Jensenism is a term coined by New York Times writer Lee Edson. Named after educational psychologist Arthur Jensen, it was originally defined as "the theory that IQ is largely determined by the genes". The term was coined after Jensen published the article "How Much Can We Boost IQ and Scholastic Achievement?" in the Harvard Educational Review in 1969. [1] It has since been included in several dictionaries. [2]
The gap of the IQ between white and black students was a subject of debate in the United States, particularly around the 1970s. One view, which is referred to among behavioral geneticists as the genetic position, holds that IQ is determined by hereditary factors - about 80 percent of the variability of intelligence while 20 percent is attributed to environmental factors. [3] The gap, therefore, was associated with race. Jensenism was as one of the most notable theories to have emerged from this sector. It was based on Arthur Jensen's 1969 article that talked about the failure of compensatory education. He cited several evidence that demonstrated how IQ is inherited. For instance, he said that if one looks at studies of adopted children, "you find that their intelligence relates more closely to their natural parents." [4] He also proposed that the measured 15-point difference between American blacks and whites could never be eliminated by education. [5]
Many reactions to Jensen's article and the arguments it contained quickly ensued, some highly favorable and others relentlessly negative, with some directly equating it with racism. [5] Among the latter was a paper by behavioral geneticist Jerry Hirsch, who claimed that Jensenism was an "intellectual disgrace", while also criticizing some of Jensen's earlier critics as resorting to "inarticulate and self-defeating hooliganism". [6] In a 1970 article responding to Jensen, biologist Richard Lewontin argued that Jensenism was a more recent manifestation of 17th-century Jansenism, referring to the former as a "doctrine" that is "as erroneous in the twentieth century as it was in the seventeenth." [7] Evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould also criticized Jensenism, arguing that it rested "on a rotten edifice." [8] Jensen's ideas reportedly received a more favorable reception in the Nixon administration; Lewontin quoted then-United States ambassador to India Daniel Patrick Moynihan in 1974 as saying, "The winds of Jensenism are blowing through Washington with gale force." [9]
More recently, several favorable articles defending Jensen and his ideas have criticized the frequent negative use of the term "Jensenism". [10] [11] These include the journal Intelligence , which devoted an entire issue honoring Jensen and his work. [12] Linda Gottfredson also claimed:
Arthur Jensen is a masterful scientist whose work broke a social taboo. Jensenism refers to the aspect of his work that violated the [social] taboo, specifically his conclusion that individual differences in intelligence are highly heritable and group differences may be too. [13]
Despite such defenses, however, the current scientific consensus is that genetics do not explain IQ differences between racial groups. [14] [15] [16] [17] [18]
Arthur Robert Jensen was an American psychologist and writer. He was a professor of educational psychology at the University of California, Berkeley. Jensen was known for his work in psychometrics and differential psychology, the study of how and why individuals differ behaviorally from one another.
An intelligence quotient (IQ) is a total score derived from a set of standardised tests or subtests designed to assess human intelligence. Originally, IQ was a score obtained by dividing a person's mental age score, obtained by administering an intelligence test, by the person's chronological age, both expressed in terms of years and months. The resulting fraction (quotient) was multiplied by 100 to obtain the IQ score. For modern IQ tests, the raw score is transformed to a normal distribution with mean 100 and standard deviation 15. This results in approximately two-thirds of the population scoring between IQ 85 and IQ 115 and about 2 percent each above 130 and below 70.
John Philippe Rushton was a Canadian psychologist and author. He taught at the University of Western Ontario until the early 1990s, and became known to the general public during the 1980s and 1990s for research on race and intelligence, race and crime, and other purported racial correlations.
Discussions of race and intelligence – specifically regarding claims of differences in intelligence along racial lines – have appeared in both popular science and academic research since the modern concept of race was first introduced. With the inception of IQ testing in the early 20th century, differences in average test performance between racial groups have been observed, though these differences have fluctuated and in many cases steadily decreased over time. Complicating the issue, modern science has concluded that race is a socially constructed phenomenon rather than a biological reality, and there exist various conflicting definitions of intelligence. In particular, the validity of IQ testing as a metric for human intelligence is disputed. Today, the scientific consensus is that genetics does not explain differences in IQ test performance between groups, and that observed differences are environmental in origin.
The Mismeasure of Man is a 1981 book by paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould. The book is both a history and critique of the statistical methods and cultural motivations underlying biological determinism, the belief that "the social and economic differences between human groups—primarily races, classes, and sexes—arise from inherited, inborn distinctions and that society, in this sense, is an accurate reflection of biology".
The g factor is a construct developed in psychometric investigations of cognitive abilities and human intelligence. It is a variable that summarizes positive correlations among different cognitive tasks, reflecting the fact that an individual's performance on one type of cognitive task tends to be comparable to that person's performance on other kinds of cognitive tasks. The g factor typically accounts for 40 to 50 percent of the between-individual performance differences on a given cognitive test, and composite scores based on many tests are frequently regarded as estimates of individuals' standing on the g factor. The terms IQ, general intelligence, general cognitive ability, general mental ability, and simply intelligence are often used interchangeably to refer to this common core shared by cognitive tests. However, the g factor itself is a mathematical construct indicating the level of observed correlation between cognitive tasks. The measured value of this construct depends on the cognitive tasks that are used, and little is known about the underlying causes of the observed correlations.
