Thirty years of research on race differences in cognitive ability.

2005/04/19 by J. Philippe Rushton, Arthur R. Jensen · 9 citations
Psychology · Social Sciences · #Cognitive Abilities and Testing #Intergenerational and Educational Inequality Studies #Cultural Differences and Values

paper · doi:10.1037/1076-8971.11.2.235

openalex publication_date 2005/04/19 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/04

Abstract

The culture-only (0 % genetic–100 % environmental) and the hereditarian (50% genetic–50 % environmental) models of the causes of mean Black–White differences in cognitive ability are compared and contrasted across 10 categories of evidence: the worldwide distribution of test scores, g factor of mental ability, heritability, brain size and cognitive ability, transracial adoption, racial admixture, regression, related life-history traits, human origins research, and hypothesized environmental variables. The new evidence reviewed here points to some genetic component in Black–White differences in mean IQ. The implication for public policy is that the discrimination model (i.e., Black–White differences in socially valued outcomes will be equal barring discrimination) must be tempered by a distributional model (i.e., Black–White outcomes reflect underlying group characteristics). Section 1: Background Throughout the history of psychology, no question has been so persistent or so resistant to resolution as that of the relative roles of nature and nurture in causing individual and group differences in cognitive ability (Degler, 1991;

Citations

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Cited by

• Correlational and factor analytic support for Rushton’s differential K life history theory
• Empirical Race Psychology and the Hermeneutics of Epistemological Violence
• Wanted: More race realism, less moralistic fallacy.
• The cultural malleability of intelligence and its impact on the racial/ethnic hierarchy.
• In Defense of a Disputed Study of Construct Validity from South Africa
• John Philippe Rushton, 1943–2012
• Fractionating Human Intelligence
• History of Behavior Genetics
• J. Philippe Rushton [wikipedia]