Spearman’s Hypothesis Tested on Black Adults: A Meta-Analysis

Abstract

Blacks generally score significantly lower on intelligence tests than Whites. Spearman's hypothesis predicts that there will be large Black/White differences on subtests of high cognitive complexity, and smaller Black/White differences on subtests of lower cognitive complexity. Spearman's hypothesis tested on samples of Blacks and Whites has consistently been confirmed in many studies on children and adolescents, but there are many fewer studies on adults. We carried out a meta-analysis where we collected the existing tests of Spearman's hypothesis on adults and collected additional datasets on Black and White adults that could be used to test Spearman's hypothesis. Our meta-analytical search resulted in a total of 10 studies with a total of 15 datapoints, with participants numbering 251,085 Whites and 22,326 Blacks in total. For all these data points, the correlation between the loadings of a general factor that is manifested in individual differences on all mental tests, regardless of content (g) and standardized group differences was computed. The analysis of all 15 data points yields a mean vector correlation of 0.57. Spearman's hypothesis is confirmed comparing Black and White adults. The differences between Black and White adults are strongly in line with those previously found for children and adults; however, because of lack of access to the original data, we could not test for measurement invariance.

Spearman’s hypothesis tested comparing Korean young adults with various other groups of young adults on the items of the Advanced Progressive Matrices

“…Criticism of MCV at the level of subtests: Schönemann (1997) MCV has been criticized by Schönemann (1997) as necessarily generating positive correlations. The present authors strongly disagree with the position taken in Schönemann (1997), and would even argue that there is strong consensus among researchers publishing on MCV that this paper has been refuted (see also te Nijenhuis & van den Hoek, 2016). First, the position that MCV automatically leads to positive correlations has been strongly undermined empirically.…”

“…For instance, te Nijenhuis et al (2016c) showed strong support for Spearman's hypothesis by comparing the scores of ethnic Dutch and non-Western immigrants. Recent meta-analyses also confirmed Spearman's hypothesis for Amerindians (te Nijenhuis et al, 2015d) and Black adults (te Nijenhuis & van den Hoek, 2016). Spearman's hypothesis has been confirmed in comparisons between sub-races as well: for instance, non-Jewish Whites versus Jews in the US, and European Jews versus Oriental Jews in Israel (te Nijenhuis et al, 2014a).…”

“…Second, in a classic paper in Multivariate Behavioral Research,Dolan (1997) clearly showed that Schönemann's refutation was simply incorrect on statistical grounds. In sum, Schönemann's paper has been refuted, both empirically and statistically (teNijenhuis & van den Hoek, 2016).…”

Biogeographic Ancestry, Cognitive Ability and Socioeconomic Outcomes

“…A number of studies have addressed the issue of the association between genetic ancestry and cognitive ability in more indirect ways (e.g., [8]). A popular approach involves testing Spearman's hypothesis, which posits that the magnitude of measured cognitive ability gaps between BGAs is a function of the g loadings of the test instruments (studies generally support Spearman's hypothesis; see [89][90][91]). The extent to which g moderates the magnitude of inter-BGA cognitive ability gaps may be relevant insofar as the g loadings of tests potentially correlate perfectly with their heritabilities [92].…”

Spearman’s Hypothesis Tested Comparing 47 Regions of Japan Using a Sample of 18 Million Children

“…There has been criticism of Jensen's test of Spearman's hypothesis [25][26][27][28], and detailed replies to these critics can be found in various articles [29][30][31], to which we refer the reader. Woodley et al conclude that if one combines MCV with psychometric meta-analysis then one is able to correct for statistical artifacts.…”