may perform better on IQ tests purely because they know more rather than being more intelligent.

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