Why IQs are rising – and how to get better grades

Liz Else, associate editor

(Image: University of Otago)

Worldwide, IQs have risen by up to three points per decade over the past century. Known as the Flynn effect, the rise means IQ tests should be recalibrated regularly. At 78, James Flynn, the man it?s named after, explains how he?s still hard at work on its repercussions.

Are we getting smarter?
Our ancestors were just as good as we are at practical intelligence, at dealing with everyday life. But our brains and minds have changed over the last century. That is when all these IQ gains have taken place, and we have developed the mental skills needed to deal with the demands of the modern world.

How does that affect our definition of intelligence?
Once we understand how our minds have changed, I leave it to you whether you want to say we are "more intelligent". There is no doubt that we need a new approach to the study of intelligence.

If one individual is better than average on one important cognitive skill, they tend to be better on all of them. Society, on the other hand, may change so as to demand enhancement of one important skill - say, the ability to use logic to deal with abstract symbols - but make no extra demands on the expansion of our everyday vocabulary. Writing the cognitive history of the 20th century, of how our minds have changed over time, is quite different from measuring how much one person's cognitive skills are superior to another's.

You caused a bit of a stir talking about women?s IQ gains.
Women have gained on men over the last generation to where they now equal or slightly surpass men. I don?t think the advantage that women are showing is a genetic advantage for intelligence - I suspect it?s extra mental exercise. Girls are more likely to use their mind in school than boys are. The boys are much more likely to be out at the pub. But at university, they really are below men two or three points, and that?s because more marginal women IQ-wise qualify for university.

How come?
A girl with an IQ of 100 thinks of herself as university material and has the marks. A boy with the same IQ hates school and doesn?t have the marks. So you?re much more likely to find girls below 110 in university than boys. But even so, females do better than males at university.

It?s a sensitive issue, why tackle it?
We need to know more about the differences. And if people like me didn?t investigate it because it was politically incorrect, we never would know. I mean, it?s not accidental that I?m the one who?s overwhelmingly brought this evidence to bear on the gender issue. A lot of other people were too scared to go into it.

Does culture have a similar effect too?
In my book Asian Americans I wrote that Chinese Americans who had come to America before 1950 as children or had been born there had no higher IQs than whites -? they just outperformed them like crazy. That is, they could drop seven points on whites and get the SAT scores and grades to get into Berkeley, which meant that a Chinese with an IQ of about 93 looked as intelligent as a white at 100 in terms of their educational and occupational profile. Like women, they are more adjusted to formal education. They don?t skip class. They hand the homework in on time, they don?t get suspended.

What implications does the Flynn effect have on the death penalty?
In the US I'm going to be executed rather than exonerated if I have an IQ below 70 - because that?s where they deem ?significant limitations? such as problems with literacy or social skills to set in. For 10 years I have been trying to educate judges about the Flynn effect and the need to restandardise IQ tests every generation or so. If I'm tested in 1976 with an IQ test from 1948, it's inflated by 28 years of IQ gains, which means that an IQ of 67 could be returned as one of 75.

Have you had success in changing things?
At the beginning, I had enormous resistance. Today, almost everyone who defends capital offenders is aware of my work. Given how conservative the judicial profession is, I'm not discouraged. I hope that before I die I will see more progress.

James Flynn studied mathematics and physics at the University of Chicago before discovering political philosophy, eventually emigrating to New Zealand, where he became professor of political science at the University of Otago. His latest book is Are We Getting Smarter? Rising IQ in the twenty-first century, Cambridge University Press.

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