Elsevier

Intelligence

Volume 38, Issue 1, January–February 2010, Pages 21-29
Intelligence

The average IQ of sub-Saharan Africans: Comments on Wicherts, Dolan, and van der Maas

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.intell.2009.09.009Get rights and content

Abstract

Wicherts, Dolan, and van der Maas (2009) contend that the average IQ of sub-Saharan Africans is about 80. A critical evaluation of the studies presented by WDM shows that many of these are based on unrepresentative elite samples. We show that studies of 29 acceptably representative samples on tests other than the Progressive Matrices give a sub-Saharan Africa IQ of 69; studies of the most satisfactory representative samples on the Standard Progressive Matrices give an IQ of 66; studies of 23 acceptably representative samples on the Colored Progressive Matrices give an IQ of 71. The international studies of mathematics, science, and reading give a sub-Saharan African IQ of 66. The four data sets can be averaged to give an IQ of 68 as the best reading of the IQ in sub-Saharan Africa.

Introduction

Wicherts, Dolan, and van der Maas (in press) (WDM) and Wicherts, Dolan, Carlson and van der Maas (in press) (WDCM) contend that the average IQ of sub-Saharan Africans is about 80 and that the international studies of achievement in mathematics, science, and reading corroborate this conclusion. These estimates are much higher than the average of 67 proposed by Lynn and Vanhanen (2006). We consider four data sets on this question consisting of (1) tests other than the Progressive Matrices; (2) the Standard Progressive Matrices; (3) the Colored Progressive Matrices; (4) the international studies of mathematics, science, and reading.

Section snippets

IQ studies other than the Progressive Matrices

WDM propose nine inclusion criteria for the acceptability of studies of the IQ in sub-Saharan Africa, but these do not include the crucial criterion that the African samples should be representative of the population. This is a strict criterion because there are no perfectly representative samples from sub-Saharan Africa. We therefore have to make judgments on which studies are sufficiently representative to use. We do not follow WDM in rejecting studies in which (1) “Test administration should

The Progressive Matrices

Studies of the Progressive Matrices also need to be considered to arrive at an estimate of the IQ in sub-Saharan Africa. For the Standard Progressive Matrices, Wicherts et al. (in press) (WDCM) give results for 40 studies, for which the median IQ is 78, Flynn effect corrected to 77, and reduced further to 76 to adjust for around 20% of Africans who do not attend school and are credited with an IQ of 71.

A number of these studies have to be rejected as based on clearly unrepresentative samples.

Attainment in mathematics, science, and reading

We agree with WDM that international school assessments in mathematics, science, and reading are measures of attained intellectual competence and can be adopted as proxies for IQs. Country level correlations between school assessment results and IQs are around 0.92 (Lynn, Meisenberg, Mikk, & Williams, 2007). However, we contend that WDM have used an inappropriate method for calculating IQs of sub-Saharan Africans from the international school assessments. Because the more recent assessment

Conclusion

The three IQ data sets show that studies of acceptably representative samples on tests other than the Progressive Matrices give a sub-Saharan Africa IQ of 69; studies of the most satisfactory representative samples on the Standard Progressive Matrices and on the Colored Progressive Matrices give IQs of 66 and 71. These results are corroborated by the international studies of math, science, and reading that give an IQ of 72.4, adjusted down to 66 because these studies are based mainly on high

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