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Comments on Individual and Group Differences in I.Q. SANDRA SCARR-SALAPATEK

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Comments on Individual and Group Differences in I.Q. SANDRA SCARR-SALAPATEK 14 THE SJiTVRDJiY EVENING POST Summer 1972 Most recently in a very important social docu- Comments on Individual however, which are not sensitive to absolute ment on equality of educational opportunity. and Group Differences in I.Q. changes in value, only to rank orders. This is an im- Coleman (1966) again showed that the quality of SANDRA SCARR-SALAPATEK portant point to be discussed later. education (here in secondary school) seemed to Thanks to Jensen's provocative article, many After reviewing the evidence for average LQ. have very little effect on the academic achieve- academic psychologists who thought I.Q. tests be- differences by social class and race, Herrnstein ment test scores of children. In other words the longed in the closet with the Rorschach inkblots poses the nature-nurture problem of "which is pri- children who went to poor schools with poorly have now explored the psychometric literature mary?" in determining phenotypic differences in trained teachers, dilapidated buildings, and and found it to be a trove of scientific treasure. I.Q. For racial groups, he explains, the origins of crowded classrooms did no worse on the tests than One of these is Richard Herrnstein, who from a mean I.Q. differences are indeterminate at the children who went to excellent, well-equipped Skinnerian background [B.F. Skinner. Professor present time because we have no information from schools with low teacher-pupil tatios, once one of Psychology, Harvard University] has become an heritabiiity studies in the black population or from had corrected for the initial differences in intelli- admirer of intelligence tests-a considerable leap other, unspecified, lines of research which could gence and social background ofthe pupils attend- from shaping the behavior of pigeons and rats. favor primarily genetic or primarily environmental ing the two types of schools. In other words what Herrnstein's popular account in the Atlantic of hypotheses. He is thoroughly convinced, however, the test results seem to have shown over and over I.Q. testing and its values is generally responsible, that individual differences and social-class differ- again is that quality of education makes no differ- if overly enthusiastic in parts. ences in I.Q. are highly heritable at the present ence in improving competence. Herrnstein unabashedly espouses I.Q. testing as time and are destined, by environmental improve- What does make a difference are the attributes "psychology's most telling accomplishment to ments, to become even more so. of the people getting the education-their intelli- date," despite the current controversy over the For Herrnstein, society is, and will be even gence, their social characteristics and so forth. fairness of testing poor and minority-group chil- more strongly, a meritocracy based largely on Why then should citizens spend so much money dren with I.Q. items devised by middle-class inherited differences in I.Q, trying to improve education? Why should educa- whites. His historical review of I.Q. test develop- Five "corollaries" for the future predict that tional psychologists be trying to find hetter ways ment, including tests of general intelligence and the heritabiiity of I.Q. will rise; that social mobil- of educating pupils? Why is money wasted on con- multiple abilities, is interesting and accurate. His ity will become more strongly related to inherited ferences to try to find ways of improving educa- tion-if in fact the data clearly show that educa- tional variations have very iittie effect on academic achievement, which in turn is considered the main measure of competence for life's tasks? One reason is that we keep suspecting that the educators may be right in continuing to think that the quality ofeducationdoesmakeadirference.lt Sandra Scarr-Salapatek is an Associate Pro- fessor in the Institute of Child Development, may be the psychological testers who are wrong: University of Minnesota. Her research on their tests may simply not be adequate measures of genetic and environmental factors in per- the competence which better education produces. sonality and intellectual development has In fact there may even be a built-in theoretical been published in many scientific journals. reason why most existing tests are inadequate mea- She is a Harvard Ph. D. in child development and behavioral genetics. Dr. Scarr-Salapatek sures of variations in the quality of education. has an unusual name because she is married Most testers have worked hard to create tests to Dr. Philip Salapatek, also at the Institute which are reliable-that is, which will give the same of Child Development. Thanks to an excellent score when the same individual is tested again. An housekeeper, the household, which includes instrument which is designed to be very reliable three