What does the generational rise in IQ (cognitive ability) scores have to do with leadership, Machiavellian traits, unresolved guilt, shame, and maladaptive behaviours we see in the West?
My perspective is informed by extensive studies, 50 years of lived experience, and professional practice as a counsellor, along with a licence to administer various psychometric tests. I scored high on the Raven’s Progressive Matrices (IQ) test at the age of 48, but most of my childhood I was made to feel dumb, probably with undiagnosed ADHD (resolved itself in early adulthood). Teachers and family members who were too quick to judge me labelled me a loser for my frequent failures. It was only in my thirties that I learned to manage my energy, select meaningful goals, and exceed them. I achieved a private pilot’s licence, grew a successful business and completed a psychology qualification with distinction between the ages of 30 and 50. I have grappled with anxiety, poverty, alcoholism, anorexia, trauma, low self-esteem, and injustice. Despite these challenges, I have succeeded in developing my competencies, increasing my autonomy, and finding love, purpose, and meaning. I aim to share these insights to enrich others’ lives and initiate hope for those who might be grappling with similar obstacles.
When one compares the mental health of Western nations with that of the rest (non-Western nations), we see higher levels of reported pathology and medicalisation. This implies a crisis within Western culture. Arguably, we have descended into the hedonism that seems to plague successful civilisations. I agree with others, like the contemporary philosopher Byung-Chul Han, who points to materialism and the culture of consumption that has misled many to raise their children to be mere consumers. Creativity is “monetised”, and humans become miniature incubators of consumable content. We produce bits of data for consumption rather than using our creativity to produce life, build, grow food, or inspire passion through the arts. Many consumers are being consumed.
And yet, we know that these same societies have benefited from a generational increase in intelligence scores over the last one hundred years. This was discovered by James R. Flynn in 1984. He noted that the increase in IQ was reported as early as 1948 by Read D. Tuddenham. Once coined by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray in their 1994 book The Bell Curve; this phenomenon became known as the Flynn Effect. I see no value in rehashing the debate around the value or utility of IQ here, many of the criticisms have been thoroughly addressed by Russel T. Warne in his 2020 book In the Know: Debunking 35 Myths about Human Intelligence. Also, I have personally administered the Raven’s test (IQ) in South Africa, and I have no doubt in my mind of the value of eductive aptitude, which involves making sense of disorder, identifying patterns, and investigating new insights. Flynn and Murray may disagree on how we use IQ to manage society, but they both accept how important IQ is to human growth. In 2014, the Flynn effect was re-confirmed by a meta-analysis of 285 studies, IQ gains of around 3 points per decade are still happening in certain groups of people, while some nations languish below global averages. We will see more and more high IQ people (Hi-Q hereafter in this document).
This brings me to my first point. Eductive aptitude would benefit leaders and many employees in the technology-driven “fourth industrial revolution”. Potentially, Hi-Q would stand out in a group and be appointed to leadership or high-skill positions. This means that over time, where IQ rises so does inequality. We generally recognise this occurring within a meritocratic system. Adrian Wooldridge unpacks the value of meritocracy in his 2021 book titled The Aristocracy of Talent. He advocates for allowing those with talent, competencies, and capacity to rise up in a meritocratic system that abandons nepotism and cronyism. Other systems, like theocracy, artificially suppress or destroy variations in human achievement to maintain power dynamics.
It would be difficult for most people to discern natural ability in eductive aptitude versus a functional psychopath seeking leadership power. Most people do not have the skills or the inclination to distinguish the difference until a tyrant or bully threatens them directly. Often, we simply rely on intuition to make this assessment. Unfortunately, some activists who want to undermine Western societies denigrate meritocracy. For example, many postmodernists believe power is inherently unfair. Others become motivated by a survival instinct that compels them to isolate a leader who appears to be gaining power. The leader’s success could pose an existential threat to a weaker ego captured by envy and jealousy. A successful group could coerce the powerless into social roles they did not choose. These fears are understandable when one looks at human history. But benevolent leaders with eductive aptitude have advanced human progress more than any other.
