Psychology Archipelago

Raising IQ, The Million Dollar Question

To answer the question of raising IQ, we first have to answer what IQ is. Coined by William Stern in 1912, the term has recently come under scrutiny for its reliability. IQ, standing for Intelligence Quotient is a measure of one's general intelligence, otherwise known as your g factor. One's general intelligence can be split into two categories: fluid and crystalized intelligence. Fluid intelligence measures one's ability to reason and problem-solve, while crystalized intelligence involves recalling past experiences and knowledge. Finding this g factor can theoretically be found through standardized testing. Simple enough, right? 

Perhaps too simple though. Recently, there have been studies that question the reliability of IQ. One study finds that IQ can be increased significantly (around 10 points) by introducing a reward for performing well. [i] Furthermore, it is clear that this model does not include factors such as creativity and one's ability to think "outside the box." However, IQ is still widely regarded as one of psychology's most reliable metrics, having a correlation coefficient of over .70 between IQ between ages 8-18 and age 40, where a correlation coefficient of over .50 is generally considered large in psychology. [ii] Albeit a smaller correlation of around .3, there is a well documented correlation between childhood IQ and middle-age income. [iii] This correlation can still lead to substantial differences in income. Men inducted into the Korean War who scored in the 80th percentile had, on average, incomes around 34 percent above the national average when returning to civilian life. On other other hand, those who scored in the 20th percentile had incomes that were on average around 34 percent below the national average. There is even correlation between IQ and happiness. Thus, understanding IQ is of imperative important for the betterment of millions of lives [iv]. 

How then, do we then raise IQ? Apps such as Luminosity were touted as an innovative way to increase IQ. However, the data is not so convincing. It seems that although people may become better at specific brain games, they do not generalize [v]. IQ, which measures this general intelligence is thus not increased. Other attempts such as working memory based training (memory that can be used for executing cognitive tasks) has led to similarly disappointing results. On the other hand, question of how to lower IQ has much clearer answers. Malnourishment, lead poisoning, lack of exercise and other early childhood factors can massively impair cognitive development. [vii] One study estimated that just the lead-linked reduction in cognitive ability resulted in a total loss of 824,097,690 IQ points! The improvement in health is a large factor which has lead to the Flynn effect, a phenomenon where, on average, IQ has been going up around 3 points every decade for the past century. [viii]

Why is this so pressing? In this new generation of technological advancement, more and more jobs require specialization and training. Intelligence is becoming a much larger factor than a hundred thousand years ago where the main factor for survival was how fast and accurately you can throw a spear. In fact, The United States Military requires an AFQT score (which correspond to percentiles and correlates strongly to IQ) of over 31 to be enlisted. By law, they are not allowed to make exceptions for scores under 10. That means that one in ten people are not qualified to join the military based solely on intelligence. This is a huge issue especially as repetitive jobs are inevitably replaced with AI systems. For example, 6.7 million manufacturing jobs have been lost from 1979 to 2019 due to automation. [ix] All in all, this leads to 10 percent of the population, around 30 million people in the US, that are going to have a nearly impossible challenge in getting a job. This is not to mention that an 10th percentile IQ score today was average only 70 years ago. 

Really, raising IQ is a trillion dollar question, and it is a question to which we still are looking for answers.