The Flynn Effect and IQ Disparities Among Races, Ethnicities, and Nations: Are There Common Links?

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.

Cognition and reading in Low SES vs. low SES+ oral tradition children

Shany, M., & Geva, E. (2012). Cognitive, language, and literacy development in socio-culturally vulnerable school children–the case of Ethiopian Israeli children. In Current issues in bilingualism (pp. 77-117). Springer Netherlands. http://www.oise.utoronto.ca/gevalab/UserFiles/File/20142015_Publications/2012_Shany_Geva_in_Leikin_Schwartz_Tobin.pdf

This is an interesting chapter by Michal Shany and Esther Geva, discussing research that compared elementary school children whose parents immigrated to Israel from Ethiopia with children from low SES who are not of Ethiopian origin – in aspects of reading and cognitive abilities. 

The majority of Ethiopian immigrants to Israel come from a rural, oral tradition society, where over 90% of the community members are illiterate.  About 35% of  Ethiopian immigrant adults studied in an Ulpan (Hebrew courses funded by the government), and for most of them this has been their first exposure to a written language of any kind.  Fifty five percent of men and 70% of women of Ethiopian origin are illiterate in Hebrew.  Parents of Ethiopian children typically have 1 or 2 years of education, compared to an average of over 11.5 years for parents of Israeli Jewish children.  Over 52% of families coming from Ethiopia live in poverty, as compared to 16% of families in the general population.

Studies found that there are no significant differences between immigrant children and native speaking children in skills at the single word level like single word identification, single word decoding, non-word decoding and spelling.  This finding is true for many languages.  Thus we can expect that there will be no difference in these skills between a child of Ethiopian origin and his classmates who are not of Ethiopian origin, unless this child has learning disabilities. 

In a number of studies that focused on the word level skills of English speaking children who were learning Hebrew in bilingual English-Hebrew education , it was shown that in spite of limited language proficiency in Hebrew, these middle-class children can learn to decode and spell Hebrew words with accuracy, and decode Hebrew words with efficiency. Thanks to the simplicity of the phonological structure of Hebrew, the lexical outcome of assembling into words a series of matched grapheme-phonemes in vowelled Hebrew is unequivocal, and can be accomplished with accuracy even in the absence of linguistic proficiency.  When spelling-sound relations are straightforward (shallow orthography, there is only one way to read a word) – syntax and vocabulary don't affect single word decoding.  When the orthography is deep (the relation between letters and sounds are not unequivocal, the same word can be read in different ways giving different meanings) – syntax and vocabulary have a significant effect on single word decoding. 

Phonological processing, speed of lexical access and phonological memory predict word recognition skills in English as a second language.  Geva found that phonological awareness is more important in learning to read English than Hebrew.  She found a correlation of 0.62 between single word reading and phonological awareness in the native language (English), but a correlation of only 0.32 between word reading and phonological awareness in Hebrew (the second language). 

Naming speed may be a better predictor of reading fluency in languages that have shallow orthographies like Dutch, than in languages that have deep orthographies like English.   

Bilinguals or people learning a second language, who have problems in decoding and spelling in their native language, tend to have problems in decoding and spelling in the second language as well. 

Compared to single word decoding skills, immigrant children's reading comprehension is affected by many factors like oral language skills, vocabulary, the level of acculturation and familiarity with conventions of text structure and home literacy.  Homes that are literate in the native language (there are book in the native language at home, parents read stories in the native language) increase their children's chances to succeed in reading comprehension in the second language.  Reading comprehension skills transfer from the native language to the second language, when the child reaches an appropriate level of command of the second language.

Three hundred and twenty six children participated in this study.  One hundred and seventy five were of Ethiopian origin and 151 were of other origins.  The children studied in the first, second, fourth and sixth grades in six cities in northern and central Israel.  The children of both groups in each school and grade level came from the same classes.  The children of Ethiopian origin were born in Israel or came to Israel before they were 2 years old.  The other children were born in Israel. 

Although both groups of children came from low SES, the situation of the students of Ethiopian origin was worse:  their mothers spoke less Hebrew, their fathers were more unemployed, they had more people per room at home. 

