4 ms·

When I studied psychology in university, the general thinking at the time was that IQ tests measured education and not actual intelligence.

xyzzyz 5y ago
This is very strange, especially as stark differences in measured IQ (and, in fact, in intelligence) between small children are often rather apparent, before one gets any substantial amount of formal education, and because there are no known studies showing that education can actually increase IQ in any non trivial and lasting manner, other than literally teaching people answer to specific IQ tests. Why would psychologists believe something so clearly wrong?
- echopurity 5y ago
  >This is very strange, especially as stark differences in measured IQ (and, in fact, in intelligence) between small children are often rather apparent, This is pseudo-science. That's why nobody who understands science "believes" it. >There are no known studies showing that education can actually increase IQ in any non trivial and lasting manner Even if this were a scientifically meaningful statement (which it isn't), it's factually incorrect. Try checking out the abstract next time: "Intelligence test scores and educational duration are positively correlated... Education appears to be the most consistent, robust, and durable method yet to be identified for raising intelligence." more info: https://www.livescience.com/36143-iq-change-time.html https://www.livescience.com/36143-iq-change-time.html
- golemotron 5y ago
  > Why would psychologists believe something so clearly wrong? Because they are scared of the slippery slope in questions of nature vs. nurture. Steven Pinker's book 'The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature' explores this topic and the cultural antecedents of naive nurturism.
- Auracle 5y ago
  Hint: it has to do with uncomfortable differences in IQ testing between certain groups of people.
  - sin7 5y ago
    Are you talking about black kids? Because I can assure you that no one gives a single fuck about their feelings or any uncomfortable differences.
  - kar5pt 5y ago
    The differences have been proven to be due to socioeconomic factors, not biological ones. But I'm guessing that fact makes _you_ uncomfortable.
    - Auracle 5y ago
      Nope, I'm certainly open to that and in fact I would love for that to be true. It's far from "proven" though. Most evidence points in the opposite direction. Adoption makes for some great data. Of course, good luck doing any type of legitimate research on that nowadays without being cancelled. I understand why it's something that we've collectively decided to ignore, but my entire life my state has also been throwing money at the "achievement gap" to no avail. You can't help fix a problem when you're coming at it with wrong assumptions.
- avs733 5y ago
  >Why would psychologists believe something so clearly wrong? I would imagine from their research? Why are you so self-assured that you are right? Often the issue with 'IQ' tests is that the way they are written introduces biases. Any definition of intelligence is at some level socially constructed, which brings social biases into play. Designing accurate, fair, and reliable tests of any educational measure is difficult. Doing a generalized one is even more so. really obvious example: I write a question that references a baseball game, some people have the tacit knowledge that there are nine fielders and one batter...some don't. Am I measuring education? information gained? 'intelligence'? Is someone from India who makes an analogy to cricket more intelligent than someone who doesn't? IQ tests have generally been shown to mostly be predictive of...scores on IQ tests. Fundamentally, when dealing with people you are dealing with latent constructs. They, by definition, cannot be measured directly and we presume they cannot be measured exactly. The issue in this paper is they aren't even really defined - they measured cognition not 'intelligence'.
  - TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
    LSATs and verbal reasoning tests are very obviously culturally informed. Even so - questions about baseball games are very much not something you'll see in an IQ test. But it's not a simple issue. Tests like Raven's Progressive Matrices looks like they should be culture-free but in fact they're based on assumptions, contexts, and operations that are taught implicitly in basic math classes in the West. If you don't have that education, you're going to find it hard to understand the test. Other culture have different ideas about what intelligence looks like and how it's expressed. If you threw equivalent non-Western challenges at a supposedly smart Western kid it's not obvious how well they'd do. https://www.apa.org/monitor/feb03/intelligence https://www.apa.org/monitor/feb03/intelligence
    - avs733 5y ago
      totally agree with this post, I used a simple example where many more complicated ones exist. The problem is how do you disentangle Differential Item/Test Function being from cultural purposes as compared to 'we expect this group to perform worse'. The larger point is that culture, intelligence, and measures of culture developed in a particular culture are difficult to disambiguate.
- sudosysgen 5y ago
  All IQ tests do measure things that people literally do teach themselves. From finding synonyms and antonyms, to finding the center of mass of a shape, to XORing two bitmaps, etc.. Research has found that differences in IQ at a young age are not very stable over a lifetime. That being said, education starts at birth, and cognitive development doesn't go at the same speed for everyone even when the endpoint is the same. And actual, we did find that education does raise IQ in a significant and sustained way, with measured increases persisting for 40 years : https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0956797618774253 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0956797618774253 (ie, the OP)
logicalmonster 5y ago
I have to wonder: how much of a factor is social pressure in this setting? Any hypothesis geared around IQ being anything other than something that is malleable with education seems to be "too dangerous to handle" for any serious scientist. I am not a social scientist, but based on my experiences seeing people attempt to learn programming, it seems like certain types of thinking patterns cannot easily be learned by everybody.

