Connecting the Flynn
Effect to racial, ethnic, and national disparities in IQ
By Scott
Barry Kaufman
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/beautiful-minds/201008/the-flynn-effect-and-iq-disparities-among-races-ethnicities-and-nations
…The
importance of being able to read for performance on an IQ test cannot be
understated. Instead of measuring ‘intelligence' in an illiterate test-taker,
the test is measuring that person's inability to read. While ‘intelligence' may
certainly influence an individual's ability to read, society has a lot of
influence on how many inhabitants even get the chance to read in the first
place regardless of the intelligence level of any single individual. Therefore,
reading skills may exert important effects on particular races and
nationalities that have historically undergone much discrimination and as a
result, limited opportunity for literacy development.
…Psychologist David Marks systematically
analyzed the association between literacy skills and IQ across time,
nationality, and race (Marks, 2010)…He found that the higher the literacy rate
of a population, the higher that population's mean IQ, and the higher that
population's mean IQ, the higher the literacy rate of that population. When
literacy rates declined, mean IQ also declined. Marks also found evidence for
unequal improvements across the entire IQ spectrum: the greatest effects of
increased literacy rates were on those in the lower half of the IQ distribution.
…It should
also be noted that Mark's findings only speak to populations (not individuals)
and do not say much about causation. The findings can only definitively say
that some not-yet-identified variable is causing both literacy and IQ scores to
change. To really test for causation, future experimental studies should be
conducted to look at the effect of literacy intervention on IQ scores in
comparison with a control group not receiving literacy intervention and should
also investigate intervening variables that affect both literacy and IQ. Still,
the result that population level literacy changes with population IQ is
suggestive that increased literacy is causing increased IQ.
…The Marks
study suggests a crucial environmental factor is literacy. If this is so, then
interventions that increase literacy will also narrow the IQ gap found between
different races and nationalities.
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