Beginning in first grade, there was no difference between the two groups in phonemic discrimination and phonemic awareness.  There were also no differences between the two groups and the general population in these skills. 

In another study Shany found differences between kindergarten children of Ethiopian and non-Ethiopian origin in phonemic awareness and discrimination.  It seems that the gaps between the groups gradually close with the onset of formal education.

There was no difference between the two groups in single word reading accuracy in all grade levels.   However, compared with the national norms, both groups performed at the low average range. 

This finding is in line with other studies showing that with the onset of formal education, there are no differences between English as a second language speakers and native speakers in phonemic awareness and in single word reading skills.  These studies also show that regardless of the language spoken at home, the performance of children from low SES homes is lower than that of the general population.  Thus this delay can be attributed less to the language spoken at home than to insufficient exposure to reading, to a rich language and to literary contexts.  Children in both groups were hardly familiar with popular children's books. 

In each grade level, children of Ethiopian origin performed worse than children in the other group on a test of working memory.  Compared to the national norms, the performance of both groups was within average limits.  

In rapid naming of letters and numbers, single word reading speed and spelling, significant gaps between the groups closed by fourth grade.  In lower grades, both groups performed at the low to very low levels compared with the population average.  When the gaps between the groups closed, both of them also performed within average limits. 

Grammar skills:  in grades 1, 2 and 4, the average of the children from Ethiopian origin was in the 25^th percentile, and the average of the other group was in the 38^th percentile.  In 6^th grade, both groups' average was in the 25^th percentile.  This means that the children who were not of Ethiopian origin got worse. 

The low performance of both groups in oral language is probably related to their low SES, and to underexposure to rich language in written and oral contexts.  What's important is not only the fact that the parents don’t speak Hebrew or don't speak it well, but that the parents have low literacy in both languages, and that the quality of the language spoken at home, Hebrew or Amharic, doesn't prepare the children to the quality of language and concepts needed to succeed in school.

Turning Jeans that are too tight into a nice looking bag – metaphors in psychotherapy in a cultural context

Dwairy, M. (2009). Culture analysis and metaphor psychotherapy with Arab‐Muslim clients. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 65(2), 199-209.‏http://www.researchgate.net/publication/23628317_Culture_Analysis_and_Metaphor_Psychotherapy_with_Arab-Muslim_Clients

This is an interesting paper written by Prof. Marwan Dwairy from Oranim college in Israel.  Here are some thoughts and comments before we turn to the paper itself:

Dwairy identifies Arab society as having a collectivist – traditional culture, and writes about psychotherapy with clients of such cultures.  I think there is no dichotomy between collectivist –traditional cultures and individualistic – secular ones.  Both cultures are on the same spectrum, and every individual is on a different point on the spectrum.  Probably it's possible to think with the client herself about her place on the spectrum and her family's place on it.

We can think about Jewish Ultra Orthodox society, and maybe also about Japanese society (I don't know enough about these two societies) as closer to the collectivist – traditional end of the spectrum.  However it's best in my opinion to be cautious about stereotypes and generalizations, and to consider our specific client and not only the culture he belongs to.  The client himself is an expert on the values of the culture he belongs to, and he can explain those values to us.

Dwairy's ideas are good for every client wherever he is on the collectivist – individualist spectrum.  I think it's always good to work with metaphors, since they are a kind of "play therapy" that can be done with adults.  They open a playful potential space.  They also work well in family therapy.

Now we turn to the paper.  I remained as close to Dwairy's wording as possible:

Psychoanalysis is based on a Western individualistic understanding of personality, according to which after adolescence, the person becomes an individual entity.  But in collectivist cultures people usually remain dependent on their family beyond adolescence.  Their needs and drives (the Id), their values, attitudes and judgments (the Ego and the Superego) are not separated from those of their family.  Their feelings, thoughts and behaviors are dependent to a large extent on the family.  The main source of happiness – and the main source of threat – is the family.  The family's acceptance and esteem cause happiness.  Devaluation and rejection by the family cause distress.

