It’s official – we are getting dumber!

Posted on: June 18th, 2018 in Mindset by Pat Mesiti | No Comments

A new Norwegian study has found that people’s IQs today are measurably lower than the scores of their parents at the same age. Ole Rogeberg and Bernt Bratsberg from the Ragnar Frisch Centre for Economic Research in Oslo, Norway, looked at the scores from an IQ test given to more than 730,000 Norwegian men reporting for national service between 1970 and 2009.

The results, have just been published in The Journal of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. The results – people born in 1991 scored about five points lower than those born in 1975. Psychological assessments had suggested that the intelligence levels of young people had been declining for the past few decades, but this study offers undeniable proof.

Until 1975 people’s IQs had been steadily rising for most of the twentieth century. Average IQs had been rising by roughly three percentage points every decade since World War II. Scientists call this steady rise the Flynn effect. It is named after James R Flynn, who documented the phenomena.

Why had IQs been rising?

Psychologists have tried to explain why IQs kept rising, but there is no one accepted reason. Scientists believe IQs rose because nutrition was improving. People were getting all the vitamins and minerals and protein they needed to grow physically and mentally. There was also a trend toward smaller families in the west, meaning children received more attention from their parents. The education system had also been improving, with more qualified teachers, smaller classes and increased resources. The health system was also improving and immunisation was rolled out. Fewer children suffered debilitating diseases and high temperatures. Maybe that impacted on brain development.

Others believe that people simply became more practised at taking IQ tests, meaning we weren’t actually getting smarter just better at tests. Yet another strange theory was heterosis – this basically has to do with people becoming more genetically diverse. In small communities it’s more likely that you will end up married to a distant cousin, but people now move around the world, meaning it’s more likely you will find a partner who is genetically diverse. Some genetic experts believe the more diverse your gene pool, the more likely it is you will have different talents and gifts. Another interesting theory is that the invention of artificial light has made people smarter. With light we can stay up late learning, studying and extending our minds.

When did the IQ decline start?

Rogeberg and Bratsberg are not the first to have studied and document a decline in IQ scores. In 2005 Thomas Teasdale and David Owen of New York University examined the results of IQ tests given to Danish army conscripts. Generations between 1959 and 1979 gained three points per decade. Between 1979 and 1989 the increase dropped back two IQ points a decade. Between 1989 and 1998 the gain was only about 1.3 points a decade and then between 1998 and 2004 IQ declined by 1.3 points. And now this latest Norwegian study has found that IQs of subsequent generations are still falling.

The million dollar question of course is why are people getting dumber (or at least worse at IQ tests)?

Why are IQ scores of younger generations now falling?

Because the scientific community never established why IQs were rising, it is almost impossible to work out why scores are now falling. Is it because the human diet is now less healthy than it was 40 years ago? Are we eating too much fat and too many artificial colourings? Is divorce having an impact on children’s IQs?

Is the education system now failing in developed countries? But Denmark and Norway (where the IQs were measured) have the best education systems in the world, surely education can’t be the cause of this IQ decline?

Is health linked to IQ? In recent years we have seen a rise in western lifestyle diseases like obesity, diabetics and depression. Could these now be having an impact on people’s intelligence? Some people say migration from third-world countries may have caused the IQ fall. It is not the new migrants are less intelligent, but they have to learn a new language and adapt to a new culture. These stresses may impact their performance in IQ tests.

What about the other variables? Perhaps people are no longer becoming more practised at IQ tests. Who knows! Some have even controversially said the IQ fall is because educated people are deciding to have fewer children so that subsequent generations are largely made up of less intelligent people.

Of course the conversation has also turned on how technology is impacting intelligence.

Are computers making people dumber?

The results of one international study, released last year, suggested that new technologies (such as iPhones and laptops) are actually slowing down children’s development. Professor Michael Shayer, who studies how children think, said that since 1995 a “large social force has been interfering with children’s development of thinking, getting larger each year”. This “social force” includes the development of technology, such as game consoles and smart-phones, “which have altered the way that children communicate with each other”, he said. Professor Shayer has studied the results of teenagers’ math and science exams in England. “Take 14-year-olds in Britain. What 25 percent could do back in 1994, now only five percent can do,” Prof Shayer said.

However other experts say technology is making people brighter in different ways, and standardised IQ tests don’t capture these changes in the nature of intelligence.

The nations with the highest IQ are all situated in Asia but countries with the highest overall IQ do not have all the geniuses. Russia, America and Europe have produced some of the smartest people in history, including Einstein and Stephen Hawkins. So while the statistics say people’s IQs are falling, that doesn’t mean that you as an individual can’t buck the trend and keep expanding your brain by reading, learning and challenging yourself every day!

In case you are wondering, here are the IQs of the world’s top smartest 25 countries:

  1. Singapore – IQ 108
  2. South Korea – 106.
  3. Japan – 105.
  4. Italy – 102.
  5. Iceland – 101.
  6. Mongolia – 101.
  7. Switzerland – 101.
  8. Austria – 100
  9. China – 100
  10. Luxembourg – 100

Australia just scrapes in at number 23.

ABOUT PAT MESITI

Pat Mesiti is a best-selling author, coach and educator in the area of personal development. Having built some of Australia’s largest people-driven organisations, Pat understands the power of harnessing human potential. He has shared the stage with some of the world’s great business minds and has sold over millions of copies of his books and materials.

 

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