Impressed by a French crime collection, High Potential grew to become a runaway hit when it debuted on ABC in 2025. The collection facilities on a girl named Morgan (Kaitlin Olson), engaged on the janitorial employees of the police station, who finally ends up utilizing her observational abilities and intelligence to supply a break within the case.
Morgan’s capability to attach particulars that the detectives don’t lands her a consulting job with the police power. It is usually the results of a excessive IQ and a few very distinctive abilities on Morgan’s half. Morgan’s Excessive Potential relies in actuality – and it’s not the primary time the thought has been utilized in exhibits like this one.
Morgan’s HPI In Excessive Potential Defined
Morgan Calls Herself A Excessive Potential Mental
Within the pilot episode of Excessive Potential, when Morgan gives up her reasoning for believing one of many suspects in a case is definitely a sufferer, Selena Soto (Judy Reyes) is impressed by her capability to retain that data. She even calls Morgan’s skills a “present.”
Morgan, nonetheless, notes that she has a genius-level measured IQ and calls herself a Excessive Potential Mental, somebody who has the capability to retain extra info and observe greater than the common particular person. Morgan’s hyper-observation skills are what assist her all through the primary season. She doesn’t see it as a present.
Morgan specifically corrects Soto about it being a present, saying:
No, not a present. I obsess over each little drawback I see. My thoughts is consistently spinning uncontrolled, which makes it inconceivable to carry a job, relationship, a dialog. Not a present.
Morgan exhibits her actual evaluation of her present all through the primary season will not be fully fallacious. She misses dates as a result of she obsesses about circumstances, stays up all night time attempting to piece collectively info, and continuously corrects these round her, a lot to their chagrin.
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Whereas all of that looks as if a unfavorable, it’s balanced out by the nice Morgan does. She sees lacking items and connective particulars and “has a compulsion to set issues proper,” which is what permits her to unravel the threads of the homicide mysteries.
All the cases in High Potential’s first season are vastly totally different from each other and require very totally different data bases. There are uncommon frogs, the orientation of church buildings, altered movies, and extra. Morgan is ready to retain the entire data she wants to know the whole lot.
Does HPI Exist In Actual Life? (How Correct Is Excessive Potential’s Depiction Of It)
An HPI Is Very Actual
Whereas viewers may assume Morgan’s Excessive Potential appears inconceivable, it’s truly very actual. It’s known as Excessive Mental Potential in actual life, and there may be additionally a variant known as Excessive Emotional Potential, which entails emotional intelligence.
Excessive Mental Potential is commonly termed “HIP” amongst lecturers. It’s additionally a time period synonymous with “gifted.” For an individual to be formally thought-about HIP, they must have a examined IQ of over 130. Whereas IQ exams have been seen as biased prior to now, they’re nonetheless essentially the most trusted technique of understanding cognitive intelligence.
These categorized as HIP don’t merely have a high-measured IQ, although. They’re additionally acknowledged to typically have atypical methods of creating connections between issues on this planet round them. As Morgan notes within the present, many HIPs have photographic reminiscences.
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Many HIPs even have issue sustaining focus whereas processing a lot info, or can get bored once they already perceive the data individuals are throwing at them. That may result in many HIPs being recognized with Consideration-Deficit Hyperactivity Dysfunction (ADHD), however as C2Care factors out, not all HIPs have ADHD.
The “signs” related to HIP embrace:
- Boredom in class
- IQ above 130
- Perfectionism
- Straightforward Memorization Expertise
- Problem Sustaining Social Relationships
The traits related to an individual thought-about to have Excessive Mental Potential are precisely the traits Morgan reveals within the present. The collection has been capable of supply a remarkably correct illustration, even when a few of the viewers may discover the present far-fetched.
What Are Different Exhibits That Characteristic HPI Characters
HPI Characters Populate Crime Exhibits
Excessive Potential is the one collection to outright verify a personality to have HIP. Regardless of that, it’s truly straightforward to attract parallels between Morgan’s traits and different characters in crime exhibits that seemingly share that label.
One present that Excessive Potential has been seeing comparisons to because the pilot episode premiered is Psych. Shawn Spencer (James Roday Rodriguez) and Morgan share quite a lot of the identical traits. From memorization abilities to boredom with lectures to near-photographic reminiscences, they use their abilities to unravel crimes in related methods.
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In fact, the distinction between them is that Morgan is up entrance about her cognitive skills, whereas Shawn pretends to be a psychic to clarify them away. Apparently, Rodriguez has been directing High Potential episodes himself, which permits an actor with the same background to assist Olson deliver HIP to life.
Psych will not be the one collection to have this kind of most important character. The Mentalist had Patrick Jane (Simon Baker), Prison Minds had Spencer Reid (Matthew Grey Gubler), and extra lately, Discovered had Margaret Reed (Kelli Williams). These characters all have related talent units, however all of them display them in another way to unravel crimes: Jane is a human lie detector, Reid excels at sample recognition, and Margaret focuses on studying feelings.
Morgan is the newest in a protracted line of seemingly HIP characters, which assist to make crime exhibits much more compelling. Morgan, nonetheless, may be one of the crucial sensible variations of an HIP on tv, which helps Excessive Potential to face out from the remainder.
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