What Is the Most Valuable Personality Trait?

[Nachtwolf]

Here's a lighthearted thread for everybody. What's the most valuable personality characteristic? If you had to be reborn as another human being, and you could only pick one trait about yourself (everything else would be random) what wolud you choose?

I'd like to say Openness to Experience (imagination), or Field Dependence (ability to analize things), or (although we can't exactly measure it) maturity. But unfortunately I think it's just intelligence. Intelligence is pretty vanilla as traits go; it's not as interesting as Locus of control or political affiliation or attractiveness or moral development, but the fact is that it correlates to them all. If you're smarter, you've proably got a lot of other things going for you as well - oh except that you may have trouble tasting phenylthiocarbamide, darn. Check http://www.childrenofmillennium.org/science.htm if you think I'm making this up.


--Mark

 

[selfAdjoint]

I'll go with the old testament. An understanding heart.

 

[albrock06]

Hm. What a lovely subject.

I think that if I could have any trait, I would pick the ability to live for tomorrow.
Some people have this weird thing about 'living in the past.' That's not me. I'm the retard that lives for the future!
But you see, if you do that, you end up getting your hopes up. I guess I think too far ahead. So. Not so far, will ya?

So ... my New Years Resolution was to live for tomorrow. Not next week. Not next year. NOW, and tomorrow. I tell myself to stop living for yesterday and forget what happened a few weeks ago.

Things don't always work like that, I suppose.

 

[Tsu]

Patience. I need patience.

 

[one_raven]

Originally posted by Nachtwolf
But unfortunately I think it's just intelligence. Intelligence is pretty vanilla as traits go; it's not as interesting as Locus of control or political affiliation or attractiveness or moral development, but the fact is that it correlates to them all.

I don't think any trait someone can have is more attractive, sexy, exciting or interesting than intelligence (tempered with wisdom, of course, but an intelligent person would know that, so I think maybe it goes without saying ).

 

[DarkAnt]

willpower

 

[Nachtwolf]

willpower

In 1915, one of Spearman's doctoral students, E. Webb, published a factor analysis of a matrix of correlations including a number of highly g-loaded tests and a number of ratings of character and personality. The particular personality traits chosen for study and obtained from ratings by students' teachers and associates were actually selected because they were expected to be related to g, and hence to show significant loadings on the g factor. This expectation, however, was completely contradicted by Webb's analysis, which yielded two wholly distinct factors - g and a general "character" factor, which Webb labeled w and characterized as "will" and "persistence of motives." The types of items most highly loaded on the w factor were described as: perseverance, as opposed to willful changeability; perseverance in the face of obstacles; kindness on principle; trustworthiness; and conscientiousness.

--Arthur Jensen, The g Factor


(Of course, one_raven still gave the best answer.

--Mark)

 

[selfAdjoint]

I think it depends on what it is you value. Many of us on these boards have value systems in which intelligence ranks high, but salesmen value charm, and athletes physics strength, and so on.

If you value wealth and power, I think the most valued trait would be ruthlessness. Consider two individuals rising in either business or politics, and suppose they are alike in every trait but ruthlessness. Eventually they will be tested by being required, for further advancement, to do something criminal or shameful, or at least unfeeling. The more ruthless one will do it and advance; the less ruthless one will demur and fail to advance.

You think that choice doesn't come in business and politics. Wanna bet?

 

[Nachtwolf]

I think it depends on what it is you value.

That's what makes this question so interesting. It doesn't really ask about traits but personal values.

The kicker, however, is that even these are irrelevant. Psychometric g correlates with social ability, with talking speed, with symmetry of facial features, and with a sense of humor. If you are a fan of charm, you're a fan of g.

Psychometric g also correlates with height, with handgrip strength, and with general health and fitness. If you are a fan of strength, you're a fan of g.

Then, further, Psychometric g corelates with Socioeconomic status achieved, with leadership, with income, and with military rank. If you are a fan of power, then you are really a fan of g.

I'm personally a fan of creativity, artistic talent, religious and phiolosphical depth, and aestheticism. These are the things which really matter to me. Well, guess what they all correlate with? Just check Jensen's The g Factor if you don't believe me!


--Mark

 

[Nereid]

Being a man; in most of the world that'll give you many hundred times more SES than being a woman; in some places, no matter how talented or smart you are, you've literally no chance whatsoever of being a leader in the society, becoming wealthy (in your own right), or with attaining a senior rank in the armed forces.

How does Jensen and his g factor address these cold facts of life?

 

[Nachtwolf]

How does Jensen and his g factor address these cold facts of life?

*Snort*

They aren't cold facts of life in any Western society - where, coincidentally, the average IQ is always better than the world average. Westerners don't practice female genital mutilation, and have always strongly opposed polygamy. But if you want to point fingers, why not point at societies with low average g?


--Mark

 

[Nereid]

IIRC, hitssquad said that Jensen was careful to not claim applicability beyond the US, where the research work was done.

What results did Jensen report regarding the g factor and gender (in the US)?

Assume that the US is 'a society with a high average g', and that g has a high hereditability ... then we would expect that such societies would not engage in such things as slavery or unprovoked wars of aggression far from their shores, wouldn't we?

