Asian Americans: Achievement Beyond IQ [1 ed.] 0805811109, 9780805811100

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Asian Americans Achievement Beyond IQ

James R. Flynn University of Otago

[EA 1991

LAWRENCE ERLBAUM Hillsdale, New Jersey

ASSOCIATES, PUBLISHERS Hove and London

Copyright © 1991 by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by photostat, microform, retrieval system, or any other means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., Publishers

365 Broadway Hillsdale, New Jersey 07642

ISBN 0-8058-1110-9 LC Card No. 91-28166

Printed in the United States of America

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10

To the memory of Philip Ewart Vernon “‘,.. from standing on the shoulders of giants”

Contents

Acknowledgments/xi

1

THE ICE AGES AND THE SINO-JAPANESE BRAIN Lynn and Evolution 2 The Viability of Environmentalism 7 The American Natural Aristocracy Vernon and Chinese IQ 14

Organization and Contents

1

12

15

2

THE THREE GREAT NATIONAL SURVEYS _ 16 Exclusion and Relocation: 1918-1949 Early Studies

17

17

Honolulu 1938 18 Wyoming 1943-1945 20 Acculturation and Progress: 1950-1971 22 The Coleman Report 22 Project Talent 25 The Ethnic Minorities Research Project 28 Summary 31

viii

CONTENTS

3

ELEVEN STUDIES FROM VARIOUS LOCALES 32 Kauai Island 1965-1966 32 Berkeley, The University 1966 34 Berkeley , The Schools 1968 37 Los Angeles 1969-1970

Hawaii 1960 43

The Chinese San San The New

40

in Transition: 1972-1975 Francisco 1972 48 Francisco 1975 49 Asians: 1976-1985 52

A Western City 1977 53 Psychology Classes 1975-1979 Westown 1985 57 Summary 60

4

MEASURING

BETWEEN

THE

55

GAP

IQ AND ACHIEVEMENT Ranking IQ Studies 61

Chinese and Japanese IQ 62 Chinese Versus Japanese IQ 65 IQ and Occupation 66 IQ and Income

73

The IQ/Achievement Gap 77

5

THE TWO FACTORS OF OVERACHIEVEMENT Occupation Revisited 79 Achievement Tests

78

81

The Scholastic Aptitude Test 84

The National Longitudinal Study 87 Graduate Tests 88 University Entrance and Grades

92

Academic Success and Failure 95 The Class of 1966

98

Hypotheses and Evidence

100

46

61

CONTENTS —

6

THE PROBABLE AND THE TENTATIVE Population Mean IQs

102

102

The Classification of Tests 109 1Q/Occupational Achievement Gaps 110

The Threshold and Capitalization Factors 110 The Limits of the Tentative 111

7 BEYOND GENES AND IQ 112 IQ and Sino-Japanese Genes 112 IQ and Group Achievement 115 Explaining Group Achievement 125 The History of Three Groups 138

8

SETTING

THE

EPILOGUE RECORD STRAIGHT

APPENDIX

A

142

APPENDIX

B_

144

References Author

Index

Subject Index

147 156

160

140

ix

Acknowledgments

The author's greatest debt is to Philip E. Vernon, that Columbus who explored the IQ and achievements of Chinese and Japanese Americans with so much intelligence and thoroughness. Vernon had only one limitation. He could not know what would only be known in the future: that these groups

had inflated IQ scores because of obsolete norms.

Those who deserve thanks divide into the heroic and the very helpful. The first category includes Robert Gardner of the East-West Center who met literally dozens of requests for data; Stephen Goodell who unlocked the resources of the Library of Congress; Arthur Jensen who was persistently cooperative in the best traditions of scholarship; Thomas Sowell who not only supplied raw data but also, through his published works, influenced my overall approach to explaining group achievement. The second includes many. Richard Lynn criticized the entire manuscript and Robert Gordon raised objections to a paper summarizing its contents. Nicholas Mackintosh made several valuable comments. George Mayeske, William W. Cooley, Ronald Flaughter, Arthur A. Dole, Lawrence H. Stewart, and John Raven supplied data about various IQ studies. Christopher Jencks provided instruction about the relationship between IQ and income. Michael Levin of the US Census Bureau and Alex von Cube of the Population Reference Bureau supplied demographic data. As usual, the staff of the Educational Testing Service was both helpful and generous, Eleanor V. Horne, Barbara

Hillhouse, Donald A. Rock, Paula Knepper. Finally, all elegance of format is due to my colleague Ramesh Thakur, the fidelity of the text to Betty Larkins and Jeanette Bonar. James R. Flynn January 1, 1991

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Il The Ice Ages

and the Sino-Japanese Brain

This book shows that Asian Americans, particularly Chinese and Japanese

Americans, achieve far beyond what their mean IQ would lead us to expect. For example, the post-war generation of Chinese Americans, those born from 1945 to 1949, had a mean IQ of 98.5 with Whites set at 100. But their achievements in terms of education, occupation, and income

suggest an

estimated IQ about 21 points higher than their actual IQ. This huge IQ/achievement gap partitions into a threshold factor and a capitalization factor. Chinese Americans have a lower IQ threshold for entry into higher education and high-status occupations, that is, they can gain entry with a minimum IQ 7 points lower than White Americans. Chinese Americans capitalize more effectively on their available pool of talent: 78% above the Chinese minimum actually enter high-status occupations, as opposed to only 60% of Whites, which accounts for the remaining 14 points of their IQ/achievement gap. Japanese Americans overachieve in terms of their mean IQ by about 10 points, with 3 points due to lower IQ thresholds and 7 points due to a higher capitalization rate than Whites. The preliminary data on Filipino Americans suggest a mean IQ well below Whites but achievements that have begun to approach those of Whites. Our primary objective is to provide evidence that Asian Americans achieve far beyond the bounds of IQ. But the fact that Chinese and

2

ASIAN AMERICANS

Japanese Americans have mean IQs below Whites, or no higher than Whites, creates a secondary objective.