My second point concerns the taboo around “Machiavellian” traits. Here I must begin by quoting a wonderful paper that addresses the nuances of Dark Triad traits versus colloquial understanding of malevolent traits:
“The primary problem is that most current measures of Machiavellianism correlate positively with traits related to disinhibition, such as impulsivity, laziness, incompetence, and lack of perseverance. This is problematic because Machiavelli described the use of deception, manipulation, coercion, intimidation, and violence to achieve and maintain power, status, and control through prudence, calculation, and careful consideration of risk-traits that are the antithesis of disinhibition”. – Research Handbook on the Dark Triad (2024).
Being more disinhibited will make one lean towards psychopathy rather than Machiavellian. One can be a benevolent Machiavellian. We already know transformational leaders will have Machiavellian traits because they also seek to change their followers’ values and beliefs. Colloquially, we believe that a malevolent Machiavellian will be more ruthless, while a benevolent leader will knowingly manipulate others for a desirable outcome and avoid short-term opportunism. Can you see how Hi-Q may be perceived as “Machiavellian” without the distinction of whether they are malevolent or benevolent? There is an overlap that can cause confusion if one does not understand the nuances of these behaviours and their outcomes.
My observation is that we succeeded in raising IQ scores in the last 100 years, but we did not inoculate Hi-Q individuals against the shame, guilt and social isolation that the resulting leadership role or gain in status could initiate. And today’s parents did not grow up with these conditions or challenges so they would not have known how to prepare their kids. Further, Western society, specifically Gen Z, now devalues intuition and embraces dehumanising doctrines delivered by algorithms, soothed by pharmacology, and incessant entertainment. This imbalance leaves Hi-Q individuals adrift, searching for ways to assuage their resulting unresolved emotions.
My third point is that we already know IQ has increased while EQ (emotional intelligence) has not. Otherwise, why have we adopted Socio-Emotional Learning (SEL) across the West? I will not critique SEL here, but others have revealed the flaws in adopting SEL too broadly in educational systems. However, it is well known that we can all benefit from psychoeducation about expressing one’s emotions effectively. Leonard Mlodinow unpacks the research comprehensively in his 2022 book Emotional. He explains that emotions drive human societies, not cold logic alone. Iain MacGilchrist also dives into this in his book The Master and His Emissary, where he traces the dominant characteristics of the brain’s two hemispheres and how this impacts individuals and entire movements in human growth over the ages. He makes a compelling argument for mapping wisdom by detailing the tendency for the left side of our brains to be action and logic-oriented while the right brain is more intuitive and emotional. Many other authors, researchers and psychologists agree that society cannot simply be a cold rational system that mindlessly consumes, or an overly emotional system unchecked by wisdom.
We can see how having high IQ scores can expose one to novel circumstances that have no precedent in common Western cultural memes. Hi-Qs and their communities are all in uncharted territory. Even most teachers and parents have not adapted to the new paradigm of increasing complexity. This is important because many people try to escape the guilt or shame of being “Machiavellian” when they really don’t have to, unless they are malevolent or antisocial. My previously published “Letter to a Narcissist“ might provide some insight for these individuals. Having the capacity to make sense of disorder, identify patterns, and investigate new insights beyond others’ cognitive ability levels might put you in a position to manipulate others to achieve a goal that eludes them. Manipulation could be Machiavellian in nature, but it won’t automatically be psychopathic unless the intention is malevolent. This means that one who uses Machiavellian strategies to achieve goals does not necessarily need to feel guilt or shame. But the culture we live in does not teach these people how to process emotions effectively, so we end up with anxious, smart people seeking deflections for their anxiety.
I should point out here that not all Hi-Q people will be natural leaders. Activation of leadership takes other skills and traits such as Openness, Conscientiousness, patience, perseverance and the skills to persuade, explain, and suggest.
Here is another category of Hi-Q people who will experience elevated anxiety: those who seem to self-sabotage. These individuals will struggle unless they have moderating traits like openness and conscientiousness. This means that many Hi-Q people will “fail to launch”; they won’t develop the necessary competencies to exercise their cognitive abilities in a gainful manner. This then triggers existential guilt and shame, which in turn feeds the anxiety. But recall that people with Hi-Q are likely to have a developed eductive aptitude (making sense of disorder, identifying patterns, and investigating new insights). Problems arise when someone experiences an event, perhaps a global existential crisis like a deadly virus pandemic, and what we see is Hi-Q people now failing to make sense of disorder, imagining patterns that are not there, and entertaining novel insights that do not produce meaningful outcomes. In short, they become misguided and are vulnerable to ideologies, cults and intellectual silos that presume to explain their ‘failure to launch’ and the resulting crippling anxiety.