Doesn't Nachtwolf, on his website, take pains to point out the relative nature of IQ? That those who have higher IQ have better SES compared with those with lower IQ? In other words, the average SES of a group of people with an average IQ of 90 is better than the average SES of a group with an average IQ of 80; ditto 100 vs 90; etc. Unless I'm mistaken, there's nothing in this relativist idea which says it applies only above some threshold (and both Lynn and Vanhanen, and Nachtwolf have made it clear they do not think there's any such lower threshhold).

 

[Nereid]

Nachtwolf wrote: They aren't cold facts of life in any Western society - where, coincidentally, the average IQ is always better than the world average. Westerners don't practice female genital mutilation, and have always strongly opposed polygamy. But if you want to point fingers, why not point at societies with low average g?

My previous post was a little hasty; on reflection, I realize that I don't understand what a 'societ[y] with low average g' is - can you please define what you mean by this term Nachtwolf?

IIRC, Carlos, Apollo, Nachtwolf and hitssquad have asserted that certain population groups in east Asia have inherently high IQs. From Nachtwolf's comment here, and his comments earlier in this thread, one may infer that in countries where these groups form a large part of the population, a person's gender would be less important than their IQ in their SES, relative to unfortunate women in countries with population groups, in their view, not so well endowed (on average of course). (I know I should not infer this, but I'm sure Nachtwolf hitssquad (Carlos and Apollo seem to have left us) will quickly set the record straight if the inference is unwarranted)

Here are the parliamentary participation rates for women in S Korea, Japan, and Hong Kong (lower house, from the IPU; with some comparisons):
S Korea: 5.9%
Japan: 7.1%
US: 14.3%
(Hong Kong: 16%, different source)
South Africa: 29.8%.

What about economic success? Well, perhaps Nachtwolf can give us figures on the numbers of female CEOs in S Korea, Japan, and Hong Kong, with the numbers of male ones for comparison. Ditto, a league table of 'richest persons'

That leaves military rank ...

BTW, I'm still waiting for Nachtwolf and hitssquad - who appear to continue to rely upon the "National IQ" concept - to show us why Lynn and Vanhanen's work isn't seriously flawed (or point to other work which supports Nachtwolf's repeated, unsubstantiated assertions).

 

[selfAdjoint]

It doesn't follow from "societies with low average g may tend to show what higher g societies would regard as disfunctional features because of the low g" that "higher g societies will always be free of disfunctional features because of the high g". I am not aware of any correlation between g and selfishness.

 

[Nereid]

I'd like to say Openness to Experience (imagination), or Field Dependence (ability to analize things), or (although we can't exactly measure it) maturity. But unfortunately I think it's just intelligence. Intelligence is pretty vanilla as traits go; it's not as interesting as Locus of control or political affiliation or attractiveness or moral development, but the fact is that it correlates to them all.

This is how Nachtwolf began this thread (an excerpt, my emphasis). Later he wrote (also an excerpt; my emphasis):

I'm personally a fan of creativity, artistic talent, religious and phiolosphical depth, and aestheticism. These are the things which really matter to me. Well, guess what they all correlate with?

IIRC, he also, in another thread, mentioned that g correlates with altruism, empathy, etc (and he didn't mean negatively).

And just in case anyone has forgotten, the Lynn and Vanhanen difference in "National IQ" between Japan and the US is 12 points, approx the same as between the US and Iraq (14 points) ... and also between which two US population groups?

 

[hitssquad]

National IQs of Japan, U.S., and Iraq

Originally posted by Nereid
the Lynn and Vanhanen difference in "National IQ" between Japan and the US is 12 points, approx the same as between the US and Iraq (14 points) ... and also between which two US population groups?

U.S.: 98
Iraq: 87
Japan: 105

U.S. minus Iraq: 11
Japan minus U.S.: 7

... and also between which two US population groups?

U.S. non-hispanic white: 101
U.S. black: 83

U.S. non-hispanic white minus U.S. black: 18 (1.3$$\sigma\\$$)


(All numbers are relative to a British mean of 100 and a British standard deviation of 15.)





-Chris

 

[elibol]

Originally posted by Nachtwolf
Here's a lighthearted thread for everybody. What's the most valuable personality characteristic? If you had to be reborn as another human being, and you could only pick one trait about yourself (everything else would be random) what wolud you choose?

me, i am able to be whatever i want to be. i think that is because i am much younger than a lot of the people that have already posted on this thread, but i know exactly how i want to be, and i am already living it.

 

[Nereid]

Originally posted by hitssquad
U.S.: 98
Iraq: 87
Japan: 105

U.S. minus Iraq: 11
Japan minus U.S.: 7

U.S. non-hispanic white: 101
U.S. black: 83

U.S. non-hispanic white minus U.S. black: 18 (1.3$$\sigma\\$$)

(All numbers are relative to a British mean of 100 and a British standard deviation of 15.)

From http://www.rlynn.co.uk/pages/article_intelligence/t3.htm :
US: 98
Iraq: 87
Japan: 110.

