Re IQ Increase

• Increase in IQ by Lui, 11/18/97
  
  

I've been reading evolutionary psychology for 8-10 years and am delighted to have just discovered this Web site. I'm a psychologist who's finding that evolutionary psychology provides a needed sense of grounding for my discipline.

Regarding the question about IQ, the initial researcher was J. R. Flynn who reported an average increase across samples of over 12 points over a 50 year period. A reference is: Psychological Abstracts, Vol 74:17534. I also recall a journal article (possibly the American Psychologist) in which Flynn discussed a variety of explanations for the phenomena that had been proposed, and found each to be insufficient. So the increase seems to be real and, as far as I know, nobody yet has a good explanation for it.

• Welcome by James Brody, 2/4/98