 The main conflicts that a person from a collectivist culture experiences take  place in the relationship between him and his family and not within him.  People from collectivist cultures usually deal with such conflicts through social norms.   Mosayara is a basic coping skill with Muslims and Arabs, and it means to get along with the attitudes, wishes and expectations of others by concealing one's real feelings, thoughts and  attitudes.  This is a lifestyle in which the person tends to accommodate  himself to other's expectations.  Istighaba is another coping skill, in which one performs socially unacceptable actions away from the public eye, or in privacy, to avoid isolation or punishment.

In such a cultural system it's possible to explain psychological symptoms by understanding the relations between the client and his family, and by understanding the norms and values of the person and his family, and not by intrapsychic processes. 

Making the unconscious conscious can be counterproductive  with clients with a collective identity.  Exposing unconscious conflicts can lead the client into a tough struggle with his family, a struggle which he can't win, and which will leave him with an open wound.  In the beginning of therapy Dwairy recommends having a thorough analysis of the relations between the client and his family in order to assess the client's level of individuation and the family's degree of strictness.  In order to avoid a tragic end to psychotherapy with a client who has a collective identity, Dwairy suggests metaphor therapy and social analysis. 

Metaphor therapy is an indirect way to deal with unconscious content without making it conscious.  For example, Dwairy asks the client to draw the problem and to draw a possible solution to it.  He encourages the client to bring an object from home to the therapy session and to talk about personal memories, feelings and meanings related to this object.  He asks the client what he would like to do with the object.  For example, a client suffering from low self image decided to take a trophy he won in his childhood in a boxing competition out of his drawer and put it on his desk.  This reflected his growing self pride.

It's possible to do metaphor therapy in three phases: identifying the metaphor representing the problem (for example, a dam which is about to overflow), describing the way the client wants to change the metaphor (make alternative outlets for the water in order to ease the tension on the dam's walls), and discussing with the client what can be learned from the solution in the metaphor that can be applied to the client's life.  An adolescent described conversation with his parents as "talking to the wall".  When Dwairy asked him what he would like to do with the wall, he came out with many ideas:  open a window in it, paint over it, lean against it, decorate it and climb it.  Then they thought about things that can be learned and applied from these solutions to the client's life.

 Along with metaphors Dwairy recommends cultural analysis.

Through cultural analysis the client finds and adopts alternative values – within his value system and within his culture – that accommodate his needs (instead of the present values he holds that do not fit his needs and cause him distress).  The cultural analysis assumes that in every culture there are many conflicting values.  Usually one is aware of only some of these values.     These values sometimes reject and repress a person's most vital needs.  Cultural analysis can enable the client to be aware of other values within his culture, that he can adopt and thus deal with his needs better.

Even within a traditional family, different family members can have different attitudes.  If the client recognizes these differences, he will be able to choose to identify with figures in the family whose values may support the change he is looking for.

Religion has conflicting values as well. Every religion has values that are more tolerant and less tolerant.  The therapist can help the client choose the religious values that can lead to change.  The therapist does not have to be an expert in the client's religion.  He has to be open to learn from the client about his religion and to encourage a new understanding within the client's religion. 

Dwairy writes about the values of Islam and describes a case study with metaphor psychotherapy.   Very interesting.

I think these ideas are good not only for psychotherapy but also for assessment and post assessment intervention, both with clients of the same cultural background and from a different cultural background.  The child, the teacher, each of the parents and the psychologist can think about a metaphor for the problem that led to the referral, and about a metaphor for the solution.  Then we can see what we learn from the metaphors about the problem and about the possible solutions.   In families from a different cultural background the metaphors may have cultural content and values that can lead to a better understanding of the problem and to more fitting solutions.

The dire consequences of not understanding the influence of immigration and cultural differences on performance on intelligence tests

I think this is one of psychology's most fascinating stories.

The story's two heroes are Robert Yerkes, who was president of the American Psychological Association during World War One and was a researcher at Princeton University, and Carl Campbell Brigham, a doctor of psychology and researcher in Princeton University and one of the creators of the SAT test.