US minus Iraq: 11
Japan minus US: 12

(my original post was in error; I mixed up Iraq (87) with Iran (84)).

The famous 1994 Wall St Journal ad, as provided to us by jerryel:
"The bell curve for whites is centered roughly around IQ 100; the bell curve for American blacks roughly around 85"

white minus black: 15

 

[hitssquad]

Originally posted by Nereid
From http://www.rlynn.co.uk/pages/article_intelligence/t3.htm :
US: 98
Iraq: 87
Japan: 110.

In the Lynn and Vanhanen book, IQ and the Wealth of Nations, Japan is listed as IQ 105 (the British-adjusted and Flynn-effect-adjusted average of 10 IQ studies).

Lynn also mentions Japan's IQ of 105 here:

http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:Jczq-ycuGaMJ:www.rlynn.co.uk/pages/article_intelligence/10.htm

The famous 1994 Wall St Journal ad, as provided to us by jerryel:
"The bell curve for whites is centered roughly around IQ 100; the bell curve for American blacks roughly around 85"

white minus black: 15

--
A more representative estimate of the IQs of youths between ages eighteen and twenty-six can be obtained from the immense samples of enlisted men in the armed services during World War II. These subjects took the Army General Classification Test (AGCT), which is as highly correlated (r $$\approx$$ .80) with various IQ tests as the IQ tests are correlated with each other. The mean W-B difference on the AGCT was 1.25$$\sigma$$, which is equivalent to 18.7 IQ points. More recent data are provided by the national standardization of the 1986 Stanford-Binet IV, which shows a W-B difference of 1.13$$\sigma$$ (or 17.4 IQ points) for youths twelve to twenty-three years of age.[$$^{32}$$]

In summary, the cross-sectional data show an increasing mean W-B IQ difference from early childhood (about 0.7$$\sigma$$), to middle childhood (about 1$$\sigma$$), to adolescence and early maturity (about 1.2$$\sigma$$).
--
The g Factor. p376.
http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=24373874



As noted by the present author previously, the tendency of the B-W IQ gap to increase from childhood through to young adulthood is explained by the faster maturation of blacks. Also as noted before, this faster maturation might be predicted to tend to lend a favorable (upward) bias to extrapolations of national IQ of sub-Saharan black nations when IQs in those nations are calculated from samples of children.




--
A further validating feature of these data is revealed by the linear regression of the standardized W-B differences on the tests' g loadings. (The regression equation for the W-B difference, shown in Figure 11.6 , is D = 1.47g - .163). The regression line, which indicates the best estimate of the mean W-B difference on a test with a given g loading, shows that for a hypothetical test with zero g loading, the predicted mean group difference is slightly below zero (- .163$$\sigma$$), and for a hypothetical test with a g loading of unity (g = 1), the predicted mean group difference is 1.31$$\sigma$$. The latter value is, in fact, approached or equaled by the average difference found for the most highly g-loaded test batteries using highly representative samples of black and white Americans twelve years of age and over. In the black and white standardization samples of the Stanford-Binet IV, for example, the mean difference is 1.11$$\sigma$$; for the WISCR, 1.14$$\sigma$$; and the most precisely representative large-scale sampling of the American youth population (aged fifteen to twenty-three), sponsored by the Department of Defense in 1980, showed a W-B difference of 1.3$$\sigma$$ on the AFQT. $$^{36}$$
--
Ibid. pp377-378.
http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=24373874



The present author reported before that the W-B difference of 18 was equal to a 1.3$$\sigma$$ difference. Actually, a difference of 18 IQ points would be 1.2$$\sigma$$ (assuming a $$\sigma$$ value of 15). Whites and blacks actually differ by 1.31$$\sigma$$ in g, as noted in the excerpt above. The reason IQ tests show a W-B difference of only 1.2 $$\sigma$$ is that IQ tests are generally biased in favor of blacks.



--
The single tests' non-g common factors (particularly those representing spatial and memory abilities) and their specificities are, in effect, perturbations in our tests of Spearman's hypothesis. Even the weak form of the hypothesis, which recognizes the separate non-g effects of the spatial and memory factors on the W-B differences, is not completely accurate. There are still perturbations due to subtest specificity.

In every test battery in which the effect of test specificity has been examined, the vector of specificity coefficients is negatively correlated with the vector of mean W-B differences. That is, the larger a test's specificity, the smaller is the W-B difference. Whatever is specific to each of the subtests tends, in general, to reduce the W-B difference, or to favor blacks. On the WISC-R, for example, the average correlation between the W-B differences and the subtest specificities is - .46.[$$^{38}$$] This is not a surprising result, because, in accord with Spearman's hypothesis, g accounts for most of the W-B difference, and specificity is simply a residual component of the non-g variance. Therefore, a negative correlation between the W-B differences and the specificities of the various tests in a battery is inevitable. Because the roughly complementary relation between g and specificity is a mathematical necessity, it would be improper in our test of Spearman's hypothesis to partial out the vector of specificities from the correlation between the vector of g loadings and the vector of W-B differences. A better way to virtually eliminate the effects of specificity is to determine the group differences on each of the statistically independent (i.e., uncorrelated) factor scores derived from a test battery. When this was done for the WISC-R, based on the standardization samples of blacks and whites, the standardized mean W-B difference on each of the four factors in this battery of thirteen subtests was: g (1.14$$\sigma$$), Memory (-0.32$$\sigma$$), Verbal (0.20$$\sigma$$), and Performance (nonverbal and spatial) (0.20$$\sigma$$). The composite of the scores on all four factors yields a mean W-B difference of 1.22$$\sigma$$.[$$^{34c}$$] The g component thus accounts for 93 percent of the groups' total factor score difference on the WISC-R. Although the Wechsler tests were not expressly designed to maximize g (as was, for example, the Raven matrices test), they have a very large g saturation because they were pragmatically constructed so as to have high validity for predicting a wide range of important criteria.[$$^{38}$$]
--
Ibid. p380.
http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=24373874





