Genetics, not upbringing, main influencer in a childs IQ, study says
Posted: October 30, 2014 at 7:52 pm
Published October 30, 2014
Can parents make their kids smarter? New research published in the journal Intelligence suggests they cant influence intelligence at least beyond their genetic contribution.
To answer the oft-asked question, professors at Florida State University, the University of Nebraska, West Illinois University, King Abdulaziz in Saudi Arabia, and Erasmus University in the Netherlands used an adoption-based research design.
The study authors drew participants from a representative sample of between 5,500-7,000 non-adopted youth and a sample of between 250-300 adopted children from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health.
Researchers first administered a Picture Vocabulary Test (PVT) to middle and high school students and then repeated the test when the participants were between the ages of 18 and 26. The PVT served as an IQ test in which participants had to identify photos of people, places and things. Researchers also analyzed their parents behaviors.
Researchers found that parental socialization had no detectable influence on childrens intelligence later in life.
Previous research that has detected parenting-related behaviors affect intelligence is perhaps incorrect because it hasnt taken into account genetic transmission, study author Kevin Beaver, a criminology professor at FSU, said in a press release.
Some studies suggest that parents who interact with their kids over family dinners or by reading them bedtimes stories can boost their childrens IQ, while other research suggests that childrens IQs are only a product of their genetics.
Analyzing children who shared no DNA with their adoptive parents eliminated the possibility that parental socialization influenced a childs intelligence.
In previous research, it looks as though parenting is having an effect on child intelligence, but in reality the parents who are more intelligent are doing these things and it is masking the genetic transformation of intelligence to their children, Beaver said.
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Genetics, not upbringing, main influencer in a childs IQ, study says