Breaking News….America makes you dumb
There’s link for the study: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886922001477
Personality traits, mental abilities and other individual differences: Monozygotic female twins raised apart in South Korea and the United States by Nancy L. Segal and Yoon-Mi Hur
It is literally a case study with a single pair of subjects. At first I thought the OP pop sci article was just focusing in on one pair of participants of many. Most of the discussions in threads here seem wholly unwarranted. There are loads of random factors that affect people’s development, many of which can’t realistically be measured in a study. Maybe one of them happened to become friends with with a classmate that’s really into literature and so they started reading a lot! Maybe they are both sensitive to sounds, but only one of them happens to live near an airport, disrupting their sleep at night.
It is not surprising that one particular set of monozygotic twins happens to markedly differ with respect to some traits. There are always outliers in large twin studies too, and researchers don’t usually get that hung up about them because everyone knows there are countless factors involved. To be able to have any certainty about the effects of a particular factor you need scale that lets you separate them from the random noise. It’s just basic statistics, like what is even anyone doing here. The study itself does make sense, but should be interpreted as extremely exploratory in nature, not something to draw any conclusions from. IMO the researchers themselves are irresponsible in this regard, as they speculate much more than what’s warranted in the discussion and conclusions sections. Like, one of their conclusions is “They [the twins] also show that cultural climates can modify values.”. First, that is something already widely known and accepted, but second and more importantly, that is not the kind of statement you should make based on a single pair of subjects.
@fne8w2ah environment shapes our behavior.
Especially if that environment includes head trauma.
Yes, but, IQ isn’t expected to be that much influenced by behavior.
source: My partner is a psychologist and sometimes I listen
Was the one raised in the U.S. around lead at some point?
No, but she had three concussions
What kind of concussions? Knocked out, bleeding from the head, and forced to stay in bed for a few days, or ran head first into door/wall/table and started crying with a mild headache?
I feel there’s a start difference between those two, and the article doesn’t appear to specify.
Every time my siblings or I had anything anyone considered a concussion. They couldn’t walk in a straight line, were throwing up when standing up. My sister got a concussion from a bad go-cart crash (it went through the barrier and fake wall). She was shaky on her feet for 3days, and had bad bruising all over her face. My brother fell head first over a raised porch railing into rocks, about 5ft. They had to glue the skin back together on his forehead because they couldn’t sew it the edges wouldn’t meet. Ever since he’s plagued by migraines especially when his sinuses are full. I was doing backflips on a trampoline, landed in the “cannon ball” position on the back of my neck/head. This slammed my right knee into my eye socket, giving me a spectacular black eye. But nearly immediately I got intense vertigo, nausea. If I closed my eyes it felt like I was falling, but I felt so tired. This lasted the rest of the day and I had be injured before noon.
Sure my mom might dramatically call a toddlers spill a concussion. But I my experience she only remembers that for like a week maybe. What she remembers and tells doctors and others about years later are the bleeding throwing up kind. Not saying I can tell she had serious concussions, just it would be really weird to report a little head bump and bruise for this kind of thing.
If anyone else is wondering why their faces on the image are not identical: its a representative stock pic
With america being the shitshow that it is I am not surprised
I do hope she could move back and get the support of the family in South Korea because she shouldn’t have to live in that sithole anymore
Look at what Americans consume. There’s your answer.
yeah, totally not the concussions.
Irrelavant but awesome: DJ Format - Separated at Birth (if you ever played with old school hot wheels cars, this is your wet dream…)
neat video, but the beat was annoying and didnt seem to have any variance, had to watch
Lmao at all of the nationalists post-hoccing away at shitty explanations as to why the US isn’t just a dumb as a brick nation.
why the US isn’t just a dumb as a brick nation
The US isn’t just a dumb as a brick nation. We’re immersed in historic and environmental factors that are engineered to segregate who has access to intellectual capital and who is tracked into jobs that discourage free thinking.
Yeah people don’t realize IQ is relative to education. If you cut education you get dumber people on average.
This website’s use of stock images and gifs were aggravating. The actual case study was worth the read, but only covers a single pair of individuals: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886922001477
It’s certainly interesting. I’m particularly curious about the effects of the multiple confusions:
US had three concussions as an adult, caused by car accidents and from falling on ice. The most recent and severe incident occurred in January 2018, resulting in classic symptoms of light sensitivity and concentration difficulty. US feels she is a “different person,” with increased anger and anxiety. She requires additional time to process information in some problem-solving situations, although she has always seen herself as a poor test taker.
Some of the conclusions seemed a stretch for a single sample. I’m much more curious about more extensive studies with many more subjects.
Gotta say as someone who experienced traumatic brain injury I also feel like I’m a different person, and not as bright as I used to be. The doctors estimate I lost somewhere on the order of 15-20% of whatever that was.
Exactly, there’s a lot of different factors that can affect cognition.
The article is trash, especially with the added stock photos. Use the source link instead
What about the education systems? One of those two countries are heavily denying basic science at schools, teaching creationism as something at the same level as evolutionism, letting religion pollute education, banning books from schools, teaching obsolete two genders theory, etc. Is the study short about the differences in education?
Its a side effect about the differences in education. IQ is relative to the population and education, they slightly increase it to keep the average around 100. The average person 100 years ago had 30 less IQ points, because education and child nutrition were non existent. Cut those things and your average person reverts back.
Other countries have only gotten better, the US has just gotten worse.
they slightly increase it to keep the average around 100
They don’t “slightly increase it to keep the average around 100.” The average is defined as 100. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_score https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IQ_classification
My explanation is for laymen, 100 in 2025 is not the same 100 in 1925, my point.
What about the education systems?
Education, sure. But also environment, nutrition, and stress/trauma.
The US is polluted with heavy metals, our food is awful, and we regularly put residents (particularly young people) in extremely traumatic situations. All of that stunts intellectual development.
This summer, they’re gonna get their parents back together!
Manga authors “write that down write that down!”
Manhwa*
16 points, so about a standard deviation. That’s big, but your own varience can be just as high; the original point of IQ is a measure of how well you’ll do in school to detect who may need additional attention (and not an inherent intelligence) so later aged tests include more on knowledge base while earlier tests are more about things like pattern recognition, mental rotation, etc. Infact, it has to get recurved regularly as each generation tends to be roughly 10 or 15 points higher (although idk about gen Z).
All this is to say that a slump of 16 points doesn’t have to be shit like lead poisoning or gas fumes (although that certainly doesn’t help, and pollution matters), it can simply be the US education system isn’t good at teaching students. Cross culture studies already show that, as do differences between the rich and the poor. Or hell, just playing Tetris raises IQ, lol.
It’d obviously help if this wasn’t a click bait article, though. People wanting to know why need to read a lot of actual research to know the myriad of different things that impact IQ and not just “haha US stupid.”
although idk about gen Z
💀
I technically meant that in regards to not seeing the research lately, but… lol
I thought it was hilarious, can’t lie. But I don’t think gen Z (or alpha, or beta, or whatever gen is the currently self-aware one) are unintelligent, I just think they have shit influence. Parents need to stay extra vigilant in this age.
Real talk the main driver of advances are usually healthier environments, better nutrition and access to knowledge (e g. Via tech). I don’t think Z or alphas are getting better in those regards, kind of inheriting the opposite.
You might be right on that, indeed. At least some countries are backpedaling hard on all of the above right now.
The article says 7 points is standard in twins. So this is over twice what is normally seen
