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Mental Age

proximo

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Apparently, the guy who invented IQ decided that your IQ is, basically, your mental age divided by your actual age, multiplied by 100.

My godfather's a shrink. He did my MBTI type and function tests, so I asked him how he'd go about estimating someone's mental age, and whether there was any particular test that was well-known or respected. In his opinion, it's linked to wisdom. He talked at length about it, so it's impossible to put everything he said here. But it was jolly interesting.

What do you think about it being linked to IQ? Do you think that raw intelligence is necessarily related to maturity and/or wisdom? (Here I'm thinking of someone I know who tests in IQ tests as a genius, but if he were a D&D character he'd have a single figure wisdom score). I find this interesting, because if the two ideas were originally supposed to be linked, then howcome IQ tests for many years haven't featured any social/emotional component? Surely that ought to be present, if we're testing something that's meant to be linked to maturity?

What do you think your closest family/friends would say about your mental age? What would you say? What sorts of things would you look at or consider, to figure it out?

Anything else you wanna add, that seems pertinent to you? :)
 

Ghost of the dead horse

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51 Years Old.

I knew from reading the questions that the survey was really bad. I didn't have to wait for the results. Uhh.
 

PuddleRiver

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Well, it's pretty close :laugh: My mental age is 56.


(real age: 53. psst, don't tell)
 
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Gerbah

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I don't think you can factor maturity/wisdom into a test in any meaningful way because the acquisition of knowledge is an infinite process. You are getting to know more of the unknown. You can pass on the basis you acquired to your children, say, and they continue with it. So any test would be limited by the wisdom acquired by the person who made up the test. The pupil could go farther than the teacher.

Also, I don't know that giving someone a number really helps them to become more wise or more aware of their present condition.
 

proximo

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Wisom is more than just the acquisition of knowledge... it's about the application of it, innit :)

Yeah I know it's a bad test, it's just a bit of fun. It tends to sort of equate maturity/age, which I'd say were more sliding scales or separate axes. And it has quite a stereotyped image of particular age groups. I know a few teenagers who aren't interested in big parties, that doesn't automatically mean they're more mature than those who do.

Personally, I've always taken my closest friends from the age group at least 10 years or so older than myself. I'm coming up to 33 in March, and my closest friends are 48, 61, 58 and only one in my own age group (he's 32). That's given me a fairly good idea of my mental age in some respects; these guys don't have trouble fitting in and getting on with their own age group, but I do usually, so... if I'm on a wavelength with these pretty normal middle aged people... meh.

You guys that did the test, not gonna give your real age then, too?
 

Synapse

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You guys that did the test, not gonna give your real age then, too?

Real Age 32
Mental Age 46

Is that why I'm a hit with the older folk, I seem to identify with a much older crowd then my peer group until recently.
 

INTP

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real age is 23 and i got 39 from this
 

Ghost of the dead horse

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This is one of the worse tests I've come across with. The test consists entirely of utterly trivial and meaningless behaviors.
 

Gerbah

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Wisom is more than just the acquisition of knowledge... it's about the application of it, innit :)

Yeah I know it's a bad test, it's just a bit of fun. It tends to sort of equate maturity/age, which I'd say were more sliding scales or separate axes. And it has quite a stereotyped image of particular age groups. I know a few teenagers who aren't interested in big parties, that doesn't automatically mean they're more mature than those who do.

Personally, I've always taken my closest friends from the age group at least 10 years or so older than myself. I'm coming up to 33 in March, and my closest friends are 48, 61, 58 and only one in my own age group (he's 32). That's given me a fairly good idea of my mental age in some respects; these guys don't have trouble fitting in and getting on with their own age group, but I do usually, so... if I'm on a wavelength with these pretty normal middle aged people... meh.

You guys that did the test, not gonna give your real age then, too?

Yeah sure, you've got to know what to do with it :)

I didn't have time to do the test before. Yeah, it's funny. It reminded me of stuff I haven't done since I was about 14, lol. I scored 47 (I'm 29).

I never really felt on the same wavelength as most people my own age when I was younger, especially as a teenager, but what I've found now I'm older is that I can connect better to people much younger me, like, often less than 18 years old. They are very accepting of me like I'm one of them. I feel more judgment from people my age. Or they think I'm younger than I am and baby me. :huh:
 

FDG

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Real age 23, I got 29, thank god not that high. No problem with talking people of my own age and-or younger, provided they're not idiots lol

Btw the IQ definition given by the OP is mostly used for people up to 20, that's why sometimes people speak of "adult IQ" as something separate from other types of IQ testing.
 

Asterion

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my age: 20
result: 38

and I thought I wasn't wise enough yet. Just give me another 2 years and I'll be double that :D, though I doubt my answers would change. I'd say that this is out of date now. anyone under 50 or so probably knows what a LOL is and carries a mobile around.
 

proximo

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Real age 23, I got 29, thank god not that high. No problem with talking people of my own age and-or younger, provided they're not idiots lol

Btw the IQ definition given by the OP is mostly used for people up to 20, that's why sometimes people speak of "adult IQ" as something separate from other types of IQ testing.

O rly? Can you elaborate on that? :thinking:

One of the reasons I'm awkward with my own age group is because my preoccupations and daily life have rarely resembled theirs. When I was a small child, I lived in a very remote area with an insane father who took self-sufficiency to extreme levels, and believed TV and modern music was evil, so I grew up with jazz and classical, milking goats and general farming/subsistence (no machinery). So my childhood had more in common with that of people born in the early 20th century.

When I was 12, I had to take responsibility for feeding and looking after my little sisters, getting money to get food and stuff like that, because my parents were criminally negligent, so my teens had more in common with most people's 30's. I had kids in my late teens, and have spent my 20's fighting to keep a roof over our heads and, when I could, staying in monasteries to get away from it all and centre myself.

The world of the usual teen/20-something is something in which I've never truly been able to partake, their concerns are alien to me, as mine are to most of them. Now I'm in my early 30's and I'm financially and family-wise at the stage most people get to in their middle age. I expect when I get to my 40's and the kids are grown up, I'll have a chance to take part in younger mentality activities - though, I'll still be approaching it differently to them, as I'll have my own place and plenty of money, plus experience and wisdom under my belt.

Just some reasons there why I've always been out of step with my own generation.
 

Andy

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As has been mentioned, one of the problems with trying to rate wisdom is defining and measuring it. I think IQ tests mutated into something easier to quantify. Besides, anyone who thinks IQ tests are a good measure of overall smarts (like the people who invented them, it seems) probably doesn't have much wisdom and so would be struggling to see it in others!
 

Little_Sticks

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Real Age: X, where X is a variable of integers ranging from 0 to infinity
Mental Age: -2

!
 
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