That's about one in every 2 million people. There is no one definition of genius. But many doctors study highly intelligent, or gifted, children to understand genius better. They define genius as a wealth of originality, creativity, and the ability to imagine or think in new ways and areas.
Terman defined “potential genius” as having an IQ of 140 and above, which is about 1 in every 250 people, while American psychologist Leta Hollingworth used as an even higher IQ threshold (180), which would translate to approximately 1 in every two million people.
Knowing how to become a genius is not that difficult.
The hardest part is instituting the many different ways it takes to boost your intelligence levels. Indeed, it takes more than just memorizing facts and figures. You need insight, introspection and imperturbability to elevate your intellect.
Geniuses are both born and made. While genetics can explain up to 75% of variations in IQ levels, factors like socioeconomic status and home environment decide whether a person achieves their full genetic IQ potential.
115 to 129: Above average or bright. 130 to 144: Moderately gifted. 145 to 159: Highly gifted. 160 to 179: Exceptionally gifted.
Research has shown that there is a high correlation between being intelligent and socially anxious. The higher your IQ, the higher the chance your social apprehension is higher than usual. Of course, that doesn't mean that your social anxiety should be classified as a disorder.
Ability to learn new topics quickly. Ability to process new and complex information rapidly. Desire to explore specific topics in great depth. Insatiable curiosity, often demonstrated by many questions.
Souza's study demonstrated that an individual with an IQ of 126 or higher can often learn in one hour what it would take someone with an IQ in the standard range 4-5 hours to learn. This means that gifted people can truly read and understand faster than an average person.
Geniuses don't work well with others.
Geniuses have high expectations of themselves and despair quickly when they fail to produce superior results. Highly intelligent people have too many interests and tend to get bored easily.
Genius is distinguished from talent, both quantitatively and qualitatively. Talent refers to a native aptitude for some special kind of work and implies a relatively quick and easy acquisition of a particular skill within a domain (sphere of activity or knowledge).
Geniuses think productively, not reproductively
They tend to come up with many different responses, some of which are unconventional and possibly unique. Leonardo da Vinci believed that to gain deep knowledge about a problem, you have to learn how to restructure it in many different ways.
Although IQ differences between individuals have been shown to have a large hereditary component, it does not follow that disparities in IQ between groups have a genetic basis. The scientific consensus is that genetics does not explain average differences in IQ test performance between racial groups.
Being a genius isn't as simple as being smart or having a high IQ. While intelligence is, of course, a prerequisite of genius status, there are other things at play here – including creativity, self-awareness, and an innate ability to ask questions few others have ever asked.
Geniuses have a denser concentration of mini-columns than the rest of the population – it seems that they simply pack more in. Mini-columns are sometimes described as the brain's 'microprocessors', powering the thought process of the brain. Research shows that geniuses have fewer dopamine receptors in the thalamus.
Science supports laziness
The data found that those with a high IQ got bored less easily, leading them to be less active and spend more time engaged in thought.
They Have Higher IQs
Studies have shown that people with higher IQs are likely to deviate from familiar evolutionary traits, such as circadian rhythms. Night owls who opt to wake up in the later hours of the day and stay awake until the wee small hours of the morning may be exhibiting a form of evolution.
Many assume that a high IQ makes everything in life easier, including the management of ADHD. However, research tells us that a high IQ does not protect anyone from the executive dysfunction or emotional dysregulation typical of ADHD.
Research suggests that highly intelligent people get bored easily and spend more time thinking, behaviour that comes across as 'laziness'. A study by the Florida Gulf Coast University looked at a group of 'thinkers' and 'non-thinkers', studying their activity levels over the course of a week.
Then they had to take an intelligence test. There was no relationship found between the participants' temper and their actual intelligence levels. So you could, in fact, be a smart angry person. However, those with a high temper were found, overall, to overestimate how intelligent they actually were.
On average, extremely intelligent kids begin to sight-read before the age of four, while most kids are closer to the age of six or seven before they reach this milestone.
Those with higher IQs in comparison with Einstein include William James Sidis, Leonardo Da Vinci and Marilyn vos Savant. Sidis was a child prodigy whose IQ was estimated to be anywhere between 200 to 300, says parade.com.
Children who are highly or exceptionally gifted do things even earlier and faster. Although there are no standard IQ levels of intellectual giftedness, some experts suggest the following IQ ranges: Mildly gifted: 115 to 129. Moderately gifted: 130 to 144.