It casts doubt on theories that the Sino-

Japanese peoples possess some sort of genetic superiority for IQ, or perhaps intelligence, or perhaps both. This brief introduction will take on substance as we proceed and is merely meant to arouse interest. This may have been unnecessary. There are probably as many reasons for interest in Asian Americans as there are people interested in any social problem at all. My interest came from three sources: the spectacular achievements of Asians

who emigrated to the United States and became Asian Americans; skepticism about theories which claim that the mean IQs of American ethnic groups determine their fate; skepticism about evolutionary theories which claim that Chinese and Japanese are genetically superior for intelligence.

LYNN

AND

EVOLUTION

Richard Lynn (1987b) has produced the most detailed theory concerning the evolution of Sino-Japanese intelligence. My account of Lynn’s theory attempts to solve a problem we will encounter more than once, namely, finding substitutes for terms once purely descriptive now regarded as

pejorative. For example, wherever Lynn used “Mongoloid” I have substituted “Sino-Japanese”. My apologies to Lynn but I believe both his work and mine will get a better reading as a result. Lynn focused on those peoples whose original habitat was Northeast Asia, north of the Himalayas and east of the Urals, essentially the Chinese and Japanese. His theory unfolds in four steps. First, he argued that when compared to Whites, Chinese and Japanese have higher general intelligence, something he identified with the general intelligence factor measured by

global IQ tests, plus a peculiar combination of higher nonverbal IQ and lower verbal IQ. Second, he argued that the IQ differences between SinoJapanese and other races cannot be explained environmentally but should be regarded as substantially genetically programmed. Third, he proposed that the ice ages provide an evolutionary explanation of the genetic differences that set the Chinese and Japanese apart, both physically and mentally. Fourth, he provided a model for the Sino-Japanese brain which posits that the cortex devoted to nonverbal abilities has expanded at the expense of the cortex devoted to verbal abilities.

ICE AGES & SINO-JAPANESE

3

Rise and Fall of Japanese IQ The controversy over whether Japanese have higher IQs than Whites began

13 years ago. Lynn (1977) argued that when scored against Americans with IQ set at 100, Japan had a mean IQ of 106.6, believed to be the highest IQ

ever recorded for a national population. A few years later, Lynn (1982) scored the sample used to standardize the Japanese Wechsler Intelligence

Scale for Children - Revised (WISC-R) against the American sample and

moved his estimate upward: Japan's mean IQ now stood at 111. Since that time reanalysis plus new data has reduced that estimate by some 5 to 10 points. Flynn (1983) argued that the scores of the Japanese WISC-R sample had been inflated by a number of factors. Lynn had used only five performance subtests in his comparison and including results from two verbal subtests cost one point, Lynn was supposedly comparing Japanese with Whites and yet the American WISC-R sample included both Whites and other races. Scoring the Japanese against only the White members of the WISC-R sample cost another two points. Finally, White Americans had gained about one point between 1972, when they were tested, and 1975, when the Japanese were tested, so that had to be deducted as well. Lynn accepted these deductions which totalled 4.4 IQ points. He then did something of great significance, that is, he expanded his comparison of Japanese with White Americans to cover fully 11 Wechsler subtests, five verbal and six performance (Lynn & Hampson, 1986). Later one performance subtest (Coding) had to be dropped because it was discovered that Japanese children

had been given less time for their responses. The inclusion of a full range of verbal subtests showed that Japanese were actually below White Americans for verbal IQ and, since full scale IQ combines the verbal and performance

scores, their overall WISC-R IQ now fell to 103.4. It should be noted that

verbal and performance (or nonverbal) tests are quite different. The former test for things

like general

information,

verbal

comprehension,

word

similarities, vocabulary, and arithmetic. The latter for the ability to create a story out of pictures, see what is missing in an incomplete picture, build a design out of blocks, solve jigsaw puzzles, and code numbers,

Table 1.1 shows how the Japanese WISC-R standardization sample of

1975, children aged from 6 to 16 years, did when scored against American norms with the American mean JQ set at 100. It is based on 10 subtests and spells out the appropriate adjustments that must be made to get a fair comparison, both those that are agreed upon and those in dispute. The values

4

ASIAN AMERICANS TABLE 1.1 Japanese WISC-R Standardization Sample: IQs when scored against American norms I

Performance Verbal Full Scale

114.6 99.2 106.2

Il 112.0 97.6 104.3

Il 111.0 96.8 103.4

IV 108.8 94.6 101.2

Vv 106.8 92.6 99.2