Race and the interaction effect.

Any measured performance is the outcome of the interaction of the individual and his/her environment. This interaction affect makes it impossible to ascertain the variance that can be attributed to either genetics or the eco-cultural environment. All the heritability estimates are therefore speculative and of limited validity. Further, race is at best an ambiguous construct as it is based on phenotypical appearance rather than meaningful biological differences. It can be argued that the social construct “race” does not refer to anything meaningful, particularly in the United States where “races” are intermixed reflecting the varied progress of humanity on our geneographical journey out of Africa. Importantly intelligence cannot be measured in a meaningful way outside the cultural framework, and the construct may in fact have no meaning except within cultural values. Cross-cultural research shows that the very meaning of intelligence varies by culture (Sternberg, 2004; Sternberg, Grigorenko, & Kidd, 2005).

The use of intelligence tests in cross-cultural work must be evaluated with skepticism. There is a history of doing such comparative work where some population groups usually get lower scores that in turn are interpreted as cognitive deficits. Unless intelligence tests serve some meaningful educational purpose it seems hard to justify their use cross-culturally. Originally intelligence tests were developed in order to help those thought unfit for traditional educational training. However, as we have seen that intelligence is not fixed, but malleable from experiences especially those associated with schooling, and it seems that the intellectual energy of conducting comparative research on intelligence testing could be better placed elsewhere. As Greenfield (1997) has noted psychological tests assume similar familiarity between respondents with content, with test taking and associated conventions that are not easily transferred from one culture to the next.

The definitive studies on the interacting affect of culture and intelligence can be observed by the so-called Flynn effect (Folger, 2012). Research shows that IQ scores have been increasing steadily since the beginning of the 20^th century. The increases in IQ scores appear to be systematic, year after year, suggesting something more than biology at play. The improvements in scores are not in what psychologists call crystallized intelligence generally considered a result of knowledge derived from formal education. Most gains occur throughout the intelligence curve and are derived from subtests of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children measuring abstract reasoning and geometric patterns or fluid intelligence. In other words the improvements are in what is thought to be the hardwired capacity to solve unfamiliar problems. Since these tests are paradoxically culturally free measures of innate capacity could our modern brains have evolved at this speed? No, biological evolution could not happen in so short a time span, more likely there is something happening in the cultural environment. It would appear that our minds have evolved in interaction with the demands of modern society. Several environmental causes have been attributed for the ubiquitous improvement including better childhood nutrition, universal education, smaller families, educated mothers, and the industrial revolution that required mastery of abstract thinking. In the end the Flynn effect is explained by the continuous feedback loop between our minds and a culture dominated by technology and reflects human adaptability.

Date: 2015-01-11; view: 759