Finally, what are the maladaptive behaviours these people would develop? In people suffering with unresolved emotions like shame and guilt, we see anger and self-isolation. It is well known these responses can lead to depression. During this period, one would ruminate incessantly, partly due to the relative deprivation of novel insights and information. This state then triggers hopelessness that the brain would desperately be trying to resolve or relieve. The problem escalates in Western society as we have infinite ways to deflect and distract ourselves. We perfected this during the Covid crisis. Isolation can be relieved by going online. Anonymous “communities” begin to distort their relatedness. Anger is resolved by using downers like alcohol or marijuana. Time is distorted and the past begins to project disproportionate fear into the future. The immediate, irrational moment appears pivotal. Fragile self-esteem is pursued over enduring self-compassion. Wisdom is abandoned. A cascade into nihilism begins.
Through evolutionary psychology, we know that animals will mimic behaviour for survival, and victims of this nihilistic state will resort to mimicry. The internet mimics relatedness, and substances mimic wisdom. They begin to mime life. Often, they will mimic successful others who exude the most libidinal energy (as Freud intended). This can lead to irrational hedonism as the id, or the narcissistic shadow, takes the reigns of the psyche. Eventually, psychopathology develops, and one gets some letters added to their name: OCD, ADHD, BPD, etc., often by a Machiavellian medical professional. The sad irony of this myopic system does not escape many of us.
The fuse is now lit. What follows is a series of nihilistic modern-day rituals that further disassociate the victim from themselves and from their body. Without proper intervention, the behaviour escalates. More anger, more isolation. Family and friend’s reactions often inadvertently reinforce these misguided responses, loved ones are confused and resort to misguided empathy to relieve their own fears. Shame and guilt increase in the victim. This will often trigger the drama triangle, where one person becomes the saviour while the other is positioned as the persecutor in relation to the victim. They perform these positions until the triangle breaks. This can break families, not surprisingly, this is a stated goal of many myopic “social activists” who reject meritocracy.
But for some of these people, the cascade is not over yet; anxiety increases further because now they are adding existential anxiety and dread. Life becomes “unlived”. Libido crumbles, energy collapses and one’s world view narrows until no light can enter and dread becomes their only companion. I am also a suicide crisis counsellor; I have seen this many times.
Does this mean that high IQ scores are a curse? Certainly not. But it does mean we need to adapt society to inform and support those who have been raised to achieve high IQ scores. Raising them to merely consume or produce meaningless “content” isn’t working. With elevated IQ, they have the capacity for making sense of disorder, identifying patterns, and investigating new insights; they will seek complexity in their lives. These individuals need support and space to create. Distracting them from using these new abilities will only lead to existential anxiety. We should be engaging them at a higher level or discourse, modelling emotional competencies and giving them opportunities to explore their eductive reasoning while teaching them mindfulness and self-compassion. I think many who started the “gifted” child programmes intended this outcome, but studies on gifted programmes have mixed results. Perhaps they only legitimise the isolation and fail to prevent the underlying anxiety.
Flynn commented near the end of his life that we might see a levelling-off of IQ scores as we divert tasks to technology. This could be true, but we still have pockets where IQ scores continue to increase. The resulting inequality must be understood so that the stratified nature of human diversity is not lumbered with guilt and shame. We all have a place, Hi-Q people can create new areas of human growth, while other-IQ people balance society and enjoy the fruits of those creations so we can live rich emotional lives unencumbered by the anxiety inherent in overthinking. In the absence of meaningful complexity, most humans will fill the void with whatever is available, but HI-Q will be vulnerable to complex systems that mimic this depth and meaning. It is time we stop treating IQ as a taboo topic and use it constructively to build a healthier society.
Sowell on the Cultural Effects (related to Flynn) on IQ
My conclusion: The Flynn Effect is do almost entirely to a Meritocratic Cultural System... the Achievement Society of Byung-Chul Han
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