Controlling for increased guessing enhances the independence of the Flynn effect from g: The return of the Brand effect

Controlling for increased guessing enhances the independence of the Flynn effect from g: The return of the Brand effect
Michael Anthony Woodley, Jan te Nijenhuis, Olev Must, and Aasa Must
Intelligence, March-April 2014


Highlights

o The true independence of the Flynn effect from g is masked by a Brand effect.

o The Brand effect results from increased guessing on harder test items.

o Controlling the Flynn effect for the Brand effect boosts its independence from g.

Abstract

The cause of the Flynn effect is one of the biggest puzzles in intelligence research. In this study we test the hypothesis that the effect may be even more independent from g than previously thought. This is due to the fact that secular gains in IQ result from at least two sources. First, an authentic Flynn effect that results from environmental improvements and should therefore be strongly negatively related to the g loading (and therefore the heritability) of IQ subtests. Second, a “Brand effect”, which results from an increase in the number of correct answers simply via enhanced guessing. As harder items should encourage more guessing, secular gains in IQ stemming from this Brand effect should be positively associated with subtest g loadings. Analysis of Estonian National Intelligence Test data collected between 1933 and 2006, which includes data on guessing, g loadings and secular IQ gains, corroborates this hypothesis. The correlation between gains via the Brand effect and g loadings is .95, as predicted. There is a modest negative association between raw secular gain magnitude and subtest g loadings (− .18) that increases to − .47 when these are controlled for the Brand effect. Applying five psychometric meta-analytic corrections to this estimate raises it to − .82 indicating that the authentic Flynn effect is substantially more independent from g than previously thought.

A negative Flynn effect in Finland, 1997–2009

A negative Flynn effect in Finland, 1997–2009
E Dutton & R Lynn
Intelligence, Article in Press,
Available Online 30 June 2013



Abstract

The average IQs of approximately 25,000 18–20 year old male military conscripts in Finland per year are reported for the years 1988 to 2009. The results showed increases in the scores on tests of Shapes, Number and Words over the years 1988 to 1997 averaging 4.0 IQ points a decade. From 1997 to 2009 there were declines in all three tests averaging 2.0 IQ points a decade.



"[There] were few non-European immigrants in Finland during the years 1997–2009. In 2012, 4.8% of the Finnish population were immigrants or had at least one immigrant parent (Statistics Finland, 2012) and the great majority of these were Russians and Estonians, whose average IQ is the approximately same as that of the Finns at around 100 (Lynn & Vanhanen, 2012). Those of non-European, including American, origin made up just 1.8% of the Finnish population in 2012 (Statistics Finland, 2012). Thus, the decline of IQs in Finland cannot be attributed to the arrival of significant numbers of immigrants who may have had lower average IQs than the indigenous population. The most probable reason for the declines in IQs that have now been recorded in a number of countries is the presence of dysgenic fertility..."

[In comparison to other European countries only few non-Europeans immigrated into Finland in the last decades. Therefore the negative changes of the Finnish national IQ-level seem to be mainly caused by dysgenic / IQ lowering fertility patterns of the Finnish population.]

The Flynn effect, group differences, and g loadings

The Flynn effect, group differences, and g loadings
Jan te Nijenhuis; July 2013
Personality and Individual Differences
http://www.iapsych.com/iqmr/fe/LinkedDocuments/nijenhuis2013ip.pdf


Abstract

Flynn effect gains are predominantly driven by environmental factors. Might these factors also be responsible for group differences in intelligence? Group differences in intelligence have been clearly shown to strongly correlate with g loadings. The empirical studies on whether the pattern of Flynn effect gains is the same as the pattern of group differences yield conflicting findings. We present new evidence on the topic using a number of datasets from the US and the Netherlands. Score gains and g loadings showed a small negative average correlation. The general picture is now that there is a small, negative correlation between g loadings and Flynn effect gains. It appears that the Flynn effect and group differences have different causes.

