Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Even more on IQ and crime: The discussion on the relationship between intelligence and illegality has been interesting. One reason, apart from the GSS data, why I'm skeptical about the claim that IQ is a powerful determinant of criminal behavior is that it does not pass my basic test for any theory of crime: is it consistent with the two risk factors we are most certain about--gender and age. Males are much more criminal than females, but they are not more stupid. Youthfulness is one of the best predictors of street crime, but IQ doesn't grow with age, rather it drops off slowly.

I was also interested in calculating the correlation between IQ and thinking that cheating on taxes is wrong (1=not all, 4=very wrong). It turns out to be .11 for whites, consistent with other analyses I have seen: the correlation is reliable but weak.
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1 comment:

  1. Dennis Mangan8:21 PM

    OK, but the majority of young males don't commit crimes (I think.) Maybe it's proportionately more stupid, young males who do.

    ReplyDelete

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