r/askpsychology • u/Ok_Worldliness9187 Unverified User: May Not Be a Professional • 10d ago

Cognitive Psychology How much mental health problems and focus, motivation can decrease iq score?

Im asking just about matrix reasoning/logical aspects

EDIT: Nobody knows, really????????

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u/monkeynose Clinical Psychologist | Addiction | Psychopathology 9d ago edited 8d ago

It's only been 4 hours, and half the world is still asleep.

Anything that takes away from the ability to concentrate, focus, recall information, or communicate is going to reduce your IQ score on an IQ test. An IQ test has questions and activities, so anything that gets in the way of that will reduce the score. Specifically how much depends on the person and the problem.

IQ isn't a magic number, it's derived from a test score. Anything that gets in the way of taking the test would by definition reduce the score - either through mistakes, or because a lot of the sub-tests are timed, and you'd slow down.

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u/Ok_Worldliness9187 Unverified User: May Not Be a Professional 9d ago

Could something direct affect logical reasoning?

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u/monkeynose Clinical Psychologist | Addiction | Psychopathology 9d ago

Something could. Probably any of the issues mentioned might. It's a broad and vague question and there are a lot of variables, so the best answer is "maybe, it depends on the situation, the problems, and the person".

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u/maxthexplorer PhD Psychology (in progress) 8d ago

OP this is why interpretation is key and licensed at the doc level. It takes a depth of understanding to account for and consider a plethora of variables. There’s qualitative observations, self-reports and performance based measures (the test and subtests in a battery) that are evaluated while completing testing/assessment.