THE FLYNN EFFECT

introduction

Since a substantial amount of intellectual capacity (up to 80 percent) is inherited, you can you may be surprised to learn that intelligence test results are on the rise. In fact scores have increased so dramatically that today's grandparents seem deficient mental in comparison. First, let's review the evidence on rising test scores. to next, we will review explanations for the results. On an IQ scale where 100 is the average, scores have increased by about three points per decade, that is, if your grandfather he got 100, the average score of his generation would be around 115. That's a difference quite large, about a standard deviation, i.e. someone from your grandfather's generation whose score was in the 84th percentile would be only the average (50th Percentile), by today's standards. James Flynn is a New Zealand researcher who is credited with being the first in the documentation of the growing results. He reported the results in 1984, when he encountered that almost everyone who took a well-validated IQ test in the 1970s had a better performance than those who took one in the 1940s. The results seem to hold between the Cultures. Test scores are increasing not only in the United States but also in most other countries where the effect has been proven, too. 

How do you explain the Flynn effect? Researchers are not completely sure, but some

of the explanations offered are as follows:

1. Education. Today's students are better educated than their parents and education leads to higher results.

2. The smallest families. In 1900, the average couple had four children today the number is less than two. We know that firstborns tend to have higher IQ's than others children, probably because they receive more attention than their siblings who are born later.

3. Take test wisely. Today's kids have been tested so often that they are tested of knowledge, they know how to take tests and how to do well in them.

4. Genes. Although smart couples tend to have fewer children, not more, children (who could result in waiting for intelligence in the population to go down over time), it is possible that, due to better education, monitoring and testing, those who do not have the right genes are more able to exploit those advantages. Some genetics researchers have also argued that if the intelligence genes performed by both parents are dominant, they win, i.e. the coefficient the child's intellectual will be as high or taller than those of the parents.

Answer the following questions

Questions

1. Do you think people are really getting smarter? Why or why not?

2. Which of the factors explain the Flynn effect?

3. If the Flynn Effect is true, does this undermine the theory that IQ is inherited? Why or why not?