children and numerous pets, runs pretty smoothly. The children all ahow in- may not be very sensitive to changes that have dividual differences. actually taken place in the person through educa- tion. But this theoretical problem has never shaken the self-confidence of the testing movement. It has continued to roll on like a juggernaut overwhelm- ing all such doubts. When many psychologists began to examine really seriously for the first time the assumptions account of the validity and usefulness of the tests I.Q. differences; that most bright people will be on which the intelligence testing movement had centers on the fairly accurate prediction that can gathered in the top of the social structure, with the been built, it took them no time at all to discover be made from I.Q. scores about academic and oc- LQ. dregs at the bottom; that many at the bottom that many intelligence tests had a built-in middle- cupational achievement and income level. He clari- will not have the intelligence needed for new jobs; class bias. The vocabulary used in the tests was so- fies the pattern of relationship between I.Q. and and that the meritocracy will be built not just on called "standard English," not the dialect spoken these criterion variables: High I.Q. is a necessary inherited intelligence but on all inherited traitsaf- in many ghetto communities. So the children from but not sufficient condition forhigh achievement, fecting success, which will presumably become these communities often did not even understand whiie low I.Q. virtually assures failure at high aca- correlated characters. Thus, from the successful the instructions for the tests, let alone the words demic and occupational levels. One must assume realization of our most precious egalitarian politi- they were supposed to identify which were not that Herrnstein's enthusiasm for intelligence tests cal and social goals, there will arise a much more part of the vocabulary in coninion use in their rests on population statistics, not on predictions rigidly stratified society, a "virtual caste system" community. Correct answers to questions also for a particular child, because many chiidren based on inborn ability. often assume a standard middle-class way of life. studied longitudinally have been shown to change To ameliorate this effect, society may have to For example a child is asked on an intelligence test, I.Q. scores by twenty points or more from child- move toward the socialist dictum, "From each ac- "What would you do if you were sent to the store hood to adulthood. It is likely that extremes of cording to his abilities, to each according to his by your mother to buy something and you found giftedness and retardation can be sorted out rela- needs," but Herrnstein sees complete equality of the store didn't have it?" The "intelligent" or cor- tively early by I.Q. tests, but what about the 95 earnings and prestige as impossible because high- rect answer is supposed to be that you would go to percent of the population in between? Their I.Q. grade intelligence is scarce and must be recruited another store to see if they had it. However this is scores may vary from dull to bright normal for into those critical jobs that require it, by the certainly not an intelligent answer for a ghetto many years. Important variations in i,Q. can occur promise of high earnings and high prestige. Al- child who is under strict orders from his mother to up to late adolescence. On a population basis though garbage collecting is critical to the health come straight home from the store because she is Herrnstein is correct; the best early predictors of of the society, almost anyone can do it; to waste afraid he might be robbed or beaten if he strayed later achievement are ability measures taken from high-I.Q. persons on such jobs is to misallocate age five on. Predictions are based on correlations, Continued on page 152 scarce resources at society's peril. 16 THE SJtTVRDMY EVENING POST Summer 1972 Herrnstein points to an ironic contrast between acteristic, various recombinations of parental cept in our society, where equal opportunity and the effects of caste and class systems. Castes, genotypes will always produce more variable geno- equality under the law are highly valued. There is which established artificial hereditary limits on types in the offspring than in the parents of all no contradiction, however, between the scientific social mobility, guarantee the inequality of oppor- social-class groups, especially the extremes. Even if fact of individual and group differences and the tunity that preserves I.Q. heterogeneity at all levels both parents, instead of primarily the male, moral principle of equal ri^ts. Our civil liberties of the system. Many bright people are arbitrarily achieved social-class status based on their l.Q.'s, do not depend upon our being identical twins, a kept down and many unintelligent people are arti- recombinations of their genes would always pro- state that is both impossible and undesirable.
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