-Chris

 

[Nereid]

Some simple questions

1) Why the shifting Lynn and Vanhanen data? The links to Lynn's own website - which appear to report the main arguments and conclusions (and data) of the L+V book - were given to us by hitssquad. Perhaps this is an innovative marketing technique?

2) What distribution(s) do the multiple mentions of $$\sigma$$ refer to? What are the observed deviations from Gaussianity? Where is the source data, so that we may check to see that the analyses have been done a) as reported, and b) correctly?

3) Given the reality of the Flynn effect, what was done to baseline the datasets from different times? Where are the details of those adjustments and corrections?

4) Given that 'black' and 'white' are notations recording the self-reported group membership of the subjects*, where is the extensive body of work which shows that this categorisation has remained unchanged since at least WWII?

5) Why did the 50 Profs sign up for a very public declaration that is at odds with what hitssquad has posted?

6) Why are the figures reported without estimates of error?

*more fundamentally, what is the distribution of tests by method of determining group membership? For example, tests where the subjects had to choose between a pre-determined list (e.g. black, white, asian, indian), where the determination of group membership was made by someone else, where choice of group membership was not constrained at the time of the test but later chunked by researchers, ... In tests where a subject's group membership could be many (e.g. white hispanic, both asian and black), how did the researchers make their categorisations?

 

[Nachtwolf]

My previous post was a little hasty

And my response was in kind. You do realize that g is an extraction from a battery of (sub)tests, and that it is impossible to say whether any given individual, or country, truly has higher g than another, don't you? Statistical methods allow us to understand g, but we don't have true measures of any given country or individual's g.

It's worth adding a disclaimer, however: Recent research, which Chris in his limitless wisdom has brought to light HERE, has turned up an astounding relationship - well over 90% - between g and "working memory," which should allow the development and application of viciously accurate IQ tests that are so heavily loaded on g that for all practical purposes, at least, they are g.

Long story short, the phrase "society "with a low average g" is probably best interpreted as a society with an average IQ found to be below 80. Equatorial Guinea is a shining example.

Nachtwolf and hitssquad have asserted that certain population groups in east Asia

(namely, "East Asians," and they don't have to be living in East Asia; they merely have to be representative of East Asian populations from which they are genetically descended)

have inherently high IQs. From Nachtwolf's comment here, and his comments earlier in this thread, one may infer that in countries where these groups form a large part of the population, a person's gender would be less important than their IQ in their SES, relative to unfortunate women in countries with population groups, in their view, not so well endowed (on average of course).

Notice that even in my sloppy post above I was careful enough to say "Western nations," not "nations with a high average IQ."

Equality of the sexes, and of the races, and of one man to his neighbor, irrespective of class or rank, is a concept which appears peculiar to Western societies. Despite the liberal egalitarian predisposition to treat non-Western nations as morally superior, it is Western nations which not only view equality and fairness as inherently good, but which are additionally biased by their sense of objectivity and open mindedness to favor liberal egalitarianism and to ascribe positive qualities to non-Western societies. In other words, I suspect that it is only your (and my) cultural lens which makes the existence of gender inequality seem so offensive.

This may strike you as an unusual claim; discount it if you will. But I have certain interesting reasons for believing it.

I'm still waiting for Nachtwolf and hitssquad - who appear to continue to rely upon the "National IQ" concept - to show us why Lynn and Vanhanen's work isn't seriously flawed (or point to other work which supports Nachtwolf's repeated, unsubstantiated assertions).

I have substantiated my claims to the satisfaction of those whose opinions concern me. Since bringing you satisfaction ranks low on my list of desires, and since I have already answered your questions to my own satisfaction, I will suffer your continued skepticism.

I am not aware of any correlation between g and selfishness.

SelfAdjoint, you might want to familiarize yourself with the table at http://www.childrenofmillennium.org/science.htm which shows Brand's research into psychometric g and its correlates.

"Altruism," as well as "Moral Reasoning and Development" are among them.

And of course, here are a few factors which correlate inversely with psychometric g:

"Crime," "delinquency," and "psychoticism" (sometimes referred to as "tough mindedness")

I have often wondered to what degree these correlations exist, as I doubt that they are especially large, but some of them have proven to be quite surprising.