The Triarchic Theory of Intelligence or Three Forms of Intelligence, formulated by psychologist Robert Sternberg, aims to go against the psychometric approach to intelligence and take a more cognitive approach, which leaves it to the category of the cognitive-contextual theories. The three meta components are also called triarchic components.
Leon J. Kamin was an American psychologist known for his contributions to learning theory and his critique of estimates of the heritability of IQ. He studied under Richard Solomon at Harvard and contributed several important ideas about conditioning, including the "blocking effect".
Nathan Brody is an American psychology professor Emeritus known for his work on intelligence and personality.
The Minnesota Transracial Adoption Study examined the IQ test scores of 130 black or interracial children adopted by advantaged white families. The aim of the study was to determine the contribution of environmental and genetic factors to the poor performance of black children on IQ tests as compared to white children. The initial study was published in 1976 by Sandra Scarr and Richard A. Weinberg. A follow-up study was published in 1992 by Richard Weinberg, Sandra Scarr and Irwin D. Waldman. Another related study investigating social adjustment in a subsample of the adopted black children was published in 1996. The 1992 follow-up study found that "social environment maintains a dominant role in determining the average IQ level of black and interracial children and that both social and genetic variables contribute to individual variations among them." Both Levin and Lynn argued that these findings support a hereditarian alternative, while other researchers believed the findings were consistent with both genetic and environmental explanations.
Race, Evolution, and Behavior: A Life History Perspective is a book by Canadian psychologist and author J. Philippe Rushton. Rushton was a professor of psychology at the University of Western Ontario for many years, and the head of the controversial Pioneer Fund. The first unabridged edition of the book came out in 1995, and the third, latest unabridged edition came out in 2000; abridged versions were also distributed.
Robert A. Gordon is an American sociologist best known for his work on intelligence, criminality, and race.
"Mainstream Science on Intelligence" was a public statement issued by a group of researchers led by psychologist Linda Gottfredson. It was published originally in The Wall Street Journal on December 13, 1994, as a response to criticism of the book The Bell Curve by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray, which appeared earlier the same year. The statement defended Herrnstein and Murray's controversial claims about race and intelligence, including the claim that average intelligence quotient (IQ) differences between racial and ethnic groups may be at least partly genetic in origin. This view is now considered discredited by mainstream science.
Richard J. Haier is an American psychologist who has researched a neural basis for human intelligence, psychometrics, general intelligence, and sex and intelligence.
The IQ Controversy, the Media and Public Policy is a book published by Smith College professor emeritus Stanley Rothman and Harvard researcher Mark Snyderman in 1988. Claiming to document liberal bias in media coverage of scientific findings regarding intelligence quotient (IQ), the book builds on a survey of the opinions of hundreds of North American psychologists, sociologists and educationalists conducted by the authors in 1984. The book also includes an analysis of the reporting on intelligence testing by the press and television in the US for the period 1969–1983, as well as an opinion poll of 207 journalists and 86 science editors about IQ testing.
IQ and Global Inequality is a 2006 book by psychologist Richard Lynn and political scientist Tatu Vanhanen. IQ and Global Inequality is follow-up to their 2002 book IQ and the Wealth of Nations, an expansion of the argument that international differences in current economic development are due in part to differences in average national intelligence as indicated by national IQ estimates, and a response to critics. The book was published by Washington Summit Publishers, a white nationalist and eugenicist publishing group.
Timothy C. Bates is a professor of differential psychology at the University of Edinburgh. His research interests include the genetics of reading and spelling, intelligence, and personality.
The Jensen box was developed by University of California, Berkeley psychologist Arthur Jensen as an experimental apparatus for measuring choice reaction time (RT) and individual differences in intelligence.
The history of the race and intelligence controversy concerns the historical development of a debate about possible explanations of group differences encountered in the study of race and intelligence. Since the beginning of IQ testing around the time of World War I, there have been observed differences between the average scores of different population groups, and there have been debates over whether this is mainly due to environmental and cultural factors, or mainly due to some as yet undiscovered genetic factor, or whether such a dichotomy between environmental and genetic factors is the appropriate framing of the debate. Today, the scientific consensus is that genetics does not explain differences in IQ test performance between racial groups.
"How Much Can We Boost IQ and Achievement?" is a 1969 article by Arthur Jensen published in the Harvard Educational Review. Controversy over the article led to the coining of the term Jensenism, defined as the theory that IQ is largely determined by genes, including racial heritage. It is among the most controversial in American psychology, and was largely responsible for initiating the current debate over race and intelligence.
There is an emerging consensus about racial and gender equality in genetic determinants of intelligence; most researchers, including ourselves, agree that genes do not explain between-group differences.
