"They must be intelligent . . ."

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One of the criteria many people give for a partner, when they are looking, is that they must be "intelligent." And this is interesting because intelligence is tricky term, which can mean many things, and has very different meanings to many people.

So, when we say we want someone "intelligent", what do you mean? What do they need to know or understand to be considered "intelligent"? Is having a certain IQ apart of the picture?

And why?
 
This is very interesting. I was learning about this. People who are defined as gifted have flexibility, creativity and (I am going to have to look this up)
 
when I look for someone intelligent I mean someone reasonable, not only''IQ intelligence'' but in overall all areas, emotional willing to be open,understanding and caring, as well as in current world matters, I don't want a parthner who is ignorant on what's going on, or important life skills which are necessary. I want someone that might not know everything but that is able to ask and discuss on different topics, a person who is creative, imaginative. A prson who's always on a quest for learning, not a comformist.
 
This is from Exceptional Children by William Heward.

In 1972 Congress defined gifted children as:
"identified at preschool, elementary or secondary level as possessing demonstrated or potential high performance capabilities in areas such as intellectual, creative, specific academic or leadership ability or in the performing and visual arts....
 
Restraint said:
One of the criteria many people give for a partner, when they are looking, is that they must be "intelligent." And this is interesting because intelligence is tricky term, which can mean many things, and has very different meanings to many people.

So, when we say we want someone "intelligent", what do you mean? What do they need to know or understand to be considered "intelligent"? Is having a certain IQ apart of the picture?

And why?
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It's a very trick term and I believe that everyone is intelligent in some way. When I state that, I usually mean I want someone that understands what level I'm on or is willing to take a shot at understanding why I think the way I do, or at least try too.

Actually, to be honest, I'm reading over my comment and I realize I don't even know what that is supposed to mean.
 
sookie said:
This is from Exceptional Children by William Heward.

In 1972 Congress defined gifted children as:
"identified at preschool, elementary or secondary level as possessing demonstrated or potential high performance capabilities in areas such as intellectual, creative, specific academic or leadership ability or in the performing and visual arts....
Click to expand...

Interesting definition. What would high intellectual performance capabilities mean when looking for a partner in a relationship?
 
Let me first try to address intelligence.

Intelligence is not only relative, it is subjective. I think intelligence, though very subjective, does actually exist. Generally, I believe that intelligence is something that makes you quantifiably better than someone else at some thing. For those who think that "better" is a subjective term, notice I specified "quantifiably", which by definition makes it possible to determine what is better. For instance, if we assert that if John wins more races than Steve, we can conclude that John is a better racer (of this type of racing). The problem is that there's more to life than racing. Intelligence is a very general aspect, and it supports any ability that requires thought. What makes intelligence so subjective is that we can't simply sum all our abilities to determine who's more intelligent. The equation factors in how important a particular ability (type of intelligence) is (ability1 * importance of ability1 + ability2 * importance of ability2...), which complicates things since importance itself is subjective (very).

That being said, people have different ideas of what intelligent is, which I assume is the main point of this thread.

I think most people tend to say certain things for reasons that aren't straight-forward. People tend to say things not necessarily because it is true or accurate, but because it achieves a goal. So in this case, if a guy says he wants a girl who is intelligent, I'm assuming he has other requirements which generally exist to filter the type of girl who'd think she is applicable for his type. Which could be anything from her actually being intelligent (whatever that is), to her liking Star Wars or something equally irrelevant (yet associated).
 
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I dont care is someone is intelligent, as long as I like their personality.
 
I think that it would be how you define it. You asked so I got cha the text book definition :D "High demonstration performance capabilities" Would essentially be testing to be smart and applying creativity/flexibility and such on tests and in the classroom. It think in this definition it would mean scoring on test measures .

In terms of a relationship if you are looking for emotional intelligence they show you emotional intelligence...If you are looking for creativity they show you creativity, if you are looking for an artist they show you......

Do you see what I mean? Adapt this however you seem that it applies to you :D:mblow::mblow:
 
I don't really limit what intelligence means for me hihihi :) :)

I don't really look for intelligence in a partner :) :) I prefer EQ over IQ :) :) :)

IQ :m123:may be needed (maybe a bit) to be able to get a partner/friend, to have smart conversations, to get a job to provide for a family...

but you need EQ :m026:to sustain all those :) :) :) :)
 
I don't really care what intelligence is defined as, it's not what I'm looking for in a romantic interest. I just want a girl who'll listen to me and try to understand, even if I do go over her head a lot.
 
Ah 'intelligent'. Not to sound egoistic or anything, but when I say one of my criterias is for my partner to be 'intelligent', I mean he has to be more intelligent than I am.

More intelligent being he has to know a lot of things that I don't which I find interesting [because I like learning about things]. I guess higher IQ is a plus, but it's not everything. If he is able to listen, understand and engage in an interesting conversation with me, then that's good enough.

For now. :m182:
 
[o_q];197289 said:
On the other hand, what will he learn from you?
Though not everyone cares about that.
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Haha. Yeah, you're absolutely right. I don't even know what he'll learn from me. It would be an unfortunate thing if I'm just the one learning and he's learning nothing. :m131:
 
There are a few different definitions of intelligence that are often necessary but not sufficient conditions for high performance -- the ability to manipulate abstract concepts, and the speed at which one manipulates abstract concepts. One can also have a larger working memory which gives similar effects. Usually the speed or ease of remembering new facts is a different intelligence trait. In particular it is theoretically (if it hasn't been done) possible to perform experiments to measure the differences in these.

And thats not even considering the broad measure of something called EQ. You guys should be more precise :m131:
 
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JohnDoe said:
There are a few different definitions of intelligence that are often necessary but not sufficient conditions for high performance -- the ability to manipulate abstract concepts, and the speed at which one manipulates abstract concepts. One can also have a larger working memory which gives similar effects. Usually the speed or ease of remembering new facts is a different intelligence trait. And thats not even considering the broad measure of something called EQ. You guys should be more precise :m131:
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That's it. The "objective" definition or normalized understanding of intelligence is separate from the subjective definition we give to the word based on it's meaning to us. My conception of intelligence may be or will likely be quite different from someone else's. For example, in a partner, i may look for, to use one of Gardner's multiple intelligences, someone with high spiritual intelligence or intrapersonal intelligence, as an example.
 
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Restraint said:
That's it.
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Glad I could help. The thing is that there are some people, who are perfectly capable of understanding really really complicated abstract concepts, and all I have to do is explain it (maybe slowly or more then once). And then there are people who just seem completely incapable of understanding certain things no matter how many times I explain them. So there is definately a speed and a ability (very likely improvable) aspect to complex, abstract concepts. I don't mind explaining myself in different ways until you understand it, but if you can't ever seem to understand the way I think, that is not likely to lead to a very productive friendship.
 
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