What is the Flynn Effect, and how does it change our understanding of ...

Primer

What is the Flynn Effect, and how does it change our understanding of IQ? David Shenk* In 1981, psychologist James Flynn noticed that IQ scores had risen streadily over nearly a century a staggering difference of 18 points over two generations. After a careful analysis, he concluded the cause to be culture. Society had become more intelligent—come to grips with bigger, more abstract ideas over time—and had made people smarter. This observation, combined with solid evidence that IQ scores are also not fixed within an individual, neatly dispels the idea of intelligence being an innate and fixed entity. While intelligence clearly has a biological component, it is best defined, as a set of continually developed skills. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. How to cite this article:

WIREs Cogn Sci 2017, 8:e1366. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1366

INTRODUCTION

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n 1981, New Zealand-based psychologist James Flynn made a remarkable discovery. Comparing raw IQ scores over nearly a century, Flynn noticed that they kept going up: every few years, the new batch of IQ test-takers seemed to be smarter than the old batch.1 Twelve-year-olds in the 1980s performed better than twelve-year-olds in the 1970s, who performed better than 12-year-olds in the 1960s, and so on. This trend wasn’t limited to a certain region or culture, and the differences were not trivial2 (Figure 1). The differences were so extreme, they were at first hard to even fathom. On average, test takers improved over their predecessors by three points every ten years—a staggering difference of eighteen points over two generations. Using a late-twentieth-century average score of 100, the comparative score for the year 1900 was calculated to be about 60—leading to the truly absurd conclusion, observed Flynn, ‘that a majority of our ancestors were mentally retarded.’4 That obviously could not be true, so another explanation was required.

*Correspondence to: [email protected] Affiliate member, Delta Center, University of Iowa Conflict of interest: The author has declared no conflicts of interest for this article.

Volume 8, January–April 2017

ACCOUNTING FOR THE FLYNN EFFECT The so-called Flynn Effect raised eyebrows throughout the world of cognitive research. Obviously, the human race has not biologically evolved into a markedly smarter species in less than one hundred years. For Flynn, the pivotal clue came in noticing that the increases were not uniform across all areas but were concentrated in certain subtests. Contemporary kids did not do any better than their ancestors when it came to general knowledge or mathematics. But in the area of abstract reasoning, there were‘huge and embarrassing’ improvements. The further back in time Flynn looked, the less test takers seemed comfortable with hypotheticals and intuitive problem solving. Why? Because, Flynn offered, a century ago, in a less complicated world, there was very little familiarity with what we now consider basic abstract concepts. ‘The intelligence of] our ancestors in 1900 was anchored in everyday reality,’ suggested Flynn. ‘We differ from them in that we can use abstractions and logic and the hypothetical . . . Since 1950, we have become more ingenious in going beyond previously learned rules to solve problems on the spot.’1 According to Flynn, examples of contemporary abstract notions that simply did not exist in the minds of our 19th-century ancestors include the theory of natural selection (formulated in 1864), and the concepts of control group (1875) and random sample (1877). A century ago, the scientific method itself was foreign to most Americans.

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F I G U R E 1 | Gains in IQ tests in five nations over time. Note that specific scores for any given year should not be compared from one nation to another, as each nation’s scores are normed only within their own group. The similarity of the changes over time, however, are fair to compare. From Flynn.3

The catalyst for the dramatic IQ improvements, in other words, was not some mysterious genetic mutation, but what Flynn described as ‘the [cultural] transition from pre-scientific to post-scientific operational thinking.’ Over the course of the 20th century, basic principles of science slowly filtered into public consciousness, transforming the world we live in. That transition, offered Flynn, ‘represents nothing less than a liberation of the human mind.’ He wrote: The scientific world-view, with its vocabulary, taxonomies, and detachment of logic and the hypothetical from concrete referents, has begun to permeate the minds of post-industrial people. This has paved the way for mass education on the university level and the emergence of an intellectual cadre without whom our present civilization would be inconceivable.1

INTELLIGENCE IS MORE MALLEABLE THAN ONCE BELIEVED Perhaps the most striking of Flynn’s observations is this: 98% of IQ test takers today score better than the average test taker in 1900.1 The implications of this realization are extraordinary: It means that in just one century, improvements in our cultural discourse and access to education have dramatically raised the measurable intelligence of almost everyone. 2 of 3

This observation, combined with solid evidence that IQ scores are also not fixed within an individual, neatly dispels the idea of intelligence being an innate and fixed entity. While intelligence clearly has a biological component, it is best defined, as Robert Sternberg wrote in 2005, as ‘a set of competencies in development.’5 This finding fits perfectly with the earlier work of Mihály Csikszentmihályi et al., who concluded that ‘high academic achievers are not necessarily born “smarter” than others, but work harder and develop more self-discipline (see Kaufman and Duckworth, World-class expertise: A developmental model, WIREs Cogn Sci, also in the collection How We Develop).’6 Intelligence is a set of skills people develop, not a finite quality they are born with. Tests do show that IQ is generally ‘stable’—meaning that a test-taker’s scores at one particular age generally predict how that same test-taker will fare in the future. But ‘stability,’ Exeter University’s Michael Howe points out, ‘does not imply unchangeability.’ And indeed, individual IQ scores are quite alterable if a person gets the right push. ‘IQ scores,’ explains Cornell University’s Stephen Ceci,7 ‘can change quite dramatically as a result of changes in family environment,8,9 work environment,10 historical environment,2 styles of parenting,11,12 and most especially, shifts in level of schooling.’ A 2002 study by Skuy et al. demonstrated that a child’s performance on an IQ test such as Raven’s Standard Progressive Matrices can be significantly improved through effective education.13 A comprehensive 2012 review of the research by



