Thursday, December 13, 2018

Data: Among East Asians, are lighter-skinned people smarter than darker ones?

Three times in a row (for Hispanics, whites, and Asian Indians), I've shown that the lighter skinned members of a group tend to be smarter than darker members.

I now find the same pattern for a small sample of East Asians born in the US (n = 24). The correlation between darkness and IQ (based on a vocabulary test) is -.16 -- a small effect.

Note: A potential confound occurs to me. Do lower IQ people spend more time in the sun?  With larger samples, it might make sense to look at the sexes specifically.  Lower IQ men might work outside more, but I wouldn't expect this for low IQ women. 

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