                                            Robert Yerkes, 1876-1956

                                   Carl Campbell Brigham,  1890 –1943

Yerkes was an active person who took initiative to establish psychology's status as a scientific discipline.  He saw the opportunities opened to psychology by the massive draft to the U.S army during World War One.  In 1917  he proposed ways in which psychologists could assist the military effort.  The military accepted assistance in mental examination of all recruits and selection of men for tasks demanding special skills.

Yerkes and his colleagues adapted the Stanford Binet test to group administration.  They turned it into two tests: the Alpha test, which contained oral and written instructions, that was taken by draftees who could read English, and the Beta test, which had instructions by pantomime and demonstrations, and was taken by draftees who did not read English (for example, immigrants).  The Alpha and the Beta tests eventually became the blueprints for the Wechsler tests which were developed later (the Alpha test evolved into the "verbal tests" and the Beta test – into the "performance" tests).  Yerkes and his colleagues did not consider the effects of cultural differences on nonverbal tests.  These effects can have no lesser significance than the effects of cultural differences on verbal tests.

The American psychologists must have worked diligently, because by the end of the war they'd tested about 1,750,000 men.

That was indeed a large database for intelligence tests.

After the war Brigham processed the data and published his findings in 1923 in a book called "A Study of American Intelligence".  Yerkes was enthusiastic about this book, and wrote its preface.

Brigham divided the tested population into four groups according to country of origin and race.  The "Nordic" group included people from Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Scandinavia, England, and Scotland; the "Alpine," group included people from Germany, France, Northern portions of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Poland; "the Mediterranean," group included people from Greece, Italy, Spain, Ireland, Wales and Asian Turkey; and the "Negro group."

Brigham argued that the data show that people from the "Nordic" group have a higher IQ than people from the other groups, and that the "Alpine" and "Mediterranean" groups are intellectually inferior compared with the "Nordic" group as well as the native born Americans.  Brigham presented evidence that the intelligence of immigrants had declined consistently in the years since 1887.  He noted that the years of residence in the United States correlated positively with scores on the army scale.  However he neglected the possibility that years of living in the U.S have enriched the draftee's familiarity with the test's items.  He did not consider  that people of "Nordic" descent consisted the first wave of immigration to the U.S, have lived in the U.S longer and thus know the language and culture better.  He did not consider that immigration waves from "Alpine" and "Mediterranean" stated occurred much later (in the 1920's, 70% of immigrants to the U.S came from these countries).  Brigham thought that the correlation between length of stay in the U.S and intelligence results from the higher "quality" of the "Nordic" immigrants.

As for the Blacks, he came to the conclusion that they are intellectually inferior, without taking into consideration the extent of their familiarity with the mainstream "white" American culture (to which the test's developers belonged), as a minority group that didn't get a fair chance to be integrated into the American society (to put it mildly).

Brigham concluded that "if the four types blend in the future into one American type, then it is a foregone conclusion that future Americans will be less intelligent than the present native American."   Yerkes wrote that those who sought general public decay should "work for unrestricted and non-selective immigration."

"A Study of American Intelligence" became a foundation of a new restrictive immigration law passed in May 1924.  This legislation, by establishing "national origin quotas" based on the 1890 census (a period prior to the influx of non-"Nordic" groups), drastically restricted the immigration of Southern and Eastern Europeans.

In 1930, in what was characterized "as gallant an exhibition of scientific integrity as one is likely to find" and as "an apology with an abjectness rarely encountered in scientific literature," Brigham repudiated virtually all of his earlier conclusions.  Following a statement that there had been major flaws in his methodology, Brigham noted that the "study, with its entire hypothetical superstructure of racial differences, collapses completely."  But to many people, the damage had already been done.  Brigham passed away in 1943.

My main source for this story was:

Hubin, D. R. (1988). The Scholastic Aptitude Test: its development and introduction, 1900-1948.‏  http://pages.uoregon.edu/hubin/

This is a doctoral thesis about the SAT.  the information presented here is from the third chapter:

 A NEW TOOL TO ASSESS APTITUDE--PSYCHOLOGISTS CREATE THE INTELLIGENCE TEST

http://pages.uoregon.edu/hubin/3_FINAL.pdf

I recommend reading the whole interesting chapter.  The story brought here is only one anecdote out of this chapter.

