Are Humans Getting Smarter? | The Flynn Effect
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- čas přidán 26. 05. 2024
- Trends show that people are scoring higher and higher on IQ tests as time passes - this is known as the Flynn Effect. What is this attributed to? Are we really getting smarter?
IQ tests are not precisely the best way to measure intelligence - they are a good general indicator, yes, but not a flawless method.
An IQ test is designed to measure an individual's intelligence regardless of education. In the words of author David Epstein, “This test was created so that you wouldn’t have to bring to it anything that you have learned in life. If Martians landed on Earth, this was supposed to be the test that could determine how clever they were.”
IQ tests deal with abstractions; you answer questions about hard logic - such as filling in missing pieces of a numerical or geometric sequence.
For example, you might find questions like these in an IQ test:
Fill the missing number from the following sequence: 2, 7, 4, 9, 6, 11, ?, 13
This sequence alternates between adding five and subtracting three. The right answer would be eight.
If all members of group A belong to group B and all members of group B belong to group C, are all members of group A also members of group C?
This one is pure logic: If all A’s are B’s and all B’s are C’s, then logically, all A’s are also C’s.
This may feel easy to you, perhaps far too easy. This is partially thanks to the Flynn Effect. The term is named after scholar James Flynn.
Nearly a century ago, in the Soviet Union, a psychologist named Alexander Luria decided to put people’s abstract thinking skills by asking abstract questions to people of different backgrounds.
He noticed that rural workers had some difficulty answering these questions. One of his sessions went like this:
Luria: What do a chicken and a dog have in common?
Farmer: They are not alike. A chicken has two legs; a dog has four. A chicken has wings but a dog doesn’t. A dog has big ears and a chicken’s are small.
Luria: Is there one word you could use for them both?
Farmer: No, of course not.
Luria: Would the word “animal” fit?
Farmer: Yes.
The subjects were clearly able to think objectively, and they answered based on their knowledge of the question. I have never been to B. How can I know whether there are camels there?
This may sound insulting to early 20th-century rural workers, but it isn’t. Showing objective thinking over abstract thinking is not a disadvantage; it’s simply a different mode of operation.
Most people back then didn’t need to worry about the hypothetical, so they didn’t. They only worried about what directly concerned them, and this is how they were best adapted to their respective roles.
Which orange circle is bigger? The one on the left or the one on the right? If you’ve seen this before, you might already know that they are the same size but still look different.
You probably grew up in a time and place where abstract thinking was required. Unlike early 20th-century Soviet Farmers, you received years of education that trained you to understand hypotheticals without much effort.
You may see the orange and black circles as a group, paying more attention to the whole than to the individual, which creates the illusion.
As David Epstein notes, if you were to show this image to a person who lacks such abstract thinking, they are more likely to intuitively know that the orange circles are the same size.
We live in a world where information is abundant in nearly every field. Even the farmers today are overwhelmed with information, whereas a century ago, it was a much simpler lifestyle.
This is not a bad thing-more information has allowed us to work more efficiently on practically every front. However, to deal with this overflow of information, we need more people who are more thoroughly educated than we were a century ago.
Working with more data requires more abstract thinkers.
Education isn’t supposed to affect your IQ test score, but it does. Not because the questions relate to whatever you might have learned but because schools inherently train you to think abstractly.
And unsurprisingly, as more people grew up receiving an education:
Sources:
1. Human Intelligence - Encyclopedia Britannica
2. The Evolution of Cognition - William L. Benzon & David G. Hays
3. 100 years of intelligence tests: We can do better - APA Divisions
4. A. R. Luria: The Neuropsychology of Praxis - Three-Toed Sloth
5. The Flynn Effect: A Meta-analysis - National Library of Medicine
6. The Flynn Effect - Explaining Increasing IQ Scores - Simply Psychology
Edited by Gaurav Mishra
Written by Lucas L
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Thank you! I took a break last year and I'm really trying to up the quality after coming back. I don't plan on going anywhere - thanks for watching!
I think we are very much captives to our current environment and find it very hard to imagine just how differently people even just 100 years ago processed information. Dialogues such as the one with the farmer absolutely blew my mind when I was first confronted with them and I think they are invaluable to broaden our horizons and better understand our own malleable minds.