The social and scientific temporal correlates of genotypic intelligence and the Flynn effect

The social and scientific temporal correlates of genotypic intelligence and the Flynn effect
Michael A Woodley; 2012
http://www.gwern.net/docs/2012-woodley.pdf


Abstract

In this study the pattern of temporal variation in innovation rates is examined in the context of Western IQ measures in which historical genotypic gains and losses along with the Flynn effect are considered. It is found that two alternative genotypic IQ estimates based on an increase in IQ from 1455 to 1850 followed by a decrease from 1850 to the present, best fitted the historical growth and decline of innovation rates (r= .876 and .866, N=56 decades). These genotypic IQ estimates were found to be the strongest predictors of innovation rates in regression in which a common factor of GDP (PPP) per capita and Flynn effect gains along with a common factor of illiteracy and homicide rates were also included (β= .706 and .787, N= 51 decades). The strongest temporal correlate of the Flynn effect was GDP (PPP) per capita (r= .930,N= 51 decades). A common factor of these was used as the dependent variable in regression, in which the common factor of illiteracy/homicide rates was the strongest predictor (β=−1.251 and −1.389, N=51 decades). The genotypic IQ estimates were significant negative predictors of the Flynn effect (β=−.894 and −.978, N= 51 decades). These relationships were robust to path analysis. This finding indicates that the Flynn effect, whilst associated with developmental indicators and wealth, only minimally influences innovation rates, which appear instead to be most strongly promoted or inhibited by changes in genotypic intelligence.

Who discovered the Flynn Effect? A review of early studies of the secular increase of intelligence

Who discovered the Flynn Effect? A review of early studies of the secular increase of intelligence
Richard Lynn; 2013 (article in press)
Intelligence


Abstract

Flynn has been credited with having discovered the increase in IQs that have been reported in a number of countries during most of the twentieth century and that have come to be known as “the Flynn effect”. This paper documents and discusses a number of reports of increases in IQs that were published from 1936 onwards before the phenomenon was rediscovered by Flynn (1984, 1987). These early reports showed that the Flynn effect is fully present in pre-school children, does not increase during the school age years, and is greater for non-verbal abilities than for verbal abilities.
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"The term “the Flynn effect” was coined by Herrnstein and Murray (1994, p.307) to designate the increases in IQs during the twentieth century that were documented for the United States and for a number of other countries by Flynn (1984,1987). This designation has led many to believe that it was Flynn who discovered the phenomenon. Thus, the rise of IQs “has been called the Flynn effect after its discoverer” (Newcombe, 2007, p. 74); “Flynn's discovery” (Zhu & Tulsky,1999, p.1,255); “Flynn, a New Zealand psychologist who discovered that IQ scores are inflating over time” (Syed, 2007,p.17); and “the insight that made him famous…intelligence scores are rising, James R. Flynn has discovered” (Holloway,1999, p.3). These attributions are misplaced. There were numerous reports of secular increases in intelligence during the half century before they were rediscovered by Flynn (1984). The first objective of this paper is to summarize these early and largely forgotten studies. Who knows today of the work of Runquist (1936), who first discovered the effect? Or of Roesell (1937), Johnson (1937), Wheeler (1942) or Smith (1942) who published early reports on this phenomenon? None of these names appear in textbooks on intelligence such as those of Brody (1992), Sternberg (2000), Hunt (2011), Mackintosh (2011) and Sternberg and Kaufman (2011), or even in books wholly devoted to the Flynn effect by Neisser (1998) and Flynn (2007). The second objective of this paper is to discuss the implications that can be drawn from these early studies."


"Because all the important features of the increase had been reported many years before Flynn's studies, it is difficult to find any justification for designating the phenomenon “the Flynn effect”. In the history of science it is customary to name phenomena after those who first identified them, e.g. Boyle's law, the Heisenberg indeterminacy principle, and the Doppler effect. The first to report the secular increase in intelligence was Runquist (1936) and therefore the proper designation should surely be “the Runquist effect"."