It is often asserted that Black Americans have made no IQ gains on White Americans. Until recently, there have been no adequate data to measure trends in Black IQ. We analyzed data from nine standardization samples for four major tests of cognitive ability. These data suggest that Blacks gained 4 to 7 IQ points on non-Hispanic Whites between 1972 and 2002. Gains have been fairly uniform across the entire range of Black cognitive ability.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
FarleyR. (1995). State of the union: America in the 1990s. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
2.
FlynnJ.R. (1987). Flynn replies to Nichols. InModgilS.ModgilC.(Eds.), Arthur Jensen: Consensus and controversy (pp. 234–235). Lewes, England: Falmer Press.
3.
FlynnJ.R.WeissL.G. (2006). American IQ gains from 1932 to 2002: The significance of the WISC subtests. Manuscript submitted for publication.
4.
GottfredsonL.S. (2005). Implications of cognitive differences for schooling within diverse societies. InFrisbyC.L.ReynoldsC.R.(Eds.), Comprehensive handbook of multicultural school psychology (pp. 517–555). New York: Wiley.
5.
Harcourt Assessment. (2005a). [Factor analysis of Wechsler tests]. Unpublished raw data.
6.
Harcourt Assessment. (2005b). [Standardization data for Wechsler tests]. Unpublished raw data.
7.
HerrnsteinR.J.MurrayC. (1994). The bell curve: Intelligence and class structure in American life. New York: Free Press.
8.
JensenA.R. (1980). Bias in mental testing. London: Methuen.
9.
JensenA.R. (1984). The black-white difference on the K-ABC: Implications for future tests. Journal of Special Education, 18, 377–408.
10.
JensenA.R. (1987). The g beyond factor analysis. InRonningR.R.GloverJ.A.ConoleyJ.C.WittJ.C.(Eds.), The influence of cognitive psychology on testing (pp. 87–142). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
LynnR. (1996). Racial and ethnic differences in intelligence in the United States on the Differential Ability Scale. Personality and Individual Differences, 20, 271–273.
RushtonJ.P.JensenA.R. (2005). Thirty years of research on race differences in cognitive ability. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 11, 235–294.
20.
SegallD.O. (1997). Equating the Cat-asvab. InSandsW.A.WatersB.K.McBrideJ.R.(Eds.), Computerized adaptive testing: From inquiry to operation (pp. 181–198). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
21.
StaplesR. (1985). Changes in black family structure: The conflict between family ideology and structural conditions. Journal of Marriage and Family, 47, 1005–1013.
U.S. Bureau of the Census. (1976). Statistical abstract of the United States, 1976, 97th annual edition. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.
24.
U.S. Bureau of the Census. (1979). Statistical abstract of the United States, 1979, 100th annual edition. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.
U.S. Department of Defense. (2005). [Standardization data for the Armed Forces Qualification Test from the Profiles of American Youth of 1980 and 1997]. Unpublished raw data.
27.
VincentK.R. (1991). Black/white IQ differences: Does age make the difference?Journal of Clinical Psychology, 74, 266–270.
28.
VincentK.R.CoxJ.A. (1974). A re-evaluation of Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices. Journal of Psychology, 88, 299–303.
29.
WichertsJ.M. (2005). [Comparison of White and Black groups in the U.S. research samples for the Woodcock-Johnson-R and the Woodcock-Johnson-III]. Unpublished raw data.
30.
Wonderlic. (2006). [Norms by race and age for the Wonderlic Personnel Test N: Normative studies done in 1970, 1983, 1992, and 2001]. Unpublished raw data.