This realisation also helps to have empathy with people today coming to objectively the wrong conclusion given all the necessary information to come to the right one. What they weren't given is the mental tools and necessary training to use them. Also, I don't think it's possible to train all the biases out of people under all circumstances.
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Thank you! We don't plan on going anywhere.
"We are not smarter, we are simply more accustomed to dealing with the abstract" That is well said. Still, improving abstract thinking, critical thinking, logical thinking, in my oppinion, surely makes one smarter, or at the very least more skilled and equipped to dealing with challenges that engage more brain power.
My biggest gripe with the I.Q. test is that it leads with the assumption that intelligence is based on ability to quickly problem solve, but when applied to the real world a lot of people who have this gift struggle with independence and arts, which in my opinion are important to being human.
I'd agree - the IQ test favors abstract thinking and logic over everything else. Some might argue that's the point, but I think this video, and my own perspective, would infer that misses out on a large bit of what "humanity" actually is.
Research indicates that individuals with higher IQ scores often exhibit higher levels of creativity, as measured by tests of divergent thinking and creative problem-solving. However, once an individual reaches an IQ threshold, additional intelligence does not necessarily lead to greater creativity. In fact, beyond this threshold, the relationship between IQ and creativity may weaken
at 1:00 does anyone know the answer?
The answer was -5 cuz
+the middle needs to be smaller than top
+the bottom somehow need to be in arrangement from small to large numbers
-therefore each from left to right, top to bottom we got:
9-3=6, 3=1+2
38-3=35, 3=2+1
47-5=42, 5=2+3
4-9=-5, 9=2+7
(IMO, this is weird, I’m pretty sure I used my efforts to think through it faster than explaining this ,approximately 90% faster)
Its -5
Cause the sum of the digits at the bottom equals the difference between the two digits above
4-x=2+7=9
-x=5
x=-5
For 0:30 the clock goes in a pattern of increasing then decreasing. Before the question mark is 25 so it must increase from 25 and then decrease to 51, so the number has to be greater than 51 so it is D, 98
Nice clear logic!
Nerd
very good video!
1:23 voice recorded incorrectly, great video tho(i came up with other solution: ariphmetic sequence of 2 on even and odd indexes simultaneously) sorry 4 grammar
Yeah my bad on that part - missed it before upload 😔
From my daily life experience, people are definitely getting dumber
Also i derived the power rule from a graph.
brain is highly adaptable that not only it can manipulate information, but can learn on how to manipulate information. Most peoples brain may never discover news way of thinking.
The ? Should be 49
I used multiple methods, but i used the second row and predictive apttwrn multiplication to get the answer
Isn't it 13 or -5? Just the difference of the first and second row = sum of digits on third row
@@Rich-je9fy oh god i think we started a new internenet disaagrement.
@@mihaleben6051 i guess lol
@@mihaleben6051 but i really don’t know what you mean by predictive pattern multiplication
I would like to know the solutions of 0:31 and 1:00
I think the 0:31 solution might be 98. Because when you look at the opposite side elements (72-25), (93-36), (51-16), so maybe (98-85)?
In an actual test I probably would've guess 49 for 0:31 and hoped for the best. It's a square number, the three numbers counterclockwise are squares... might be some pattern I don't fully understand. Let's save time and move on :D But yeah, no idea.
@@OIVAriini1 if we subtract opposite elements counterclockwise, we get 35, 57, 47, -13 (the last for your assumed solution or +13 if we reorder the operands). I still don't see the pattern. Can you explain?
At 0:31 it seems like the greater of the opposite can form the smaller by flipping the digits and either adding or subtracting the new tenth's place. So for instance 51, flip it to get 15, and then add the new tenths place to get 16. Another example is 93, flip it to get 39, and then subtract the tenth's place to get 36, maybe that's a pattern.
Looking at every column in 1:00 it seems like the sum of the digits of the lowest cell is equal to the the upper cell minus the lower cell. So, 9-6 = 1+2, 38-35 = 2+1, 47 - 42 = 2+3. That way it seems like the missing cell should be equal to -5, but I suppose 13 is a reasonable answer too
@@kallebanan1924 49 flipped is 94, minus 9 is 85. I think you got it, although it only seems to work in one direction, so half the octagon is broken. Man, I hate these kinds of marginally mathematical operations anyway. Either way, congratulations! Also, I would've aced that answer, for entirely the wrong reasons 😂 The miracles of multiple choice.
