Why Can’t I Evaluate my Personal Intelligence from the TOPI-DEMO?

Personal intelligence is a rich and broad ability. Because knowledge about personality spans different areas, it typically takes many questions like these to create a good estimate of a person’s overall skill at reasoning about personality. For that reason, the number correct you receive on this small number of items won’t indicate much about your specific level of personal intelligence. Think, for example, about the SAT test people take to get into college. To get a reasonably accurate assessment of a test-taker’s abilities, the SAT asks many questions in many areas.

Each item used in the TOPI 1.2 (a recent version of our actual test) went through a careful study process where the item’s performance was examined across many test-takers. Each item on the TOPI is selected to be neither too easy nor too hard, and each item is checked to ensure it will contribute accurately to the measurement of a person’s overall personal intelligence. The process employed to develop test items generally takes months or years. The items on the TOPI DEMO (the quiz) were written in the same way as the items on the actual TOPI but they have not been evaluated using the same rigorous procedures.

The actual TOPI, which is used in various research studies, contains many more test questions. We do hope, however, that these items provide some idea as to how the TOPI works.

-John D. Mayer, David R. Caruso, and Abigail T. Panter