We both underestimated how inaccurate cultural differences can make an IQ score, I think.
I have two rebuttals specific to your assertion that knowing English shouldn’t affect your ability to solve IQ test puzzles, but I also thought about this more and realized that even a culture fair test probably cannot compensate for the differences between the three groups of people we’re discussing, so I gave a couple examples for that, too.
First: How are you supposed to understand the question that goes with the puzzle if you don’t know how to read English well? Without that question “Which shape goes in the white box?” there is little hope of interpreting the puzzle correctly, let alone filling it out. This is an IQ test, and the questions are sometimes written in a way that makes them tricky to understand completely. IQ tests may demand a high reading level. If all you’ve got is broken English, reading and comprehending questions like these might feel like you’re doing something as hard as applying Bayesian probability to statistics.
IQ tests are also frequently written by people who don’t consider all possible ways of interpreting the question. If you were not constantly exposed to academic conventions, you are likely to interpret the questions in a different way without realizing it. Look up the difference between “divergent intelligence” and “convergent intelligence” if you don’t believe me. That’s a big problem for people with divergent minds—even ones who have been schooled—they see all these options that other people don’t (essentially, they’re creative) and they tend to get lower IQ scores for no reason other than that they did not interpret the questions and answers in a convention manner. A professional developmental psychologist may provide a creativity test to these people, and if they score significantly higher than average on the creativity test, they’ll actually adjust the person’s IQ score upward accordingly.
Now for our underestimation of cultural differences: I think you’re really underestimating the amount of difference it can make to the human mind to grow up in a completely uncivilized environment. These children (specifically the Masai tribe I read the book about) are literally growing up stealing cow’s blood from the adult’s tubs for their survival (it’s a staple food for some) and as a game, they dare each other to challenge wild animals. They’re not sitting there day after day, like you and I have been, looking at pieces of paper. Their lives are completely different, and this most likely makes a profound difference in what kinds of processing their brains develop.
For example, there’s a lot of controversy over whether ADD is a disease, or if children just aren’t meant to be sitting there in classrooms. Some theorize that ADD is extremely useful for your survival if you live in a jungle. You have to be aware of your entire environment the whole time. If the kids are growing up surrounded by boa constrictors and other dangerous animals, they have to REALLY develop their ability for paying attention to every little sound and movement. This is the opposite of what the schooling environment will do—force you to learn how to focus for long periods of time on little pieces of paper, doing thinking work, while blocking out any noise or thought you have that’s unrelated. Concentration is a skill, no?
That’s just one difference. There are others.
For instance, have you ever heard it’s important to teach math in school, not because everybody needs high level math itself, but because doing the type of intellectual rigors involved in mathematical calculating will boost reasoning in general?
If you were tossed a machine gun at the age of 6 and told to shoot or die, you’re totally not going to spend any time on math. And some of them were. (I learned that in a Ted talk video).
The Chinese people that were tested, to contrast, may have spent a lot of time as children working in sweatshops making small items or doing fine motor skill work like making toys and sewing. They’ve probably spent a lot of time developing their ability to concentrate—way more than would be demanded of the average American kid (they’re working 16 hour days...) and furthermore, constructing these products takes a bit of reasoning.
Don’t underestimate the difference that culture can make to an IQ score. Now that I’ve thought about this, I’m not even sure a culture fair test can compensate for these differences. It probably only works if you compare people with a similar upbringing. Comparing jungle survivors vs. sweatshop laborers vs. schooled Americans is probably going to yield different results no matter how you design an IQ test.
We both underestimated how inaccurate cultural differences can make an IQ score, I think.
I have two rebuttals specific to your assertion that knowing English shouldn’t affect your ability to solve IQ test puzzles, but I also thought about this more and realized that even a culture fair test probably cannot compensate for the differences between the three groups of people we’re discussing, so I gave a couple examples for that, too.
First: How are you supposed to understand the question that goes with the puzzle if you don’t know how to read English well? Without that question “Which shape goes in the white box?” there is little hope of interpreting the puzzle correctly, let alone filling it out. This is an IQ test, and the questions are sometimes written in a way that makes them tricky to understand completely. IQ tests may demand a high reading level. If all you’ve got is broken English, reading and comprehending questions like these might feel like you’re doing something as hard as applying Bayesian probability to statistics.
IQ tests are also frequently written by people who don’t consider all possible ways of interpreting the question. If you were not constantly exposed to academic conventions, you are likely to interpret the questions in a different way without realizing it. Look up the difference between “divergent intelligence” and “convergent intelligence” if you don’t believe me. That’s a big problem for people with divergent minds—even ones who have been schooled—they see all these options that other people don’t (essentially, they’re creative) and they tend to get lower IQ scores for no reason other than that they did not interpret the questions and answers in a convention manner. A professional developmental psychologist may provide a creativity test to these people, and if they score significantly higher than average on the creativity test, they’ll actually adjust the person’s IQ score upward accordingly.
Now for our underestimation of cultural differences: I think you’re really underestimating the amount of difference it can make to the human mind to grow up in a completely uncivilized environment. These children (specifically the Masai tribe I read the book about) are literally growing up stealing cow’s blood from the adult’s tubs for their survival (it’s a staple food for some) and as a game, they dare each other to challenge wild animals. They’re not sitting there day after day, like you and I have been, looking at pieces of paper. Their lives are completely different, and this most likely makes a profound difference in what kinds of processing their brains develop.
For example, there’s a lot of controversy over whether ADD is a disease, or if children just aren’t meant to be sitting there in classrooms. Some theorize that ADD is extremely useful for your survival if you live in a jungle. You have to be aware of your entire environment the whole time. If the kids are growing up surrounded by boa constrictors and other dangerous animals, they have to REALLY develop their ability for paying attention to every little sound and movement. This is the opposite of what the schooling environment will do—force you to learn how to focus for long periods of time on little pieces of paper, doing thinking work, while blocking out any noise or thought you have that’s unrelated. Concentration is a skill, no?
That’s just one difference. There are others.
For instance, have you ever heard it’s important to teach math in school, not because everybody needs high level math itself, but because doing the type of intellectual rigors involved in mathematical calculating will boost reasoning in general?
If you were tossed a machine gun at the age of 6 and told to shoot or die, you’re totally not going to spend any time on math. And some of them were. (I learned that in a Ted talk video).
The Chinese people that were tested, to contrast, may have spent a lot of time as children working in sweatshops making small items or doing fine motor skill work like making toys and sewing. They’ve probably spent a lot of time developing their ability to concentrate—way more than would be demanded of the average American kid (they’re working 16 hour days...) and furthermore, constructing these products takes a bit of reasoning.
Don’t underestimate the difference that culture can make to an IQ score. Now that I’ve thought about this, I’m not even sure a culture fair test can compensate for these differences. It probably only works if you compare people with a similar upbringing. Comparing jungle survivors vs. sweatshop laborers vs. schooled Americans is probably going to yield different results no matter how you design an IQ test.