A place at the policy table? Behavior genetics and estimates of family environmental effects on IQ

Factor structure of intelligence and divergent thinking subtests: A registered report

Psychologists have investigated creativity for 70 years, and it is now seen as being an important construct, both scientifically and because of its practical value to society. However, several fundamental unresolved problems persist, including a suitable definition of creativity and the ability of psychometric tests to measure divergent thinking—an important component of creativity—in a way that aligns with theory. It is this latter point that this registered report is designed to address. We administered two divergent thinking tests (the verbal and figural versions of the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking; TTCT) with an intelligence test (the International Cognitive Ability Resource test; ICAR). We then subjected the subscores from these tests to confirmatory factor analysis to examine which of nine theoretically plausible models best fits the data. Results show that none of the pre-registered models fit the data well, an ambiguous result that leaves unanswered the question of whether intelligence and divergent thinking tests measure the same construct. Exploratory (i.e., not pre-registered) measurement models of each test separately shows that the TTCT-F may not measure a coherent, unitary construct—leading to model misspecification when TTCT-F subtests were included in larger models. This study was conducted in accordance with all open science practices, including pre-registration, open data and syntax, and open materials (with the exception of copyrighted and confidential test stimuli). Materials are available at https://osf.io/8rpfz/.

Factor structure of intelligence and divergent thinking subtests: A registered report

Psychologists have investigated creativity for 70 years, and it is now seen as being an important construct, both scientifically and because of its practical value to society. However, several fundamental unresolved problems persist, including a suitable definition of creativity and the ability of psychometric tests to measure divergent thinking—an important component of creativity—in a way that aligns with theory. It is this latter point that this registered report is designed to address. We propose to administer two divergent thinking tests (the verbal and figural versions of the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking; TTCT) with an intelligence test (the International Cognitive Ability Resource test; ICAR). We will then subject the subscores from these tests to confirmatory factor analysis to test which of nine theoretically plausible models best fits the data. When this study is completed, we hope to better understand whether the degree to which the TTCT and ICAR measure distinct constructs. This study will be conducted in accordance with all open science practices, including pre-registration, open data and syntax, and open materials (with the exception of copyrighted and confidential test stimuli).

Understanding how family socioeconomic status mediates the maternal intelligence-child cognitive outcomes relationship: a moderated mediation analysis

In a model of moderated mediation using matched data from the 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth and the 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, Children and Young Adults, I test (1) whether family socioeconomic status (SES) mediates the maternal intelligence-child cognitive outcomes relationship and (2) the extent to which this mediating impact is dependent on the level of maternal intelligence. Results reveal that the mediating impact of SES on the maternal intelligence-child cognitive outcomes relationship varies as a function of the level of maternal intelligence. The positive effect of higher SES on children's academic ability decreases as the cognitive ability of mothers increases, such that children in low IQ households benefit most from higher SES, while children in high IQ households benefit somewhat less.

Intelligence: is it the epidemiologists' elusive "fundamental cause" of social class inequalities in health?

Virtually all indicators of physical health and mental competence favor persons of higher socioeconomic status (SES). Conventional theories in the social sciences assume that the material disadvantages of lower SES are primarily responsible for these inequalities, either directly or by inducing psychosocial harm. These theories cannot explain, however, why the relation between SES and health outcomes (knowledge, behavior, morbidity, and mortality) is not only remarkably general across time, place, disease, and kind of health system but also so finely graded up the entire SES continuum. Epidemiologists have therefore posited, but not yet identified, a more general "fundamental cause" of health inequalities. This article concatenates various bodies of evidence to demonstrate that differences in general intelligence (g) may be that fundamental cause.