xyzzyz 5y ago

This is very strange, especially as stark differences in measured IQ (and, in fact, in intelligence) between small children are often rather apparent, before one gets any substantial amount of formal education, and because there are no known studies showing that education can actually increase IQ in any non trivial and lasting manner, other than literally teaching people answer to specific IQ tests. Why would psychologists believe something so clearly wrong?

echopurity 5y ago
>This is very strange, especially as stark differences in measured IQ (and, in fact, in intelligence) between small children are often rather apparent, This is pseudo-science. That's why nobody who understands science "believes" it. >There are no known studies showing that education can actually increase IQ in any non trivial and lasting manner Even if this were a scientifically meaningful statement (which it isn't), it's factually incorrect. Try checking out the abstract next time: "Intelligence test scores and educational duration are positively correlated... Education appears to be the most consistent, robust, and durable method yet to be identified for raising intelligence." more info: https://www.livescience.com/36143-iq-change-time.html https://www.livescience.com/36143-iq-change-time.html
golemotron 5y ago
> Why would psychologists believe something so clearly wrong? Because they are scared of the slippery slope in questions of nature vs. nurture. Steven Pinker's book 'The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature' explores this topic and the cultural antecedents of naive nurturism.
Auracle 5y ago
Hint: it has to do with uncomfortable differences in IQ testing between certain groups of people.
- sin7 5y ago
  Are you talking about black kids? Because I can assure you that no one gives a single fuck about their feelings or any uncomfortable differences.
- kar5pt 5y ago
  The differences have been proven to be due to socioeconomic factors, not biological ones. But I'm guessing that fact makes _you_ uncomfortable.
  - Auracle 5y ago
    Nope, I'm certainly open to that and in fact I would love for that to be true. It's far from "proven" though. Most evidence points in the opposite direction. Adoption makes for some great data. Of course, good luck doing any type of legitimate research on that nowadays without being cancelled. I understand why it's something that we've collectively decided to ignore, but my entire life my state has also been throwing money at the "achievement gap" to no avail. You can't help fix a problem when you're coming at it with wrong assumptions.
avs733 5y ago
>Why would psychologists believe something so clearly wrong? I would imagine from their research? Why are you so self-assured that you are right? Often the issue with 'IQ' tests is that the way they are written introduces biases. Any definition of intelligence is at some level socially constructed, which brings social biases into play. Designing accurate, fair, and reliable tests of any educational measure is difficult. Doing a generalized one is even more so. really obvious example: I write a question that references a baseball game, some people have the tacit knowledge that there are nine fielders and one batter...some don't. Am I measuring education? information gained? 'intelligence'? Is someone from India who makes an analogy to cricket more intelligent than someone who doesn't? IQ tests have generally been shown to mostly be predictive of...scores on IQ tests. Fundamentally, when dealing with people you are dealing with latent constructs. They, by definition, cannot be measured directly and we presume they cannot be measured exactly. The issue in this paper is they aren't even really defined - they measured cognition not 'intelligence'.
- TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
  LSATs and verbal reasoning tests are very obviously culturally informed. Even so - questions about baseball games are very much not something you'll see in an IQ test. But it's not a simple issue. Tests like Raven's Progressive Matrices looks like they should be culture-free but in fact they're based on assumptions, contexts, and operations that are taught implicitly in basic math classes in the West. If you don't have that education, you're going to find it hard to understand the test. Other culture have different ideas about what intelligence looks like and how it's expressed. If you threw equivalent non-Western challenges at a supposedly smart Western kid it's not obvious how well they'd do. https://www.apa.org/monitor/feb03/intelligence https://www.apa.org/monitor/feb03/intelligence
  - avs733 5y ago
    totally agree with this post, I used a simple example where many more complicated ones exist. The problem is how do you disentangle Differential Item/Test Function being from cultural purposes as compared to 'we expect this group to perform worse'. The larger point is that culture, intelligence, and measures of culture developed in a particular culture are difficult to disambiguate.
sudosysgen 5y ago
All IQ tests do measure things that people literally do teach themselves. From finding synonyms and antonyms, to finding the center of mass of a shape, to XORing two bitmaps, etc.. Research has found that differences in IQ at a young age are not very stable over a lifetime. That being said, education starts at birth, and cognitive development doesn't go at the same speed for everyone even when the endpoint is the same. And actual, we did find that education does raise IQ in a significant and sustained way, with measured increases persisting for 40 years : https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0956797618774253 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0956797618774253 (ie, the OP)

logicalmonster 5y ago

I have to wonder: how much of a factor is social pressure in this setting? Any hypothesis geared around IQ being anything other than something that is malleable with education seems to be "too dangerous to handle" for any serious scientist. I am not a social scientist, but based on my experiences seeing people attempt to learn programming, it seems like certain types of thinking patterns cannot easily be learned by everybody.