What’s the average IQ?
If President Trump’s going to start a new trend of challenging people based on IQ test scores, you might want to know what you’re up against.
Why are we talking about Donald Trump’s IQ?
In case you missed it, Trump has a long history of daring people to compare IQ scores, deriding others based on his assumptions about their IQ scores and boasting loudly about his own sky-high score, which he claims is “one of the highest.”
Well, he did it again. Following reports that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called Trump a “moron” (or “f—ing moron” depending on the report) in a closed door meeting with the president’s security team, Trump took to Twitter to challenge Tillerson. Mensa’s totally on board to test both of the bureaucrats, in case you’re wondering, though neither have taken the organization up on their offer as of Wednesday, October 11.
But even if answering the question what is Donald Trump’s IQ is difficult, you’re probably curious as to where you stand compared to the general population.
So, what’s the average IQ?
Yes, there is a scale for evaluating IQ test scores. Lewis Terman, who came up with the idea for the IQ, proposed the scale. He considered scores between 90 and 109 to be average. Anything below 70 is considered well below average and potentially indicative of a cognitive issue. Score 140 or above, on the other hand, and you fall into the genius category. (Other scales set this ambitious mark at 145.) The average person falls within a range of 85 to 115 on an IQ test. In fact, 70% of IQ scores are within this range.
Richard Lynn, a British Professor of Psychology, and Tatu Vanhanen, a Finnish Professor of Political Science conducted research on IQ in 80 different countries around the world between 2002 and 2006. Although they drew some controversial conclusions from the data about the relationship between national IQ and income as well as rate of economic growth, we’ll ignore those here and just look at the averages they found while conducting IQ tests.
The average American, according to their findings, has an IQ score of 98, as IQ Research+ reports. That lands the U.S. in ninth place among the countries studied — but don’t get too excited, because multiple countries tied for multiple places on this ranking.
The United States shared ninth place with Andorra, Australia, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Hungary, Latvia and Spain. The highest national average on the list? A solid 108, still considered “average” by good old founding father of the IQ Terman.
