A systematic literature review of the average IQ of sub-Saharan Africans☆
Section snippets
Scholastic achievement surveys
In several studies (Lynn, 2006, Lynn et al., 2007, Lynn and Mikk, 2007, Lynn and Vanhanen, 2006, Rindermann, 2007), Lynn and Vanhanen's estimates of national IQ were correlated with data from several internationally comparable surveys of school achievement (e.g., TIMMS, PISA). In these surveys representative samples of primary and secondary students were given reading, mathematics, or science tests. These studies have quite clearly shown that national IQs and the means for countries from these
A systematic review of the literature
In this section, we present the results of a systematic review of published studies in which western IQ tests (i.e., IQ tests developed and standardized in western countries) were administered to Black sub-Saharan Africans. Lacking of more specific data our emphasis is necessarily on overall (average) performance. Given the available data, we cannot do justice to the wide cultural and economic differences of the many and varied peoples on this continent. Nonetheless, we hope that our review may
Search of studies
In early 2009, we employed PsycINFO to search for additional studies of IQ test performance of Africans. We used the following search terms: “IQ”, “intelligence”, “cognitive ability”, “abilities” combined with the countries' names and adjectives as well as the words “Africa”, “African”. This resulted in approximately 2800 unique references that were scanned for relevance. Because the Draw-a-Man test is administered often in Africa, we also searched for additional data of this test by using the
Results
All samples are reported in Table 2, along with our assessments of whether or not these samples meet our inclusion criteria. We now discuss all samples per test, starting with those most commonly used in Africa.
Conclusion
The assertion that the average IQ of Africans is below 70 is not tenable, even under the most lenient of inclusion criteria. The inclusion of all studies in Table 2 results in an estimate of an average IQ of 77. This estimate represents an underestimate of the true average IQ, because it is based on (1) inaccurate (often ad hoc) IQ norms or norms based on mental-age IQs, (2) IQ tests that were not administered according to official guidelines (e.g., adapted), (3) studies of IQ in which the test
References (150)
- et al.
Family and personal characteristics of aggressive Nigerian boys
Journal of Adolescent Health
(1998) - et al.
Problems with the method of correlated vectors
Intelligence
(2005) Educational and ecological correlates of IQ: A cross-national investigation
Intelligence
(2005)Average IQ values in various European countries
Personality and Individual Differences
(1981)Exponential correlation of IQ and the wealth of nations
Intelligence
(2006)- et al.
Two failures of Spearman's hypothesis: The GAT-B in Holland and the JAT in South Africa
Intelligence
(2004) - et al.
Racial equality in intelligence: Predictions from a theory of intelligence as processing
Intelligence
(2007) IQ, cultural values, and the technological achievement of nations
Intelligence
(2008)The geography of IQ
Intelligence
(2008)- et al.
The cross-cultural generalizability of a higher-order cognitive structure model
Intelligence
(1979)
Sorry, wrong numbers: An analysis of a study of a correlation between skin color and IQ
Intelligence
National intelligence and national prosperity
Intelligence
Temperature and evolutionary novelty as forces behind the evolution of general intelligence
Intelligence
Cognition in African children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder
Pediatric Neurology
The increase of intelligence in Sudan 1964–2006
Personality and Individual Differences
Book review: R. Lynn Race differences in intelligence
Intelligence
The geography of intelligence
Average intelligence predicts atheism rates across 137 countries
Intelligence
National differences in intelligence and educational attainment
Intelligence
National IQs predict educational attainment in math, reading and science across 56 nations
Intelligence
Book review. R. Lynn & T. Vanhanen (2006). IQ and global inequality
Intelligence
Item bias and item response theory
International Journal of Educational Research
Making development simple. The genetic deterministic hypothesis for economic development
Ecological Economics
Order effects on neuropsychological test performance of normal, learning disabled and low functioning children: A cross-cultural study
Early Child Development and Care
Determining intelligence coefficients of Nigeria deaf children with the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children—Revised
Early Child Development and Care
Deleterious effects of chronic undernutrition on cognitive abilities
Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry
The establishment of an individual intelligence scale for adult South Africans
Influence of modernization on Goodenough quotients of Sudanese children
Perceptual and Motor Skills
The use of finger drawing in measuring the Goodenough quotient of culturally deprived Sudanese children
Journal of Psychology
Social-class differences in the performance of Nigerian children on the Draw-a-Man test
Application de test de Goodenough à des écoliers africains de 7 à 14 ans [Application of the Goodenough test to African school children ages 7 to 14]
Enfance
National intelligence and the emperor's new clothes
Contemporary Psychology
Measuring intelligence. Facts and fallacies
Radical cultural relativism and the concept of intelligence
African intelligence
Effects of early cerebral malaria on cognitive ability in Senegalese children
Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics
Improvements in cognitive performance for schoolchildren in Zaire, Africa, following an iron supplement and treatment for intestinal parasites
Journal of Pediatric Psychology
Use of the tactual performance test for cognitive ability testing with African children
Neuropsychology
Effects of treatment for intestinal parasites and malaria on the cognitive abilities of schoolchildren in Zaire, Africa
Health Psychology
The fifth mental measurements yearbook
A note on the relationship between the Draw-a-Man test, the progressive matrices, and conservation
Journal of Psychology
Culture Fair Intelligence Test Scale 2
A standardisation of the WAIS-III for English-speaking South Africans
Synthesizing research. A guide for literature review
Editorial
Psychological Bulletin
Are Black scores on Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices an artifact of method of test presentation?
Psychologia Africana
The educability of the Bantu
Investigating Spearman's hypothesis by means of multi-group confirmatory factor analysis
Multivariate Behavioral Research
The trim and fill method
Trim and fill: A simple funnel-plot-based method of testing and adjusting for publication bias in meta-analysis
Biometrics
Cited by (93)
Trauma survivors with disrupted sleep generate less specific and less emotional autobiographical memories
2021, Journal of Affective Disorders ReportsDodging Darwin: Race, evolution, and the hereditarian hypothesis
2020, Personality and Individual DifferencesRisk aversion, patience and intelligence: Evidence based on macro data
2019, Economics Letters
- ☆
The preparation of this article was supported by VENI grant no. 451-07-016 from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) awarded to JMW. We thank three anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments.