Hive mind: how your nation’s IQ matters so much more than your own?

"THIS ISN’T A BOOK ABOUT HOW TO RAISE IQ: it’s a book about the benefits of raising IQ. And a higher IQ helps in ways you might not have realized: on average, people who do better on standardized tests are more patient, are more cooperative, and have better memories.

But while dozens of studies by psychologists and economists have established these links, few researchers have connected the dots to ask what this means for entire nations. And since average test scores vary across nations—whether we’re talking about math tests, literacy tests, or IQ tests—an overall rise in national test scores likely means a rise in the number of more patient, more cooperative, and better-informed citizens.

This in turn means that higher national test scores will probably matter in ways too big to ignore. And if education researchers and public health officials can find reliable ways to raise national test scores, productivity and prosperity will rise where poverty and disease now flourish.You can get a sense of how big these effects are by looking across countries: nations that do the best on standardized tests—nations such as Singapore and Finland—usually have governments that are reasonably free of corruption; have decent roads and bridges; and have plenty of private investment in office buildings, factories, and homes. China does well on standardized tests, and particularly in the post-Mao decades, the nation’s economy has grown rapidly.

The high test scores in these countries are a sign that their citizens have the cognitive skills, the human capital, to take on the complexity of a modern economy.By contrast, nations where test scores are average or lower tend to be the kinds of places where people have to bribe government bureaucrats to get things done, whether it’s the school principal, the bureaucrat at the driver’s license office, or the congressman’s brother-in-law. And even if you don’t have to bribe the government, it’s a good bet that the government will be inefficient, sluggish less than competent.

Nations with lower average test scores are usually tough places to take on complex, costly private investment projects, since skilled workers and twenty-four-hour-a-day electricity are hard to come by. Lower-scoring nations aren’t places that appeal to international investors, and so private investment tends to drift away. The long-run result of lower test scores? It’s often a mixture of rickety bridges, decrepit buildings, slower Internet connections, and less prosperity.

On average, nations with test scores in the bottom 10 percent worldwide are only about one-eighth as rich and productive as nations with scores in the top 10 percent.Outside of a few countries with abundant natural resources, the most important productive asset in each nation is the human mind. And while standardised tests can’t tell us everything about how productive the mind is, the tests can tell us more than you might think.

Boosting broad mental skills boosts a nation’s prosperity, and while standardized tests are obviously not perfect—no statistic ever is—they are a good way to measure those skills."

#intelligence #IQ