--Mark

 

[hitssquad]

Originally posted by Nereid
1) Why the shifting Lynn and Vanhanen data? The links to Lynn's own website - which appear to report the main arguments and conclusions (and data) of the L+V book - were given to us by hitssquad.

Some of the national IQs for nations that are listed in both the online article and the book IQ and the Wealth of Nations do not agree with each other. This seems to be, largely, because less sources were used for the online article than for the book.

As can be seen here...
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=142294&highlight=target#post142294


...the number of IQ data sources used is clearly greater in the case of the book in comparison to the case of the online article. Japan is the most extreme example, with ten sources used for the book's assumption of IQ 105 for Japan vs. only one source used for the online article's possible assumption of IQ 110 for Japan. (The present author says "possible assumption" because, as was mentioned earlier in this discussion thread, part of the discussion in the article mentions an IQ of 105 for Japan -- the same IQ as the book uses -- while at least one of the data tables lists an IQ of 110 for Japan.)



Regardless, as noted here...
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=142861&highlight=target#post142861


...both the book and the online article came to the same overall conclusion that "in our modern era, at least -- national IQ predicts national income better than any other single measurable factor.".





-Chris

 

[Nereid]

hitssquad: *SNIP ten sources used for the book's assumption of IQ 105 for Japan

Would you please list them, and give us:
1) the mean (or median, please specify which) from each source
2) the standard deviations about the mean/median
3) tests used to show Gaussianity of the distributions
4) the sample sizes
5) age/gender/population group distribution of each sample
6) sample selection methods
7) tests and test protocols
8) year when the research was done
9) the method(s) used to account for secular effects
10) the size of each such correction

hitssquad: ...both the book and the online article came to the same overall conclusion that "in our modern era, at least -- national IQ predicts national income better than any other single measurable factor."

And neither hitssquad nor Natchwolf have addressed many clear unanswered questions, inconsistencies, errors etc in Lynn and Vanhanen's work; "National IQ" fails to predict national income to any significant extent (please read at least the whole of the last page in the link).

 

[Nereid]

Natchwolf: You do realize that g is an extraction from a battery of (sub)tests, and that it is impossible to say whether any given individual, or country, truly has higher g than another, don't you? Statistical methods allow us to understand g, but we don't have true measures of any given country or individual's g.

A country, in one sense, is the same as a population group - a number of people. If it is possible to determine that a population group (e.g. 'whites') has an IQ which is lower than another population group's (e.g. 'east asians') - which I seem to recall Nachtwolf asserting - then why is it 'impossible to say whether any given [...] country, truly has higher g than another'?

But this, and hitssquad's posts on the National IQ of Japan, are diversions from my questions:

What results did Jensen (et al) report regarding the g factor and gender (in the US)?

How does Jensen and his g factor address these* cold facts of life?

*Parliamentary participation by women in selected Western nations (source same as in the earlier post):
Hungary: 9.8%
Italy: 11.5%
France: 12.2%
USA: 14.3%
Czech Republic: 17%
Portugal: 19.1%
Canada: 20.6%
New Zealand: 28.3%
Belgium: 35.3%

 

[selfAdjoint]

I can't give you chapter and verse like hitsquad, but my understanding is that in the US male and female IQ (and I suppose g) distributions have equal means but the male standard deviation is higher. There is more variation in men, both on the high side and the low. This shouldn't make much difference except at the very limit of g loading.

 

[Nachtwolf]

that in the US male and female IQ (and I suppose g) distributions have equal means but the male standard deviation is higher

Well SelfAdjoint, nobody can give chapter and verse like Hitssquad can. I can give you a hand, though.

The Bell Curve, page 275, says that in the NLSY, women had a mean on the AFQT that was .06 standard deviation lower and a SD that was .11 narrower. For the Wechsler, the average boy tests 1.8 IQ points better and the boys have an SD that's .8 IQ points larger than girls.

But Richard Lynn reports the following:

My work on intelligence and brain size led me to consider the problem that women have smaller brains than men even when allowance is made for their smaller bodies. This implies that men should have higher average IQs than women, but it has been universally asserted that men and women have equal average IQs. In 1994 I proposed that the solution to this problem is that girls mature faster than boys and this compensates for their lower IQs, which only appear at the age of 16 onwards. Among adults men have higher average IQs than women by about 4 IQ points. This advantage consists largely of higher spatial abilities but is also present in non-verbal reasoning.

IQ gap or no, Jensen says in his 1998 book, The g Factor, that:

The sex difference in psychoometric g is either totally nonexistent or is of uncertain direction and of inconsequential magnitude.

The generally observed sex difference in variability of tests scores is attributable to factors other than g.

...(Richard Lynn) has found an overall sex difference of about four IQ points. For the reasons pointed out above, any small overall difference (even if significant) on an arbitrary collection of subtests has questionable generality across different batteries and, in principle, cannot answer the question concerning a sex difference in general ability defined as g. Moreover, the sex difference in brain size may be best explained in terms of the greater "packing density" of neurons in the female brain, a sexual dimorphism that allows the same number of neurons in the male and female brains despite their gross size.

