What is average IQ of mensa members?

Answer 1

This is a really interesting question. I am unaware of the distribution of Mensa members' IQs, but thinking about it logically, we can hazard a guess. First, we should bear in mind that there are three types of average - the mean, median and mode. If we take the numbers 1, 2, 2, 2, 3 and 3 the mode (the average in that it occurs most often) is 2. The median (when you list all the numbers in ascending order the median is the one in the middle) is 2. The mean (add all the numbers and divide by the amount of numbers you added together - (1+2+2+2+3+3)/6) is 2.2. If we were to draw a graph of people's IQs it would form a curve, with the most people having an IQ of 100. The higher the IQ (above 100), the fewer people will have that IQ. If we use the Cattell III B scale (though there are different tests and different scales) a score of 148 is needed for entry into Mensa. Bearing in mind that Mensa members are at the high end of the curve on the graph, the mode (average - most often) is likely to be 148 because more people have an IQ of 148 than 149, and more people have an IQ of 149 than 150, and so on. The median and the mean averages will both be higher than this, but without knowing Mensa members' IQs it's difficult to guess. The highest score available on the Cattell III B test is 161, so it wouldn't be unreasonable to guess that the median would be about 150 and the mean about 153 or 154.