My guess for the thumbnail is -5
Trap card activated: Reverse Flynn Effect.
Education doesn't raise IQ, it helps expressing it.
We know QI Tests are a good tool, because they correlate with predictions done on fRMI.
People think that IQ tests only test speed of problem solving. It test adaptability and flexibility too. At least, "newer" tests like WAIS.
And also memory (long, short, work).
Problem solving is in fact a mall part of current IQ tests. Unless you consider that copying symbols, reproducing a picture with cubes or parroting a string of letter/numbers is problem solving.
The layman think "Raven" or "Binnet"... Those are far from being representative of modern IQ testing, but those are the prevalent IQ tests on the web, for practical reasons and because they are cheap to produce and more entertaining than "remember those ten digits, then repeat them in descending order".
People are totally misinformed on testing.
I must also say that real IQ test are designed to target your reasoning and logic abilities, and that is very hard to make, and often requiring very intelligent people to do so.
Not any puzzle , im refering to IQ tests ( but puzzles as it is what you get on internet ) cant test actual IQ score, thats why internet IQ test are really fasle, and this explains why real IQ tests are expensive.
No, but i have seen the youtube renaissance, so yes.
Pro
has anyone solved the puzzle shown on the thumbnail of this video?
i think it's 13?
take the first column, the difference between the first two numbers (9 and 6) is 3. the sum of the digits of the third row (12) is also 1 + 2 = 3
same goes for the second and third column, 38-35=3=2+1 and 47-42=5=2+3
hence the fourth column would be 13 since 13-4=9=2+7
@@longbuivan2648 shouldn't it be negative 13 then since we are doing the first row - the second row. I think your explanation makes sense otherwise.
4-(-13)=9=2+7
I got -5. You take the number in the 3rd row and add the digits. For example, 23 becomes 2+3=5. Now look at the first row. The 2nd number + the third number equals the 1st number
@@longbuivan2648 It decreases by the sum of the digits so it should be -5
@@longbuivan2648 Your initial logic is correct, but I think you miscalculated it. In the last column, 4-x=2+7 -> 4-x=9 so x=-5
Technically, the derivate of anything _should_ always be zero
you really ought to include the history of the iq test, the good the bad and the ugly. if you now what I mean
You demonstrated that we are more accustom to dealing with abstraction than previous generations, but you didn't demonstrate that we are not smarter.
Throughout the video you assume this, yet give no evidence. You only argue that the scientific community has yet to decide between the G factor or Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences, but both the G factor and Gardner's multiple intelligences conclude that IQ tests measure at least one facet of true intelligence. Thus, if we have definitively improved in at least one aspect, we have improved. We are demonstrably smarter than previous generations, at least in some limited sense.
Anybody know the answer to the thumbnail? I came up with 13.
I've seen data on multiple occasions which suggests IQ is falling
Yes, the last several years there have been declines the news is hyping. This video more examines the trend over the last many decades as the trend of net increase over the last century is still very clear. It will be curious in another decade or so what researchers determine recent declines are from.
@@ConcerningReality I don't think we need researchers for that :) Smart people have less babies than dumb people which is accelerated by the welfare system. Mental aptitude is no longer a genetic requirement for reproduction.
This may be due to the unhealthy exposure to food like sugar, and other activity that are harmful for the brain which before people had limited amounts so to say, only coming from fruits which is more healthy than what we get in candies.
Not all people get well hydrated
As this continiues, it may actually decrease overall intelligence of people, well not intelligence it self, but at point of their life, brain should decline in clear and sharp thinking
bro why are you faking your clout 😂 seeing 200k subs wonts have an impact on views 😂😂. flynn effect is not real btw and we started getting dumber (=reverse flynn effect). no need for me to watch the vid
Faking clout? I’ve been making videos for 6 years and many of my videos have millions of views? Literally not faking anything lol - all these subscribers are from natural search views. Feel free to check social blade ❤️
@@ConcerningReality Hes speaking for himself, and reflect of his experience thinking its for everyones behalf. Let ignorant be, waste of energy to explain yourself
except you can improve your score by practicing the types of questions used in IQ tests. And children still require a base knowledge to take it. Shapes, math,. vocabulary,.etc.