Spearman’s hypothesis tested comparing Korean young adults with various other groups of young adults on the items of the Advanced Progressive Matrices

Little research has dealt with intragroup ancestry-related differences in intelligence in Black and White Americans. To help fill this gap, we examined the association between intelligence and both color and parent-reported ancestry using the NLSY97. We used a nationally-representative sample, a multidimensional measure of cognitive ability, and a sibling design. We found that African ancestry was negatively correlated with general mental ability scores among Whites (r = −0.038, N = 3603; corrected for attenuation, rc = −0.245). In contrast, the correlation between ability and parent-reported European ancestry was positive among Blacks (r = 0.137, N = 1788; rc = 0.344). Among Blacks, the correlation with darker skin color, an index of African ancestry, was negative (r = −0.112, N = 1455). These results remained with conspicuous controls. Among Blacks, both color and parent-reported European ancestry had independent effects on general cognitive ability (color: β = −0.104; ancestry: β = 0.118; N = 1445). These associations were more pronounced on g-loaded subtests, indicating a Jensen Effect for both color and ancestry (rs = 0.679 to 0.850). When we decomposed the color results for the African ancestry sample between and within families, we found an association between families, between singletons (β = −0.153; N = 814), and between full sibling pairs (β = −0.176; N = 225). However, we found no association between full siblings (β = 0.027; N = 225). Differential regression to the mean results indicated that the factors causing the mean group difference acted across the cognitive spectrum, with high-scoring African Americans no less affected than low-scoring ones. We tested for measurement invariance and found that strict factorial invariance was tenable. We then found that the weak version of Spearman’s hypothesis was tenable while the strong and contra versions were not. The results imply that the observed cognitive differences are primarily due to differences in g and that the Black-White mean difference is attributable to the same factors that cause differences within both groups. Further examination revealed comparable intraclass correlations and absolute differences for Black and White full siblings. This implied that the non-shared environmental variance components were similar in magnitude for both Blacks and Whites.

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Filling in the Gaps: The Association between Intelligence and Both Color and Parent-Reported Ancestry in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997

Lasker²,

Kirkegaard³

et al. 2019

“…Foul Shots Long Set Shots Fade-aways Quality of Environment Group A performance 10/10 7/10 6/10 5/10 Better (training done) Group D performance 5/10 2/10 1/10 0/10 Worse (25% trained) A-D performance gap 5/10 5/10 5/10 5/10 A-D performance gap static with greater complexity = nil Jensen effect Te Nijenhuis, Choi, van den Hoek, Valueva, E., and Lee (in press) [6] refer to the possibility of such cases as "anomalies", but they are actually counterexamples. If they occur, they simply refute the hypothesis that the existence of a g pattern (they always call it a "Jensen effect') signals a genetic gap between a high and low scoring group.…”

Section: Layupsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Te Nijenhuis, Choi, van den Hoek, Valueva, E., and Lee (in press) [6] cite studies showing that training on cognitive tasks produces the largest standardized gains on the easiest items, and the smallest standardized gains on the most difficult items [7,8]. Quite rightly, they take this as evidence of the existence of an anti-Jensen effect.…”

Section: A Problem For Iq Gains Over Timementioning

confidence: 99%

Reservations about Rushton

Flynn

2019

Rushton believed not only that East Asians, whites, and blacks could be ranked in that order for desirable traits but also that the black/white IQ gap is predominantly genetic in origin. Concerning the first, he relied on the “ice ages hypothesis”to show that the evolutionary history of the three races had varied as East Asians were subjected to the most demanding environment (north of the Himalayas), whites to the next most demanding (north of the Alps), and blacks to the least demanding (Africa). As to the second, he appealed to arguments based on the method of correlated vectors (Jensen effects) and regression to the mean. To assess his contribution I argue: (1) That the racial ranking for desirable traits is not as tidy as it seems; (2) That the ice ages hypothesis has been falsified; (3) That the black/white Q gap is more likely to be environmental, with black American subculture as the culprit; and (4) That appeals to correlated vectors and regression cannot disentangle genetic and environmental causes.

“…The MCV has been criticized by various researchers [20][21][22] and is considered controversial by some. We refer the interested reader to recent, detailed discussions on this topic (Woodley, [25]). As an aside, we notice that the present study is on Spearman's hypothesis tested on subtests of an IQ battery, but that there is a recent discussion on the test of Spearman's hypothesis at the item level [Wicherts, 2018 [26]; te Nijenhuis & van den Hoek, 2018 [27]]; however, this discussion has little relevance for the present paper [25].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Meta-Analysis of Spearman’s Hypothesis Tested on Latin-American Hispanics, Including a New Way to Correct for Imperfectly Measuring the Construct of g

Nijenhuis

Hoek

Dragt

2019

Self Cite

Spearman’s hypothesis states that the difference in intelligence between groups is a function of the g loadings of the subtests, where larger differences are found on tests with higher g loadings. This finding has consistently been supported on various groups. In this study we look at samples of Latin-American Hispanics in comparison to Whites. We carried out a meta-analysis based on 14 data points and a total of 16,813 Latin-American Hispanics, including a new way to correct for imperfectly measuring the construct of g. Spearman’s hypothesis was strongly supported with a mean r of 0.63. After correction for various statistical artifacts this value became rho = 0.91. Therefore, we conclude that Spearman’s hypothesis also holds true for White/Latin-American Hispanic differences.