How geography influences complex cognitive ability

Latitudinal gradients as scientific tools for psychologists

It is an unmistakable fact of life that animals and plants function differently at lower and higher latitudes with distinct temperatures and rainfall. No less unmistakable are the opposite directions of these latitudinal gradients above and below the equator. Therefore, it would be surprising if there were no opposite north-south gradients in human functioning in the northern and southern hemispheres. And indeed, recent publications and projects have started to validate, integrate, and explain such north-south gradients in cognitive ability, creativity, ingroup-outgroup dynamics, aggressiveness, life satisfaction, and individualism versus collectivism. Our brief review of these contemporary trends cumulates into a latitudinal-tools matrix for further integration and sophistication of the latitude-related ecology of habitual mindsets and practices.

Race as Social Construct

It is often claimed that race is a social construct and that scientists studying race differences are disruptive racists. The recent April 2018 “Race Issue” of the widely distributed National Geographic Magazine (NG) provided its millions of readers with a particularly illustrative example of this position. As discussions of race issues often recur, in both scientific and lay literature, stir considerable polemics, and have political, societal and human implications, we found it of both scientific and general interest to identify and dissect the following partly overlapping key contentions of the NG race issue magazine: (1) Samuel Morton’s studies of brain size is reprehensible racism (2) Race does not relate to geographic location, (3) Races do not exist as we are all equals and Africans, (4) Admixture and displacement erase race differences as soon as they appear, and (5) Race is only skin color deep. Also examined is the claim that Race does not matter. When analyzed within syllogistic formalism, each of the claims is found theoretically and empirically unsustainable, as Morton’s continuously evolving race position is misrepresented, race relates significantly to geography, we are far from equals, races have definitely not been erased, and race, whether self-reported or defined by ancestry, lineage, ecotype, species, or genes, is much more than skin color deep. Race matters vitally for people and societies. We conclude that important research on existing population differences is hurt when widely respected institutions such as NG mobilize their full authority in a massively circulated attempt to betray its scientific and public readership by systematically misrepresenting historical sources and scientific positions, shaming past scientists, and by selectively suppressing unwanted or unacceptable results–acts included as examples of academic fraud by the National Academy of Sciences (US, 1986). Any unqualified a priori denial of the formative evolutionary aspects of individual and population differences threatens to impede the recent promising research on effects of genome wide allelic associations, which would lames us in the vital quest to develop rational solutions to associated globally pressing societal problems.

TOWARDS BETTER MANAGEMENT OF PRIVATE EDUCATION IN INDONESIA: LESSONS LEARNED FROM MUHAMMADIYAH SCHOOLS

Purpose: This study aims to examine problems related to the existing education management in Muhammadiyah schools in Indonesia. Methodology: The present study is qualitative research, data obtained from observation, interview, and documentation. The results of the study show that Muhammadiyah, one of the private and independent institutions, has engaged in various fields, among which one of them is education. It has more than 4500 elementary, middle, and senior high schools spreading throughout Indonesia. In addition, the situations and conditions of education management at the Muhammadiyah School have different characteristics with public schools run by the government. Results: The results of the study can be used to increase the quality of education, which directly affects other public schools. Implications: The present research can help schools to provide the best educational services and produce competent and competitive graduates. Novelty: This research has focused on the Muhammadiyah Schools, particularly its management and administration approach.

Lynn's r/k selection theory of criminality revisited: Consideration of individual differences and developmental life history contributions to the patterning of population differences in antagonistic social strategies

We revisit an old theory proposed by Lynn, connecting race differences in criminality and psychopathy with r/k selection. The origin of this group-difference is attributed to cold-selection in the Pleistocene. We contend that newer models of Life History Theory provide a better rubric within which to evaluate Lynn's arguments as a) they better account for the adaptive logic of the coherence pattern among the traits characteristic of so-called 'psychopathic personality', b) provide a normatively free language with which group differences in behavior can be described, and c) make predictions at the level of both the individual and intra-individual (developmental) levels, which permit the role of environmental contributions to these dispositions to be better comprehended. Thus newer approaches to understanding life history are necessarily more empirically nuanced. We also consider the merits of future, more systematic studies along the lines of Lynn's contribution.

UV Radiation Associates With State Income Through Complex Cognitive Ability in the USA

Abstract. Economic development and national intelligence decline with proximity to the equator. Absolute latitude associates with both, income and IQ, but the nature of their relationship is ambiguous. This study applied structural equation modeling using secondary data pertaining to the 48 contiguous states of the United States of America to test the hypothesis that UV (ultraviolet) radiation associates with income through complex cognitive ability vis-a-vis the hypothesis that UV radiation associates with complex cognitive ability through income. The resulting evidence was consistent with the ability → income pathway and unsupportive of the income → ability model. The findings uphold the cognitive capitalism perspective and may throw light on the evolvement of regional differences in the USA.

UV Radiation Is Associated With Latitudinal Trends in Cognitive Ability of White Children in the USA

Abstract. Temperature, geo-residential pattern of subpopulations, prevalence of infectious diseases, and UV radiation have been proposed to explain the declining cognitive ability observed with proximity to the equator in the USA. This study tested the cognitive effects of the four variables. The results reveal that the latitudinal decline of cognitive ability is strongly correlated with the UV Index rather than with the other variables among White children. The decline in measured cognitive ability from north to south is absent among African American and Hispanic children, plausibly because the high levels of skin melanin among these ethnic groups, by absorbing and dissipating light, prevent the occurrence of radiation’s cognitive effects among these populations at USA latitudes. The possible physiological mediators (oxidative stress, folate degradation, sexual hormones) suggest diet, family planning, and educational methods as mitigating strategies; however, specific studies measuring the mediating variables are needed to confirm their role and further strengthen UV radiation as an explanatory concept.