Unfortunately, while we know there are lots of environmental factors that affect IQ, we mostly don’t know the details well enough to be sure of very much, or to have much idea how to manipulate it. However, as I understand it, some research has suggested that there are interesting cultural similarities between Jews in most of the world and Chinese who don’t live in China, and that the IQ advantage of Chinese is primarily among Chinese who don’t live in China, so something in common between how the Chinese and Jewish cultures deal with being minority outsiders may explain part of why both show unusually high IQs when they are minority outsiders (and could explain a lot of East Asians generally; considering how enormous the cultural influence of China has been in the region, it would not be terribly surprising if many other East Asian groups had acquired whatever the relevant factor is).
This paper by Ogbu and Simons discusses some of the theories about groups that do poorly (the “involuntary” or “caste-like” minorities). Unfortunately I couldn’t find a citation for any discussion of differences between voluntary minorities which would explain why some voluntary minorities outperform rather than merely equalling the majority, apart from Ned Block’s passing reference to a culture of “self-respect” in his review of The Bell Curve.
Unfortunately, while we know there are lots of environmental factors that affect IQ, we mostly don’t know the details well enough to be sure of very much, or to have much idea how to manipulate it. However, as I understand it, some research has suggested that there are interesting cultural similarities between Jews in most of the world and Chinese who don’t live in China, and that the IQ advantage of Chinese is primarily among Chinese who don’t live in China, so something in common between how the Chinese and Jewish cultures deal with being minority outsiders may explain part of why both show unusually high IQs when they are minority outsiders (and could explain a lot of East Asians generally; considering how enormous the cultural influence of China has been in the region, it would not be terribly surprising if many other East Asian groups had acquired whatever the relevant factor is).
This paper by Ogbu and Simons discusses some of the theories about groups that do poorly (the “involuntary” or “caste-like” minorities). Unfortunately I couldn’t find a citation for any discussion of differences between voluntary minorities which would explain why some voluntary minorities outperform rather than merely equalling the majority, apart from Ned Block’s passing reference to a culture of “self-respect” in his review of The Bell Curve.