Full Citation
Title: The cognitive impact of the education revolution: A possible cause of the Flynn Effect on population IQ
Citation Type: Journal Article
Publication Year: 2015
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Abstract: The phenomenon of rising IQ scores in high-income nations over the 20th century, known as the Flynn Effect, indicates historical increase in mental abilities related to planning, organization, working memory, integration of experience, spatial reasoning, unique problem-solving, and skills for goal-directed behaviors. Given prior research on the impact of formal education on IQ, a three-tiered hypothesis positing that schooling, and its expansion and intensification over the education revolution, is one likely cause of the Flynn Effect is tested in three studies. First, a neuroimaging experiment with children finds that neuromaturation is shaped by common activities in school, such as numeracy, and share a common neural substrate with fluid IQ abilities. Second, a field study with adults from insolated agrarian communities finds that variable exposure to schooling is associated with related variation in the mental abilities. Third, a historicalinstitutional analysis of the cognitive requirements of American mathematics curriculum finds a growing cognitive demand for birth cohorts from later in the 20th century. These findings suggest a consilience of evidence about the impact of mass education on the Flynn Effect and are discussed in light of the g-factor paradigm, cognition, and the Bell Curve debate.
Url: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289615000082
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Authors: Baker, David P.; Eslinger, Paul J.; Benavides, Martin; Peters, Ellen; Dieckmann, Nathan F.; Leon, Juan
Periodical (Full): Intelligence
Issue:
Volume: 49
Pages: 144-158
Data Collections: IPUMS USA
Topics: Education
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