Our IQs Are Climbing, But We’re Not Getting Smarter

[AngryAmish]

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/115787/rising-iq-scores-dont-mean-greater-intelligence

"Does the rise in IQ scores over the past century mean people are getting smarter? Since the beginning of the twentieth century, IQ scores around the world have been increasing at a rate of around three points per decade, leaving intelligence researchers puzzling over whether historical gains in IQ—known as the “Flynn effect”—reflect an increase in general intelligence or something else, be it better education, better nutrition or even bigger brains. A new paper published in the journal Learning and Individual Differences (2014) may have the answer: We’re getting better at taking tests.

People today are not only staying in school longer, the authors point out, but are more than ever taught to the test: Students are trained in test-taking strategies and heuristics that, according to the paper, can be applied to IQ-type problems. “People are exposed to the formats of tests all the time—they are able to detect certain regularities, and they are able to exploit those regularities,” said Michael Woodley, one of the paper’s co-authors, in an interview over Skype. “You were probably taught in school, for instance, to guess on multiple choice tests.” Even outside the classroom, increasing exposure—often online—to cognitive games like Sudoku, Bridge and Go mean that people are more familiar with IQ-type problems when they sit down to an IQ test. “We live in a more cognitively intense environment than ever,” said Woodley."

read the whole thing

I read the paper this was based on. It is very good. One of the co-authors is a teenager, which is amazing


So what is my takeaway from this:

Having a high IQ is a desirable thing because it gives you many more possibilities in life than not having a high IQ. You can go to college if you like. If college is not your thing you can score high on a civil service exam and snag a government job. But to a great extent you have the IQ you are born with - many things can lower your IQ (brain damage, physical and sexual abuse, eating lead paint) but so far we have not found a way to make IQ higher. So what is a parent to do? If test learning is really going on like these folks say, then make your kid do puzzles. Give them multiple IQ tests. The actual scores are not relevant (but higher native IQ really would help) but just learning the test will improve their scores. I also think that the SE asian educational system makes the kids so familiar with these tests that IQ and aptitude scores improve.

[Mass]

1. If we could stop worrying about IQs, this would show a real progress.

IQ is nothing more than a statistical measure linked to how you answer a certain test. By construct, the average is 100 and the standard deviation 15. If an IQ test gives results significantly different of this on a large population, it means it needs to be modified.

Different IQ tests can give significantly different results as they tend to test slightly different things.

So, while they may be useful tools to measure disabilities of all sorts, we should stop considering them as a measure of intelligence.

[xulamaude]

2. My mom kept me out of school the day

they were doing the IQ testing. Smart woman, my mom.