Richard Lynn's Massaged IQ Data

Richard Lynn's Massaged IQ Data

Anyone who uses Richard Lynn's national IQ values should be aware that this data is "massaged"; either that, or Lynn doesn't know elementary arithmetic. Of course, I did not have time to go through all of the studies referenced by Lynn, so I manually checked his reported numbers from Buj (1981), a study on national European IQ levels, which I have personally read when writing my Greek and European IQ page.

The first column below are the original numbers from Buj (1981) taken from [1] and cross-checked against my own reading of the original paper. The second column are the numbers reported in IQ and the Wealth of Nations. Lynn rounds most numbers to the closest integer, but Italy's score is rounded down (0.8->0), Austria's score is rounded down (0.5->0), Ireland's score is "rounded" up (0.2->1), Norway's score is 1.8 lower than the real one, Greece's score is 2.4 lower than the one reported by Buj (1981). All in all, 5 errors in 19 numbers from a single study.


Holland 109.4 109 rounded
Germany 109.3 109 rounded
Poland 108.3 108 rounded
Sweden 105.8 106 rounded
Italy 103.8 103 truncated
Austria 103.5 103 truncated
Switzerland 102.8 103 rounded
Portugal 102.6 103 rounded
Norway 101.8 100 -1.8
Denmark 100.7 101 rounded
Hungary 100.5 101 rounded
Czechoslovakia 100.4 100 rounded
Spain 100.3 100 rounded
Belgium 99.7 100 rounded
Greece 99.4 97 -2.4
Ireland 99.2 100 +0.8
Finland 98.1 98 rounded
Bulgaria 96.3 96 rounded
France 96.1 96 rounded

[1] http://members.shaw.ca/delajara/NationalIQs.html

Buj, V., 1981, Average IQ values in various European countries, Personality and Individual Differences, 2, 168-169.

Season of birth and sensation seeking

Season of birth and sensation seeking

I had previously posted about a study (American Journal of Human Biology, 16(1): 31 - 42) which found a month-of-birth effect in height and weight for Polish school children. This new study indicates that psychological makeup is also affected by the season in which one is born.
Personality and Individual Differences (Article in Press)
Season of birth variation in sensation seeking in an adult population
Carol Joinson et al.
Abstract
Previous research has identified a relationship between season of birth and level of novelty seeking (Chotai, Lundberg, & Adolfsson, 2003). The current study investigates whether level of sensation seeking is also related to birth season in individuals from the Northern Hemisphere. Participants were 448 students of The Open University, UK (125 males, 323 females, age range 20–69 years, mean = 39.2, SD = 9.8). The Sensation Seeking Scale V and a demographic questionnaire including month of birth were completed by participants either on the World-Wide Web (n = 284) or on paper (n = 164). A significant interaction of age and season of birth on level of sensation seeking was found, similar to previous findings for novelty seeking. Individuals aged 20–45 years born during October to March had a higher level of sensation seeking than those of the same age born in the other six months, while the opposite association was found for individuals aged 46–69 years. Results suggest an age-related difference in level of sensation seeking between individuals born during different seasons. Possible reasons for the seasonal difference are discussed, including development of the sensation seeking trait across the lifespan in relation to dopamine turnover.
Link