Judging by their better overall IQ and SAT scores, and the raw fact of their larger brains, I think that men have slightly better mental abilities overall (particularly visuospatial ability), even if there is no sex difference in psychometric g. However - although this is merely my own personal theory which I have never heard repeated anywhere - some of the larger brain volume may also be explainable in terms of "padding;" that is, males are more physically active and prone to violent conflict, and having the neural packing density that women do might have mave their brains more vulnerable to damage by shock during evolutionary history. It's an interesting hypothesis with the drawback of being nearly impossible to properly test.


--Mark

 

[Nereid]

Nachtwolf wrote:*SNIP Long story short, the phrase "society "with a low average g" is probably best interpreted as a society with an average IQ found to be below 80. Equatorial Guinea is a shining example.

Would you please list the studies of IQ in Equatorial Guinea? Please ensure that the following elements of each study are mentioned:
1) the mean (or median, please specify which) from each source
2) the standard deviations about the mean/median
3) tests used to show Gaussianity of the distributions
4) the sample sizes
5) age/gender/population group distribution of each sample
6) sample selection methods
7) tests and test protocols
8) year when the research was done
9) the method(s) used to account for secular effects
10) the size of each such correction

 

[Nereid]

Originally posted by selfAdjoint
I can't give you chapter and verse like hitsquad, but my understanding is that in the US male and female IQ (and I suppose g) distributions have equal means but the male standard deviation is higher. There is more variation in men, both on the high side and the low. This shouldn't make much difference except at the very limit of g loading.

(and also Nachtwolf's response)

So this report* would seem only somewhat unusual re girls and boys, but quite anomalous (to put it mildly) re 'black' and 'white'?

*"Black girls overtake white boys

An ethnic breakdown of this year's GCSE results in England shows that "black African" girls are scoring higher grades than "white British" boys."

BBC News, 24 February, 2004

 

[selfAdjoint]

Nereid, "black" in England does not equal "black" in the US at all.

 

[Nereid]

Originally posted by Nachtwolf
Well SelfAdjoint, nobody can give chapter and verse like Hitssquad can. I can give you a hand, though.

The Bell Curve, page 275, says that in the NLSY, women had a mean on the AFQT that was .06 standard deviation lower and a SD that was .11 narrower. For the Wechsler, the average boy tests 1.8 IQ points better and the boys have an SD that's .8 IQ points larger than girls.

But Richard Lynn reports the following:

My work on intelligence and brain size led me to consider the problem that women have smaller brains than men even when allowance is made for their smaller bodies. This implies that men should have higher average IQs than women, but it has been universally asserted that men and women have equal average IQs. In 1994 I proposed that the solution to this problem is that girls mature faster than boys and this compensates for their lower IQs, which only appear at the age of 16 onwards. Among adults men have higher average IQs than women by about 4 IQ points. This advantage consists largely of higher spatial abilities but is also present in non-verbal reasoning.

IQ gap or no, Jensen says in his 1998 book, The g Factor, that:

The sex difference in psychoometric g is either totally nonexistent or is of uncertain direction and of inconsequential magnitude.

The generally observed sex difference in variability of tests scores is attributable to factors other than g.

...(Richard Lynn) has found an overall sex difference of about four IQ points. For the reasons pointed out above, any small overall difference (even if significant) on an arbitrary collection of subtests has questionable generality across different batteries and, in principle, cannot answer the question concerning a sex difference in general ability defined as g. Moreover, the sex difference in brain size may be best explained in terms of the greater "packing density" of neurons in the female brain, a sexual dimorphism that allows the same number of neurons in the male and female brains despite their gross size.

Judging by their better overall IQ and SAT scores, and the raw fact of their larger brains, I think that men have slightly better mental abilities overall (particularly visuospatial ability), even if there is no sex difference in psychometric g. However - although this is merely my own personal theory which I have never heard repeated anywhere - some of the larger brain volume may also be explainable in terms of "padding;" that is, males are more physically active and prone to violent conflict, and having the neural packing density that women do might have mave their brains more vulnerable to damage by shock during evolutionary history. It's an interesting hypothesis with the drawback of being nearly impossible to properly test.

Jensen (from a hitssquad link, I don't recall which one): "Of the approximately 100,000 human polymorphic genes, about 50,000 are functional in the brain and about 30,000 are unique to brain functions. The brain is by far the structurally and functionally most complex organ in the human body and the greater part of this complexity resides in the neural structures of the cerebral hemispheres, which, in humans, are much larger relative to total brain size than in any other species. A general principle of neural organization states that, within a given species, the size and complexity of a structure reflect the behavioral importance of that structure. The reason, again, is that structure and function have evolved conjointly as an integrated adaptive mechanism. But as there are only some 50,000 genes involved in the brain’s development and there are at least 200 billion neurons and trillions of synaptic connections in the brain, it is clear that any single gene must influence some huge number of neurons—not just any neurons selected at random, but complex systems of neurons organized to serve special functions related to behavioral capacities.

It is extremely improbable that the evolution of racial differences since the advent of Homo sapiens excluded allelic changes only in those 50,000 genes that are involved with the brain."

Now, what is the genetic difference between male and female humans?

