This research examines how the human genome and SES jointly and interactively shape verbal ability among youth in the U.S. The youth are aged 12-18 when the study starts. The research draws on findings from the latest GWAS as well as a rich set of longitudinal SES measures at individual, family and neighborhood levels from Add Health (N = 7194).…

The genetic relationship between intelligence and components of cognition remains controversial. Conflicting results may be a function of the limited number of methods used in experimental evaluation. The current study is the first to use CANTAB (The Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery). This is a battery of validated computerised…

Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence (WPPSI) and McCarthy Scales subtests were ranked according to relative reliance on left-cerebral-hemisphere function. Results suggest that black-white IQ discrepancies may be partially explained by differences in hemisphericity. (Author/RD)

"The Bell Curve" by Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles A. Murray has ignited a fierce academic debate. They assert that IQ as measured by tests has replaced family wealth and status in determining jobs, income, class, and place in American life; that whites average 15 IQ points higher than blacks; and that high-IQ ruling elites, with…

Once again intelligence tests are being used as the major basis to establish the genetically determined limitations of minority and economically disadvantaged groups. By reviewing the arguments regarding the I.Q. test and the hereditability of intelligence, the author compares these with two sets of phenomena: the I.Q. test scores and the…

Theories explaining differences in IQ performances between races in terms of (a) genetics and (b) the role of the environment are both criticized. It is argued that the Cultural Distance Approach, which stresses the role of a subculture's distance from the major culture on which IQ questions are based, has the greatest explanatory power. (RDN)

Examines Black social scientists' intellectual efforts, starting in the 1920s, to challenge research conclusions about the innate mental inferiority of Blacks, disclaim the validity of intelligence tests used, and demonstrate the influence of environment on test performance. Finds irony in Black intellectuals' use of the mental tests they…

Intelligence tests were administered twice to 426 members of 93 transracial adoptive families, once when the adopted children's ages averaged 7 years and again when they averaged 17 years. Correlations suggest that influences on intellectual development in this sample of black and interracial adoptees reared in white families are similar to those…

The basic tenet of this paper is that the difference between black and white children on IQ measures is not due to genetics but describes the cultural distance between the two groups. The cultural distance approach is described as an amalgam of the environmental and social psychology points of view. It holds that any subculture operating according…

The several statistical methods described for detecting test bias in terms of various internal features of a person's test performances and the test's construct validity can be applied to any groups in the population. But the evidence regarding groups other than U.S. blacks and whites is either lacking or is still too sketchy to permit any strong…