Research Byte: Reevaluating the #Flynneffect, and the reversal: Temporal trends and measurement invariance in Norwegian armed forces #intelligence scores

 

Reevaluating the Flynn effect, and the reversal: Temporal trends and measurement invariance in Norwegian armed forces intelligence scores

Open access PDF available from journal Intelligence…click here.

Abstract

Since 1954, the Norwegian Armed Forces have annually administered an unchanged general mental ability test to male cohorts, comprising figure matrices, word similarities, and mathematical reasoning tests. These stable and representative data have supported various claims about shifts in general mental ability (GMA) levels, notably the Flynn effect and its reversal, influencing extensive research linking these scores with health and other outcomes. This study examines whether observed temporal trends in scores reflect changes in latent intelligence or are confounded by evolving test characteristics and specific test-taking abilities in numerical reasoning, word comprehension, and figure matrices reasoning. Our findings, using multiple-group factor analysis and multiple indicator multiple cause (MIMIC) models, indicate that while there was a general upward trend in observed scores until 1993, this was predominantly driven by enhancements in the fluid intelligence task, specifically figure matrices reasoning. Notably, these gains do not uniformly translate to a rise in underlying GMA, suggesting the presence of domain-specific improvements and test characteristic changes over time. Conversely, the observed decline is primarily due to decreases in word comprehension and numerical reasoning tests, also reflecting specific abilities not attributable to changes in the latent GMA factor. Our findings further challenge the validity of claims that changes in the general factor drive the Flynn effect and its reversal. Furthermore, they caution against using these scores for longitudinal studies without accounting for changes in test characteristics.

Flynn Effect Reference Project update 07-31-18

The Flynn Effect Reference Project document has just been updated.  It now includes 302 references.  Access can be found at this prior post (click here)

The Flynn Effect Reference Project updated

The Flynn Effect Reference Project document, maintained at the Intellectual Competence and the Death Penalty blog, was just updated today.  This information can be found here.

Research Byte: What Causes the Anti-Flynn Effect? A Data Synthesis and Analysis of Predictors

Woodley of Menie, M. A., Peñaherrera-Aguirre, M., Fernandes, H. B. F., & Figueredo, A.-J. (2017). What Causes the Anti-Flynn Effect? A Data Synthesis and Analysis of Predictors. Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences. Advance online publication.

Article link.


Abstract

Anti-Flynn effects (i.e., secular declines in IQ) have been noted in a few countries. Much speculation exists about the causes of these trends; however, little progress has been made toward comprehensively testing these. A synthetic literature search yielded a total of 66 observations of secular IQ decline from 13 countries, with a combined sample size of 302,234 and study midyears spanning 87 years, from 1920.5 to 2007.5. Multilevel modeling (MLM) was used to examine the effect of study midyear, and (after controlling for this and other factors) hierarchical general linear modeling (GLM) was used to examine the following sequence of predictors: domain “g-ness” (a rank-order measure of g saturation) Index of Biological State (IBS; a measure of relaxed/reversed selection operating on g), per capita immigration, and the 2-way interactions IBS × g-ness and Immigration × g-ness. The MLM revealed that the anti-Flynn effect has strengthened in more recent years. Net of this, the GLM found that g-ness was a positive predictor; that is, less aggregately g-loaded measures exhibited bigger IQ declines; IBS was not a significant predictor; however immigration predicted the decline, indicating that high levels of immigration promote the anti-Flynn effect. Among the interactions there was a negative effect of the Immigration × g-ness interaction, indicating that immigration promotes IQ decline the most when the measure is higher in g-ness. The model accounted for 37.1% of the variance among the observations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved)


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