WIREs Cognitive Science

What is the Flynn Effect

Richard Nisbett et al. concluded that ‘Group differences in IQ are best understood as environmental in origin’ and that improvements in education and economic circumstances can be clearly tied to improvements in measured intelligence.14 In 1932, psychologists Sherman and Key15 discovered that IQ scores correlated inversely with a community’s degree of isolation: the higher the cultural isolation, the lower the scores. In the remote hollow of Colvin, Virginia, for example, where most adults were illiterate and access to newspapers, radio, and schools was severely limited, 6-year-olds scored close to the national average in IQ. But as the Colvin kids got older, their IQ scores drifted lower and lower—falling further and further behind the national average due to inadequate schooling and acculturation. (The very same phenomenon was discovered among the so-called canal boat children in Britain and in other isolated cultural pockets.)15 Their unavoidable conclusion was that ‘children develop only as the environment demands development.’

CONCLUSION IQ tests do not measure innate intelligence, but rather achievement. Intelligence is not a thing, but ‘a set of competencies in development.’ It is the accrual of skills. Measuring IQ, therefore, may generally be a useful measure of how an individual is doing, and a reasonable predictor of how most individuals are likely to will fare in the future. But it is far from a reliable measure of that individual’s potential—what that person can do. How can this subject gain greater clarity? How can researchers further measure the developmental gains made and further demonstrate that these gains are not tied to some innate genetic factor? By continuing to tie the threads of developmental biology (see Lickliter, Developmental evolution, WIREs Cogn Sci, also in the collection How We Develop) together with a more and more nuanced understanding of what intelligence actually is.

FURTHER READING Binet A. Les idees modernes sur les enfants (Modern Ideas on Children). Flammarion. Reprinted in 1973; 1909, 105–106, and in Elliot and Dweck, 2005. Elliot AJ, Dweck CS, eds. Handbook of Competence and Motivation. New York, NY: Guilford Publications; 2005, 124. Shenk D. The Genius in All of Us: New Insights into Genetics, Talent, and IQ. New York, NY: Doubleday; 2010.

REFERENCES 1. Flynn JR. Beyond the Flynn effect: solution to all outstanding problems except enhancing wisdom. In: Lecture at the Psychometrics Centre, Cambridge Assessment Group. American Psychological Association: University of Cambridge; 2006. 2. Flynn JR. Massive IQ gains in 14 nations – what IQ tests really measure. Psychol Bull 1987, 101:171–191. 3. Flynn JR. Searching for justice – the discovery of IQ gains over time. Am Psychol 1999, 54:5–20.

9. Svendsen D. Factors related to changes in IQ: a follow-up study of former slow learners. J Child Psychol Psychiatry 1983, 24:405–413. 10. Kohn M, School C. The reciprocal effects of the substantive complexity of work and intellectual flexibility: a longitudinal assessment. Am J Sociol 1978, 84:24–52. 11. Baumrind D. Child care practices anteceding three patterns of preschool behavior. Genet Psychol Monogr 1967, 75:43–88.

4. Flynn JR. What is Intelligence? Beyond the Flynn Effect. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press; 2007. 5. Sternberg RJ. Intelligence, competence, and expertise. In: Elliot AJ, Dweck CS, eds. Handbook of Competence and Motivation. New York: Guilford Publications; 2005. 6. Csikszentmihalyi M, Rathunde K, Whalen S. Talented Teenagers: The Roots of Success and Failure. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press; 1993. 7. Ceci SJ. On Intelligence…More or Less: A Biological treatise on Intellectual Development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; 2009. 8. Clarke AM, Clarke AD. Early Experience and the Life Path. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers; 1976.

12. Dornbusch SM, Ritter PL, Leiderman PH, Roberts DF, Fraleigh MJ. The relation of parenting style to adolescent school performance. Child Dev 1987, 58:1244–1257. 13. Skuy M, Gewer A, Osrin Y, Khunou D, Fridjhon P, Rushton JP. Effects of mediated learning experience on Raven’s matrices scores of African and non-African university students in South Africa. Intelligence 2002, 30:221–232. 14. Nisbett RE, Aronson J, Blair C, Dickens W, Flynn J, Halpern DF, Turkheimer E. Group differences in IQ are best understood as environmental in origin. Am Psychol 2012, 67:503–504. 15. Sherman M, Key CB. The intelligence of isolated mountain children. Child Dev 1932, 3:279–290.



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