Height-IQ-Gender interplay

[Heraclitus]

Am J Psychol. 2009 Winter;122(4):527-36.

The role of height in the sex difference in intelligence.

Kanazawa S, Reyniers DJ.

Recent studies conclude that men on average have higher intelligence than women by 3-5 IQ points. However, the ultimate evolutionary question of why men should have evolved to have higher intelligence than women remains. We suggest that men may have slightly higher intelligence than women through 4 mechanisms: (1) assortative mating of intelligent men and beautiful women, (2) assortative mating of tall men and beautiful women, (3) an extrinsic correlation between height and intelligence produced by Mechanisms 1 and 2, and (4) a higher-than-expected offspring sex ratio (more sons) among tall (and hence intelligent) parents. Consistent with our suggestion, we show that men may have higher IQs than women because they are taller, and once we control for height women have slightly higher IQs than men.The correlation between height and IQ and the female advantage in intelligence persist even after we control for health as a measure of genetic quality, as well as physical attractiveness, age, race, education, and earnings. Height is also strongly associated with intelligence within each sex.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2...?dopt=Abstract

Fascinating

[Caligastia]

What about those high-IQ east asians? They aren't exactly bumping their heads on the ceilings.

[Jon Miller]

It seems to me this is just a way to say that men are taller than women...

JM

[Heraclitus]

What about those high-IQ east asians? They aren't exactly bumping their heads on the ceilings.

I suppose higher East Asians do better.
I mean seriusly isn't this like saying that since IQ correlates with health Westerners should have on average higher IQ's than Chinese since they live longer?

[Caligastia]

I suppose higher East Asians do better.
I mean seriusly isn't this like saying that since IQ correlates with health Westerners should have on average higher IQ's than Chinese since they live longer?

Sure...my comment wasn't serious.

[Heraclitus]

It seems to me this is just a way to say that men are taller than women...

JM

No, no the fascinating bit is that IQ tests, if I recall properly, where set up with the definition that both sexes average IQ's are identical. I don't know where the 3 to 5 point gap comes from. Yeah the article says height, but like they point out men are taller than women on average. Isn't this like designing a test that correlates with testosterone and for decades keeps saying that most testing shows women do equally well on average but then suddenly new recent r. establishes this not to be the case.

Sure...my comment wasn't serious.

This is apolyton everything is deadly serious and completley silly at the same time.

[Riesstiu IV]

Anyone man who is less than 6'0" tall should be killed off.

[Krill]

I'm over 6 foot tall when I lay down, is that enough?

[Riesstiu IV]

Yes. Using midgets as platform shoes would also be acceptable.

[kittenOFchaos]

IQ tests aren't a particularly good measure of anything other than the ability to do such tests. The more practice of the tests or questions asking similar questions, the better you're going to do. They aren't a test of raw ability.

[Kuciwalker]

IQ tests aren't a particularly good measure of anything other than the ability to do such tests. The more practice of the tests or questions asking similar questions, the better you're going to do. They aren't a test of raw ability.

This is false.

[MikeH]

It is fair to say that if you practice and train for them you can learn the styles of questions and answers and improve your performance. And there is evidence of cultural bias. Almost all of them have some language component and unfairly score dyslexics.

I would go as far as to say that

IQ tests aren't a particularly good measure of anything other than the ability to do such tests.

Is actually a reasonable statement, although it fails to give enough weight to the fact that to do an IQ test you have to be able to do lots of other things. So although it's "only" testing how good you are at IQ tests, that tells you quite a lot. And being able to learn to recognise patterns in questions to improve your performance is a skill in itself.

[MikeH]

Thought this was quite a nice article on the subject.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427321.000-clever-fools-why-a-high-iq-doesnt-mean-youre-smart.html

This is nice quote (especially in context of this thread)

"A high IQ is like height in a basketball player," says David Perkins, who studies thinking and reasoning skills at Harvard Graduate School of Education in Cambridge, Massachusetts. "It is very important, all other things being equal. But all other things aren't equal. There's a lot more to being a good basketball player than being tall, and there's a lot more to being a good thinker than having a high IQ."

[Kuciwalker]

You really want to dissect it?

IQ tests aren't a particularly good measure of anything other than the ability to do such tests.

is obviously a subjective judgment (what counts as "particularly good"?), but given that IQ is one of the best available predictors of things like income, I'd say it's false.

The more practice of the tests or questions asking similar questions, the better you're going to do.

Is true, but not particularly relevant.

They aren't a test of raw ability.

This last bit is completely false - IQ scores are among the best predictors of all kinds of intellectual ability.

There's a world of difference between the claim "IQ scores are not a perfect predictor of intelligence" (true, but uninformative; nothing is) and "IQ scores are not a useful predictor of intelligence" (false, and what kittenOfChaos is claiming).

[DaShi]

The only accurate IQ test is whether you find CivIV too complicated and prefer to play the dumbed down CivRev instead.