Is race and intelligence a justifiable area of research in psychology?

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IS RACE AND INTELLIGENCE A JUSTIFIABLE AREA OF RESEARCH IN PSYCHOLOGY?

IS RACE AND INTELLIGENCE

A JUSTIFIABLE AREA

OF RESEARCH IN PSYCHOLOGY?

Ann-Marie Roy

Contact: [email protected]

Is race and intelligence a justifiable area of research in psychology?  This has been a fiercely debated topic in psychology.  On one side are those who believe that IQ is genetically determined and unchangeable. Those individuals that support this belief also consider some races of humankind (usually ‘ blacks’ ) to be genetically inferior to others. They point to the national differences in intelligence score tests as part of the support for this belief.  Conversely some believe intelligence is not hereditary or preset.  In addition many psychologists believe race, as a category variable, is meaningless as it is defined by socio-economics (Zuckerman, 1990).  Several believe intelligence tests are culturally biased in favour of whites (Flynn, 1987) and therefore should not be used to define or measure race or ethnic group intelligence.

This essay will attempt to provide the reader with an outline of the issues important in the race/IQ debate.  It is acknowledged that there are key contributors in this area, including Galton (1884), Goddard (1912), Jensen (1969), Eysenck (1973), and Gould (1978) to name a few. The author will not necessarily use them to illustrate key points although it must be noted that their contributions underpin race intelligence theories and research past and present.  What this essay will do is examine the claim of heritability of intelligence, the fallacy of using race classifications and the race/intelligence stance in psychology today. The reader will be encouraged to accept that race and intelligence is an unjustifiable research topic in psychology.

Psychology is the culmination of a mixture of philosophers’ and scientists’ efforts to understand the minds and behaviours of various organisms (Reber and Reber, 2001). It is regarded as a scientific discipline that should be free from subjective influences (Gross, 1996). In reality true objectivity appears to be scarce.  Political and social factors influence the definition of races and measurement of group differences (Kamin, 1974). The interpretation of intelligence test scores, Kamin believes, has always been connected with ideological and political strategies.

For the purpose of this essay intelligence will be measured as defined by Spearman’s ‘g’ or general intelligence (Spearman, 1927) described by Spearman as a type of mental energy. This is what most tests claim to measure. Tests include subcategories of verbal and non - verbal reasoning, arithmetic, spatial and memory abilities.  There is however no complete concurrence on the nature of ‘g’.  Alternately, Thomson (1939) describes it as a statistical constancy, while Reed & Jensen (1992) believe it is a measure of neural processing speed. It must be noted that critics believe ‘g’ is a manufactured statistic standing for the concept of intelligence (Kohn, 1995) although they accept intelligence tests measuring ‘g’ are stable and do predict achievements. Moreover, using test scores as a foundation to base an intelligence theory, they believe, deters from other aspects of intellectual aptitudes, for example wisdom (Neisser et al, 1996).

Investigating race differences in intelligence started in America with individuals who believed those who are the bottom of the social structure are there because of fixed genetic inadequacies (Galton 1884, Goddard, 1912). Jensen (1980) and Hernstein and Murray, (1994) are a few of the modern day supporters of this view.  It is interesting to note that Binet (1911), the originator of intelligence testing, did not believe that IQ tests were suitable for ranking individuals according to their academic value (See Gould, 1996). Nevertheless there have been studies that appear to support a substantial genetic link.  

One example supporting a genetic link is from the authors of the Bell Curve, Hernstein and Murray (1994). They proposed that there is support for linking genetics and social status with intelligence.  They extracted data from the National Longitudinal Study of Youth conducted by the National Opinion Research Centre. This provided information on demographics, education, occupations and IQ scores on youths throughout America.  Hernstein and Murray found that higher IQ scores positively correlated with a better grade of education and higher pay.  However did they approach the investigation with a scientifically objective stance? Both claim to be agnostic by not claiming either a genetic or environmental origin for these results.  Nonetheless, Daniels, Devlin and Roeder (1997) believe Hernstein and Murray favoured a hereditary explanation.  To support this belief Daniels et al point to their highly critical evaluations of environmentally supporting studies while ignoring deficiencies in genetic studies.  It is probable therefore that their study was prejudiced from the outset and results may be tainted with, hopefully, unconscious experimenter bias.

Lynn and Vanhanen (2002) believe intelligence and earnings should be regarded as having a causal relationship. However correlations are associations not cause and effect.  To claim that those who do not have high earnings are less intelligent than those who do is to simplify a complex set of interactions.  They are neglecting to take into account other variables such as: lack of intrinsic motivation; job satisfaction might be prized over high wages or the individual may lack the funds necessary to partake in higher education.

Scarr, Pakstis, Katz and Barkers’ (1977) investigated whether a lower amount of African and a higher amount of Caucasian ancestry would return IQ scores demonstrating greater intelligence than those from greater African ancestry.  Previous Caucasians test scores had proved significantly higher than African Americans (Kamin, 1974).  The results provided meagre support for the genetic hypothesis.  A reasonable assumption is that even though blacks IQ scores were one standard deviation below the mean in comparison to whites (Lynn and Vanhanen, 2002), intelligence levels do not appear to be greatly inherited. Why then do some psychologists believe genetics plays a stronger role in intelligence?

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As physical differences such as skin colour, teeth and eye shape are clearly genetic in origin researchers such as Lynn and Vanhanen (2002) believe the same can be said of intelligence.   They provide, as part of the support for this belief, adoption studies with black children adopted by white, middle class couples. The fact that the adoptive parents are middle class is supposed to infer that the child has the very best environment available to encourage IQ gains.  This study did reveal black children’s scores were well below their white counterparts. It would seem this example suggests not only ...

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