Talk:Flynn effect
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Cultural expansion
The reason for this is the spread of European culture. The "Flynn effect" is in effect a measurement of how rapid European culture is being spread worldwide and nothing more. It is just another form of European cultural imperialism. Set the stardards and have the power (guns and resource control) to judge everyone else by those stardards. --Shabaka Tecumseh
- Except that it has also (or especially) occurred among white European populations (in Europe and the US).
- The fact that the increase occurs especially in White European nations, could just be further evidence of the growth of a European cultural standard; that the unifying aspect of it becomes most readily apparent in the places where it is strongest to begin with. --Shabaka Tecumseh
- I certainly appreciate your concerns, and the issue of cultural bias in IQ tests is a significant and important issue, however I don't believe it holds water here. First, as the disscussant above noted, the Flynn effect is in fact most pronounced in homogenous, white European cultures. Now you argue that this may be further evidence of the growth of a "European standard" but I think you would be hard pressed to prove that the Dutch (for example) are significantly MORE homogenous or European now than they were 40 years ago! Yet the Flynn effect is clear there....
- A second and perhaps more compelling argument stems from the fact that the Flynn effect is, if anything, more pronounced when we assess people with tests that are the LEAST culturally biased. Psychologists have individually adminsitered IQ tests that are purely non-verbal and can be administered with no verbal directions to persons with no formal education. These tests apparently show the least cultural bias (e.g. differences between cultural/ethnic/racial groups are lowest on these tests) yet the Flynn effect is, if anything, stronger with them. Again, while cultural bias in testing is an important issue, it is not the core of the Flynn effect.
Training
Could it be that more and more people are getting training in doing in doing IQ tests? I read somewhere that there is a noticeable increase in the result from the 1st test you take to the 3rd one. Probably you learn to think like the test or something.
- I think that is true, people are learning the way of the tests. Once I came across the following question. Which one is the odd one out: Train, Plane, Steamboat, Car, Bus. Ok, Trains can only move on tracks, Planes can move in 3 dimensions, steamboats move in water, cars are small and buses have commercials all over them. So which one is it? In the end it was the car, but with no explanation. But after a few of these you can probably figure out what the test writers were thinking. I guess people are figuring out the mindset of the people who made the tests.
- Remember, this is not an effect of the same people retaking the test, but changes in the average scores in a population across generations. I.E. If the 18 year olds averaged 100 on a test in 1948, the 18 year olds now might average 128 on the same test. Now perhaps we are all exposed to more testing, but remember, this effect has occured dramatically in even the last 20 years. Has the average persons exposure to standardized IQ tests changed that much since 1985? It's a puzzle...
Exercising intelligence
Flynn himself does not believe this [populations becoming more intelligent over time] to be the case. It is conceivable that something about modern society (the greater need for abstract thinking, presence of computers, more visually-oriented culture) is responsible.
Other arguments aside for the moment, I would say that modern society's requirements could be considered a precise indication of how intelligence could increase over time. After all, if modern society required greater use of muscles, the additional exercise would automatically make a population more muscular. Or, more appropriately, our equivalent "fitness quotient" (FQ?) must be going down over time, as technology spreads throughout the world and allows us all to become more sedentary. It seems to me that Flynn's disbelief implies an underlying assumption that "intelligence" is necessarily some ill-defined genetic trait that couldn't change so quickly over just a few generations. --Jeff Q 08:17, 20 May 2004 (UTC)
Original research ?
I don't know if it has been emphasized by some scientist(s) but IMO :
- the expense in education in many third-world countries were considerable (I have no serious datas yet),
- the progress in communications is simply incredible : It's not a secret on Wikipedia that I spent some time in Burkina Faso around 1986. In 14 month I could phone my mother once! Just click on http://www.cenatrin.bf/ to verify that the volume of information you can exchange has increased. --Ericd 20:36, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Only increasing the lower IQs?
- "Comparison of the IQ distributions indicated that 1) the mean IQ had increased by 9.7 points (the Flynn effect), 2) the gains were concentrated in the lower half of the distribution and negligible in the top half, and 3) the gains gradually decreased from low to high IQ."
Is it correct though, that if the average IQ in developed countries is rising but the higher intelligence individuals are staying the same, than we would actually see the higher IQ scores coming down (because the IQ test is calibrated to the population average)? --Nectarflowed 21:58, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
- Correct. For example, if you were to say, try to compare Isaac Newton's IQ with a modern day person, you would have to adjust one of the two scores, since the scores are relative to the population, and the population would have changed. You might find this intersting: [1] (http://members.shaw.ca/delajara/Cox300.html). --maru 16:16, 2 May 2005 (UTC)