"There is a stark difference between trying to rewrite your IQ score by brute force and trying to build effective intelligence. Effective intelligence is how well your mind performs in the environments you actually live in, and it rests on your attention under pressure, your working memory when the room gets loud, your decision-making when you are tired, and your learning speed when you find yourself behind."
"That version of intelligence is far less romantic, sure, but it is far more trainable. Better yet, we have known about neuroplasticity and how experience leaves fingerprints on the brain for decades (Draganski, 2004). And yet conventional wisdom still insists our brains are not that mouldable, at least not for the better. We accept plasticity when it explains a bad habit, yet we get suspicious when it implies we could get an upgrade instead."
People rarely set New Year’s resolutions to become more intelligent, preferring concrete goals like fitness or learning a language. Attempts to change raw IQ are often dismissed as unrealistic, but a more practical target is effective intelligence: how well cognition performs in real-world conditions. Effective intelligence relies on attention under pressure, working memory in noisy environments, decision-making when fatigued, and rapid learning when behind. Neuroplasticity research (Draganski, 2004) shows experience shapes the brain, implying cognitive capacities can improve. Cultural skepticism about brain malleability persists even when plasticity explains negative habits. Gaming emerges as a potential route to train younger brains.
Read at Psychology Today
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