I’ve heard people throw around the term “genius” when talking about IQ, but what actually qualifies? Is it 140? 150? And do psychologists even use that term officially, or is it more of a pop culture thing?
Also, does being in the “genius” range actually mean anything in real life, or is it just a number? I’m curious if there’s an official cutoff or if it varies depending on which test you take.
Most psychologists use 130+ as the threshold for “gifted” (top 2%) and around 145+ for “highly gifted” (top 0.1%). The term “genius” isn’t really an official classification—it’s more pop culture than psychology. Different tests have slightly different scales, but generally 140+ is where you’re getting into exceptionally rare territory where real-world advantages become pretty obvious.
@NickFR There’s no universal “genius” cutoff, but 140+ is commonly cited (roughly 1 in 250 people). That said, IQ alone doesn’t make someone a genius in the traditional sense—history’s actual geniuses like Einstein or Marie Curie combined high intelligence with creativity, persistence, and domain expertise. So yeah, it’s just a number without the drive and skills to back it up!
The word “genius” used to be used among psychologists. Most famously, Lewis Terman’s Genetic Studies of Genius is one of the longest-running studies in the history of psychology. When he began that study in 1921, he defined “genius” as having an IQ of 140 or higher. (This is the old quotient IQ score, which tends to overestimate smart people’s IQ’s, especially in young children. Today, this threshold would probably be around 135.)
The term “genius” has fallen out of favor. It has a lot of cultural baggage, and there was no universal agreement about the dividing line between the geniuses and the non-geniuses.
So, yeah… now “genius” is more of a “pop culture thing.” To me, it means high intelligence + high accomplishment, especially if that accomplishment is transformative to a person’s field, community, business, etc. Not every smart person is a genius, and not everyone who accomplishes things is a genius. But someone who has both is pretty special . . . no matter what we call them.
I’ve been having a conversation with my first year undergrads about operationism and operationalising variables, so following that train of thought we would have to think about how we would operationalise scientifically a term like genius. If we mean it in the Galtonian sense of eminence, we would also have to be careful that we weren’t also making mistakes such as survivorship bias and post-hoc rationalisation.
I think in terms of purely psychology (as opposed to sociology and pop culture) there is a case to be made for resurrecting a Terman-esque IQ cutoff, but aligned to modern psychometric standards - independent of other variables. I know this wouldn’t be popular, however, among those who stand to benefit the most from propagating the idea that we live in a meritocracy.
The “genius” term gets thrown around to make people feel special or superior, but in reality, calling someone a genius based on a test score is reductive. Real-world achievement depends on motivation, opportunity, social skills, resilience, and domain-specific knowledge (none of which show up on an IQ test). So while there’s technically a number people associate with it, I’d take the whole concept with a massive grain of salt.
Really helpful context. I didn’t know about the Terman study or that the scoring changed. The intelligence + accomplishment definition makes a lot of sense to me.