How improbable is it that the huge genetic difference between males and females (relative to that between, say, an Australian aborigine and an Iranian (given that the max human genetic difference is otherwise ~<0.03%)) excludes "allelic changes only in those 50,000 genes that are involved with the brain"?

The Y chromosome has no genes whose expression impacts the brain?

 

[hitssquad]

Male and female segregation by course selection

Originally posted by Nereid
(and also Nachtwolf's response)

So this report* would seem only somewhat unusual re girls and boys, but quite anomalous (to put it mildly) re 'black' and 'white'?

*"Black girls overtake white boys

An ethnic breakdown of this year's GCSE results in England shows that "black African" girls are scoring higher grades than "white British" boys."

Females traditionally get better grades than males. Besides looking at differences of facility at interpersonal emotional manipulativeness, it's instructive to examine the sorts of disciplines they respectively dominate in terms of numbers of enrollees:


Disciplines dominated by British 16-18 y.o. males:

Business
Manufacturing
Construction
Engineering
Information Technology


Disciplines dominated by British 16-18 y.o. females:

Art and Design
Health & Social Care
Hospitality & Catering
Performing Arts
Travel & Tourism


Source:
Table 12: VCE A level examination results of 16 to 18 year old1 students in all schools and colleges by subject, gender and grade in 2002/03
http://www.dfes.gov.uk/rsgateway/DB/SFR/s000441/SFR01-2004V4.pdf




Table 11 shows similar results:


Disciplines dominated by British males in all schools and colleges:

Physics
Other Science
Mathematics
Computer Studies
ICT
Design and Technology
Business Studies
Economics
Music


Disciplines dominated by British females in all schools and colleges:

Biological Sciences
Psychology
Home Economics
Social Studies
Art and Design
English
Communication Studies
Media/Film/TV Studies
Foreign Languages
Religious Studies


Source: Table 11b: GCE Advanced Subsidiary examination results of all students in all schools and colleges by subject, gender and grade in 2002/03
http://www.dfes.gov.uk/rsgateway/DB/SFR/s000441/SFR01-2004V4.pdf



Regarding the female domination of psychology, Chris Brand chalked it up to a feminization of psychology.


Regarding higher grades for females, Jensen has said:

--
Achievement test scores are more highly correlated with IQ than are grades, probably because grades are more influenced by the teacher's idiosyncratic perceptions of the child's apparent effort, personality, docility, deportment, gender, and the like. For example, teachers tend, on average, to give higher course grades to girls than to boys, although the boys and the girls scarcely differ on objective achievement tests.
--
(The g Factor. p278.)
http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=24373874





-Chris

 

[hitssquad]

Heritability of sex differences in mental test scores

Originally posted by Nereid
The Y chromosome has no genes whose expression impacts the brain?

It would appear that genetic variance between the two human sexes in general may account for an overwhelming proportion of the phenotypic variance generally observed to express between the two human sexes, even in the respective cases of mental ability constructs and personality constructs.


--
Males, on average, excel on some factors; females on others. The largest and most consistent sex difference is found on a spatialvisualization factor that has its major factor loadings on tests requiring the mental rotation or manipulation of figures in an imaginary three-dimensional space. The difference is in favor of males and within each sex is related to testosterone level. But the best available evidence fails to show a sex difference in g.

Research on sex $$^1$$ differences in mental abilities has generated hundreds of articles in the psychological literature, with the number of studies and articles increasing at an accelerating rate in the last decade. As there now exist many general reviews of this literature, [$$^2$$] I will focus here on what has proved to be the most problematic question in this field: whether, on average, males and females differ in g.

It is noteworthy that this question, which is technically the most difficult to answer, has been the least investigated, the least written about, and, indeed, even the least often asked.

The vast majority of studies have looked at sex differences in more specialized abilities, such as can be subsumed under the labels of certain well-established primary (first-order) or group factors in the psychometric domain. In the threestratum hierarchy of ability factors, sex differences also appear at the second stratum.

The differences observed for specific tests and for first-order and second-order factors are now well established by countless studies. They constitute an empirical fact and the frontier of research now lies in discovering the causes of the clearly identified cognitive differences between the sexes. However, a brief examination of these first-order psychometric differences is necessary in order to understand the problem of determining whether the sexes differ in g.
--
(The g Factor. p532.)



--
NOTES

1. Much of the recent literature on sex differences is unfortunately indexed and catalogued under the heading of gender differences, which is clearly inappropriate terminology for the topic of sex differences, as will be readily perceived by anyone who looks up the meaning of gender in an unabridged dictionary. A sex difference is any statistically significant difference in a characteristic between groups of individuals who posses the XY (male) and those who possesses the XX (female) chromosome pairs.

2. Some key references on sex differences in mental abilities: (a) Brody, 1992, pp. 317-328; (b) Feingold, 1993, (c) Halpern, 1992; (d) Hedges & Nowell, 1995; (e) Hyde, 1981; (f) Jensen, 1980a, Chapter 13; (g) Kimura & Hampson, 1993; (h) Maccoby & Jacklin , 1974; (i) Mackintosh, 1996; (j) Stumpf, 1995.
--
(The g Factor. p542.)



