In our book we read about the Flynn effect. The Flynn effect is over time, the average IQ of the population will rise at a rate of about three points per decade. This suggests that, on average, our generations IQs will be a full ten to fifteen points higher than those of our grandparent's generation.
When researching the Flynn effect, I found that these results may be a result of environmental influences. When looking on the University of Indiana's website they talked about four of these environmental influences. The first one is better schooling and kids spending longer times being examined in formal educational settings. They are becoming better test takers and learning how to solve problems. The next influence is the societal changes occurring. We constantly have to process information quickly and learn how to use new technology. The third influence is better nutrition worldwide. When people are better fed, the cases of severe malnutrition declines, and kids are better able to focus on learning. The final environmental influence is home life. Parents are spending more time with their kids and helping them to become better problem solvers and provide their kids with resources to help them learn better.
I thought it was really interesting learning about the Flynn effect. It makes a lot of sense to me that all of those environment influences increase our IQ from generation to generation. The video I talks a little more about the Flynn effect and I was really surprised by their fact that someone that took an IQ test a hundred years ago and was in the top ten percent would be in the bottom five percent today.
http://www.indiana.edu/~intell/flynneffect.shtml
Wow that was a really informative video. That stat that you mentioned from the video is almost mind boggling. The smartest 10% of people 100 years ago are now in the bottom 5%. If the top 10% of 100 years ago are now in the bottom 5%, I wonder where ancient civilizations like the Mayans, who came up with the calender, would have ranked?