Hive Mind: How Your Nation's IQ Matters So Much More Than Your Own
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Last annotated on May 11, 2016
Introduction THE PARADOX OF IQRead more at location 79
Note: di cosa nn si parla: di come alzare l iq tesi: l iq xsonale spiega una piccola parte del tuo extra reddito ma l iq medio della nazione spiega gran parte dell extra reddito alto iq più pazienza più risparmi più memoria più cooperat. maggiore capacità a risolvere probl complessi. più alti più reattivi... soluzioni win win e soluzioni grabbing. iq più propenso alle prime alto iq nazionale iqn: meno corruzione più strade più investimenti privati iq europa asia africa... la più importante risorsa naturale di un paese è la mente dei cittadini tesi: la compagnia degli intellis giova più che essere intellos eric hanusceck: la dicrepanza tra iqn e iqp segnala che l iq spuega poco dello sviluppo jones: il gap segnala un fatore moltiplicativo dell iq iq predice molto meglio degli anni scolastici. limite: dura standardizzare un test iq. dura calcolare il pil nazionale l iq è il test migliore xchè nn influenzato dalla scuola e dalle conoscenze come isolare e soppesare l import di iq rispetto ad altre var.? regressione a variabile multipla. Edit
IQ helps in ways you might not have realized: on average, people who do better on standardized tests are more patient, are more cooperative, and have better memories. But while dozens of studies by psychologists and economists have established these links, few researchers have connected the dots to ask what this means for entire nations.Read more at location 81
if education researchers and public health officials can find reliable ways to raise national test scores, productivity and prosperity will rise where poverty and disease now flourish.Read more at location 86
nations that do the best on standardized tests—nations such as Singapore and Finland—usually have governments that are reasonably free of corruption; have decent roads and bridges; and have plenty of private investment in office buildings, factories, and homes.Read more at location 88
The high test scores in these countries are a sign that their citizens have the cognitive skills, the human capital, to take on the complexity of a modern economy.Read more at location 91
By contrast, nations where test scores are average or lower tend to be the kinds of places where people have to bribe governmentRead more at location 92
Lower-scoring nations aren’t places that appeal to international investors,Read more at location 96
On average, nations with test scores in the bottom 10 percent worldwide are only about one-eighth as rich and productive as nations with scores in the top 10 percent.Read more at location 98
the most important productive asset in each nation is the human mind.Read more at location 100
standardized tests are obviously not perfect—no statistic ever is—they are a good way to measure those skills.Read more at location 102
In the Covey view, a key to success in business and in life is to look for ways to find pie-growing solutions rather than to just focus on grabbingRead more at location 105
Pie-grabbing and pie-growing are both rational actions—they both make you better off, at least in the short run—but nations where people tend to grow the pie will have more pie to eat. So what predicts pie-growing skill?Read more at location 106
And one thing that IQ-type tests predict is the ability to handle complexity, to keep multiple facts in mind.Read more at location 117
Other psychology and economic experiments have backed up this basic finding: players with higher scores on IQ-type tests are more likely to take the pie-growing approach, especially in complex situations.Read more at location 125
I’m sure you know a lot of people who are big successes in life—people with good jobs and nice kids—who don’t do well on standardized tests. I know people like that too. And we both know people who are failures—bad habits, constant legal troubles, no money—who do great on IQ-style tests.Read more at location 129
Economists have known this fact for decades: when it comes to the link between test scores and wages, exceptions are the rule and the link is moderate at best.Read more at location 133
We’ll also see that people with higher IQs tend to be taller, quicker to react to a flashing light, and more patient. But for now, consider this one fact: your own, individual IQ score isn’t that good at predicting how much you’ll earn over the course of your life.Read more at location 137
nations with the highest test scores are about eight times more prosperous than nations with the lowest scores—and you can see the paradox of IQ.Read more at location 140
I’ll also explain what policymakers and public health professionals may be able to do to raise a country’s average IQ score.Read more at location 144
Do these test scores tell us more than if we just knew the average years of schooling in a country? That’s what economists Eric Hanushek and Dennis Kimko wanted to find out.3Read more at location 151
test scores do a better job predicting an economy’s performance than do years of education.Read more at location 158
Hanushek and Kimko themselves seem to think that the high test scores aren’t really causing much extra growth: they say, “the [national] growth equation results are much larger than the corresponding results for individual earnings.Read more at location 173
But perhaps it’s not an overstatement; perhaps it’s a sign of a mental multiplier, a positive side effect of cognitive skills.Read more at location 177
it’s challenging to measure cognitive abilities across countries, it’s at least as challenging to measure national income across countries: neither are perfect measures. And keep in mind that the measurement problems for national income are worse in poorer countries, where government bureaucracies are more likely to be strongly politicizedRead more at location 189
FIGURE I.1 Average cognitive ability estimated in 2009 from earlier PISA, TIMSS, and PIRLS international exams and estimated 2005 GDP per personRead more at location 204
This brings us to the lower-left-hand corner, countries where poverty is all too common and where worker productivity is currently low. On average, people in these countries have done poorly on standardized tests.Read more at location 206
IQ-type tests—sometimes called intelligence tests, though my fellow economists often wisely prefer the term cognitive skill tests—are good choices for a few reasons. For one, IQ tests have been given in many more countries around the world than have the PISA and TIMSS tests:Read more at location 211
Second, many of these IQ tests are purely visual pattern-finding tests that don’t obviously draw on school learning, so compared to a science test these IQ tests might be more fair and less biased;Read more at location 213
And third, once we start discussing IQ rather than generic “test scores,” we can draw on a century of research by psychologists, infectious disease specialists, nutritionists, and others on ways to raise IQ scores and the skills these tests attempt to measure.Read more at location 215
we can’t forget that people’s skills are shaped well before they begin school and are shaped by forces outside of school. By talking about IQ, it will be hard to ignore life outside the classroom.Read more at location 219
After all, rich countries and poor countries differ in countless ways, and average test scores are just one of the differences.Read more at location 222
One preliminary check is to see whether a nation’s average test scores still do a good job of predicting a nation’s level prosperity even when you know a lot of other things about the country: this approach is known as multiple regression.Read more at location 225
“Even if I already know that your country has a high savings rate, a lot of mineral wealth, or whatever, does knowing your nation’s average test scores still help me to predict how productive your country is?”Read more at location 227
You might be wondering why some countries have higher average scores and others have lower average scores. That’s an important question, but it’s a question this book isn’t designed to answer.Read more at location 233
If higher average IQ is important to national economic outcomes, then it’s important to find ways to raise these skill levels for each and every nation.Read more at location 238
In the rich countries, IQ scores have consistently risen over the twentieth century, a phenomenon known as the Flynn Effect,Read more at location 241
1. High-scoring people tend to save more, and some of that savings stays in their home country.Read more at location 260
2. High-scoring groups tend to be more cooperative. And cooperation is a key ingredient for building higher-quality governments and more productive businesses.Read more at location 262
3. High-scoring groups are more likely to support market-oriented policies, a key to national prosperity.Read more at location 264
4. High-scoring groups will tend to be more successful at using highly productive team-based technology.Read more at location 266
5. The human tendency to conform, at least a little, creates a fifth channel that multiplies the effect of the other four: the imitation channel,Read more at location 270
Skilled team members