Brody N. (1992). Intelligence (2nd ed.). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.

Feingold A. (1993). "Cognitive gender differences: A developmental perspective". Sex Roles, 2, 91-112.

Halpern D. F. (1992). Sex differences in cognitive abilities (2nd ed.). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Hedges L. V. & Nowell A. (1995). "Sex differences in mental test scores. variability, and number of high-scoring individuals". Science, 269, 41-45.

Hyde J. S. (1981). "How large are cognitive gender differences? A meta-analysis using $${\omega}^2$$ and d". American Psychologist, 36, 892-901.

Jensen A. R. (1980a). Bias in mental testing. New York: Free Press.

Kimura D. & Hampson E. (1993). "Neural and hormonal mechanisms mediating sex differences in cognition". In P. A. Vernon (Ed.) Biological approaches to the study of human intelligence (pp. 375-397). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.

Maccoby E. E. & Jacklin C. N. (1974). The psychology of sex differences. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Mackintosh N. J. (1996). "Sex differences and IQ". Journal of Biosocial Science, 28, 559572.

Stumpf H. ( 1995). "Gender differences in performance on tests of cognitive abilities: Experimental design issues and empirical results". Learning and Individual Differences, 7, 275-287.



References are copied from the References section of The g Factor.
http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=24373874





-Chris

 

[Nereid]

And the 'black' and 'white' results hitssquad? From the 1994 Wall Street Journal ad which jerryel posted, if it had been the US rather than England ... But then maybe 'black girls' in England have the same African ancestry as 'white boys' there do?

AFAIK, the UK has four (main) school systems - England and Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland - do black girls do well in Scotland and Northern Ireland too?

IIRC, there was a bit of alarm a few years ago in Australia, apparently boys were falling further and further behind girls at school, and girls were increasingly becoming the majority in undergraduate classes at universities (and not just in languages and biology). Am not sure what the current situation is.

 

[hitssquad]

Possible reasons why whites are outscoring blacks in Britain

Originally posted by Nereid
And the 'black' and 'white' results hitssquad?

--
- White - Up 1.8 percentage points to 51.3 per cent.
- Black Caribbean - Up 3.7 percentage points to 32.9 per cent
- Black African - Up 3.3 percentage points to 40.7 per cent.
--
http://www.govnet.co.uk/newsfeed.php?ID=242


Perhaps the whites have higher IQs.





-Chris

 

[hitssquad]

The national IQ of Equatorial Guinea

Originally posted by Nereid

Nachtwolf wrote:
the phrase "society "with a low average g" is probably best interpreted as a society with an average IQ found to be below 80. Equatorial Guinea is a shining example.

Would you please list the studies of IQ in Equatorial Guinea?

--
Equatorial Guinea
Around 1984, data for 48 10- to 14-year-olds were collected on the WISC-R. (Fenandez-Ballesteros, Juan-Espinosa, Colom, and Calero, (1997)). Their IQ was 63. Because of the 12-year interval between the two data collections, this needs to be reduced to 59.
--
IQ and the Wealth of Nations. p203.



--
A factor that needs to be taken into account in making these calculations is that the mean IQs in economically developed nations have been increasing since the 1930s. An adjustment needs to be made for this increase when calculating the mean IQs obtained in countries from tests that were adminstered some years before or some years later than the British test with which it is being compared... Mean IQs on the Wechsler tests increased by approximately 3 IQ points per decade from the mid-1930s to the 1990s (Flynn, 1984, 1998)... A problem in estimating some national IQs is that the samples have scored below the first percentile in relation to British norms. The first percentile is equivalent to an IQ of 65. Where national samples have scored below the first percentile, They have been assigned an IQ of 64.
--
Ibid. pp197-198.





--
Author
Fenandez-Ballesteros, Rocio; Juan-Espinosa, Manuel; Colom, Roberto; Calero, Maria Delores.

Title
Chapter
Contextual and personal sources of individual differences in intelligence: Empirical results.

Source
Kingma, Johannes (Ed); Tomic, Welko (Ed). (1997). Advances in cognition and educational practice: Reflections on the concept of intelligence, Vol. 4. (pp. 221-274). xiii, 290pp.

Abstract
(from the chapter) Is it possible to view individual differences of intelligence from an integrative perspective? In the past 15 yrs, several studies have been conducted to address this issue at the University Autonoma of Madrid. This chapter outlines the general framework used and the most relevant results obtained. Specific issues addressed include: an integrative framework of individual differences in intelligence; person/context adjustment; person resources and microcontextual demands; and contextual mediation and learning potential. It is concluded that: people appear to have organized general concepts of intelligent behavior into prototypes, but the general organization differs according to context; and the presence or absence of schools, urbanization, and so on--the indicators of acculturation--influence both the structure and contents of intelligence prototypes.
--
PsycINFO Database Record. Accession Number: Chapter: 1998-07317-009.



The only 4 hits that are returned by OVID for the PsycINFO database when queried for the keyphrase Equatorial Guinea are chimpanzee and lowland-gorilla studies.





-Chris