Cultural differences in human figure drawings – a testimony from American and Japanese children's drawings.

La Voy, S. K., Pedersen, W. C., Reitz, J. M., Brauch, A. A., Luxenberg, T. M., & Nofsinger, C. C. (2001). Children's Drawings A Cross-Cultural Analysis from Japan and the United States. School Psychology International, 22(1), 53-63.‏

It's easy to see how cultural differences affect performance on verbal tests.  However, their influence on non-verbal tests is substantial as well.   The problem is that this influence is latent.  Any test performance is affected both by internal factors (personality, cognitive abilities) and by environmental factors (culture, education, experience and exposure to similar materials).  If we miss the cultural influences on the child's performance on nonverbal test, or if we underestimate the extent of their influence, we may wrongly interpret the child's products as resulting from his personality or his abilities to a larger extent than they really are.

The study described here is highly interesting, and written in a short, pleasant to read paper, which contains examples of children's drawings.  Unfortunately this paper is not open access.

Fifty two children aged seven to eight participated in the study.  The sample contained an equal number of American and Japanese boys and girls.  The children were asked to draw a house, a tree and a human figure.  They had five minutes to complete each drawing.

The authors measured three things in the human figure drawing:

A.    The existence of a smile.  A smile was determined if both corners of the mouth turned upward.

B.   The amount of detail in the drawing.  The authors counted the number of details that were nonessential for the identification of the drawing as a human figure (for instance, ears, fingers, fingernails, buttons, belts, shoes etc.).

C.   The drawing's size.  The drawing's height was measured from top to bottom.

Each drawing was evaluated by four persons. Drawings that did not

receive 100% interjudge agreement were not included in the final

analyses (the paper does not say how many such drawings there were).

A significant difference was found in the number of smiles that were drawn by American and Japanese children.  Twenty American children drew a smile while only five Japanese children did so.  The authors argue that every culture imposes limits on the public expression of feelings, each to a varying degree.   The Japanese probably appreciate the restraint of feelings in public.  Americans are probably less restrained in emotional expression in public.  As for the smile, the American culture places a higher social value on the smile than the Japanese culture.

There was a significant difference in the number of details drawn by the American and Japanese children.  Japanese children drew more details than American children.  The authors argue that Japanese children are educated to pay a lot of attention to details.  They appreciate order, perseverance and concentration, and are educated to prefer process over product.

There was a significant difference in the height of the drawings – between genders and between cultures.  Girls of both cultures drew higher human figures than boys.  Japanese children drew higher human figures than American children.  The authors argue that a drawing's height represents  how the child views his or her worth within the society.  Children are highly appreciated in the Japanese culture.  The child is in the center of the Japanese family.  Parents try to give their child the feeling that he is loved and wanted.  Japanese children live in a society that is more collective and less individualistic than American children.  A Japanese child feels that he is part of a larger self, part of a highly appreciated group in the Japanese culture.

I must say that this explanation doesn't sound convincing to me.   I perceive the American culture as child centered too.   I think that individualism may also lead to higher human figure drawings.

 The authors suggest that a possible explanation for the larger drawings by the females might be the greater group or social orientation of girls this age.  Young girls "are more attuned to the group" and their self value rises out of identification with and a sense of belonging to the group.  I must say this argument didn't convince me either.

There was no difference between Americans and Japanese in the height of the tree and the house drawings.  Differences in height were found only in the human figure drawings.  It's interesting to think about the reason for that, especially in light of our tendency to interpret the tree as reflecting aspects of the self, and the house as reflecting aspects of the self and of the family and the self within the family.

Anyway, children's drawings probably represent the child's perception of himself and the culture, and the himself within the cultural context.  Children draw things that are accepted in their culture and represent cultural values in their drawings.  For example, religious Jewish children tend to draw human figures wearing traditional cloths (for instance, girls and women wearing long skirts).  When we ask a child to draw a dynamic family drawing (in which each person is doing something) we expect to get drawings of activities that are accepted in the culture to which the child belongs.

This paper stresses the importance of taking the child's cultural values into consideration when we interpret his human figure drawings and his drawings in general.

I think this conclusion can be generalized to all of the child's products during the assessment.