Any message I get that may be of general interest to visitors to the SQ web site is added to this section, along with my reply. This preserves the dialogue as a sort of FAQ (frequently asked questions). The period covered below is from April 1, 2006 and later. Click for 11/1/04 to 3/31/06 Q and A or earlier.

It has been a while since we’ve collaborated on your classroom research on SQ, in Vallejo . I would like to say thank you for including me in your letter to several school administrators, in the Vallejo Unified Schools. It was a spirited letter about Mr. Phillip Shelley skills as a classroom teacher and to be included was an honor.

Currently, I’m employed by LifeLong Medical Care as a Human Resources Generalist focusing on employee relations and have been challenged with difficult situations and individuals. Your published works and research may be instrumental to the organization’s needs and wants. Mr. Sloan, working with you and your research was a humbling experience which provided me unique skills as a HR practitioner. It would be an honor to reconnect with you to share experiences, knowledge, and ideas around SQ, Emotional Intelligence, and social skills.

Furthermore, one day, soon, I will turn a chapter of my life towards the field of education.

Sloan replies: Marsh, It's good to hear that you want to reconnect. Your picture and work with me on SQ remains a page on my website - at http://sq.4mg.com/k_target.htm That page featuring you is also a link on my History of Social Quotient - at http://sq.4mg.com/SQhistory.htm

You write that my research might be helpful to LifeLong Medical Care's needs. Perhaps you could elaborate on that, giving an example or two based on your work there. I would be happy to assist or make suggestions for you.

At present I am renting a nice place in Healdsburg CA. Before I head out to Egypt and Israel on December 5 for several months, you would be welcome to visit. We could share thoughts on social skills and related matters. These days I am in the USA just several months a year, usually at Lake Tahoe.

It is good to hear that you are still thinking of shifting to a career in education. I've always thought you would be a positive force there, and enjoy it as well. Education needs new ideas, like ours, that students can benefit from training in social skills. Research indicates that a person can improve his SQ, but that improving one's IQ is nearly impossible. Since success is built on both areas (along with ambition and energy) - why not have public schools teach in these areas as well as the traditional academics?

If higher educated people tend to have a higher Iq, and also have less children, then the average is skewed toward people who have lower iqs having more children.

Sloan replies: Michael, many people have worried that large families are more common among the lower classes - speculating that average IQ's will drop. But that seems not to have happened. Average IQ's in the USA and other wealthy countries are rising. Obamas and other talented leaders can come from all classes.

Sir, Thank you for providing such a wonderful site. I just found it a few days ago so it will take me a long time to digest its contents -- if ever. Anyway, I noticed that you gave no notice to one factor that I noticed in my many years of living (some 87 years) and that is strong religious beliefs seem to impair the ability to use logical thinking by those possessing those beliefs. It's as if they used logic in their thinking, it would jeopardize their beliefs. No logic and their beliefs are intact. Start thinking logically and they start questioning their beliefs. I wondered if you had discovered anything like this in your studies.

Sloan replies: Ernie, Thank you for your gracious compliments. I don't feel like a genius, but do seem to have a knack for explaining in ordinary language what the majority of social scientists believe. Sometimes that stirs up controversy, as with politically unpopular findings like the differences in IQ among nations and races.

Religion is another hot button topic. But until its interaction with other social matters is better understood, I prefer not to speculate on it in my website. Consider two quotes that get people riled up:

1. "Religion is the opiate of the people" - one of the most frequently quoted statements of communist writer Karl Marx. According to Marx, religion is an expression of material realities and economic injustice. Thus, problems in religion are ultimately problems in society. Religion is not the disease, but merely a symptom. It is used by oppressors to make people feel better about the distress they experience due to being poor and exploited.

2. Candidate Obama outlined challenges facing his presidential bid in the primaries of Pennsylvania and Indiana, particularly winning over white working-class voters who had fallen through the cracks in the last two presidential administrations: “So it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations,” Mr. Obama said. The remarks touched off a torrent of criticism from Mrs. Clinton, Mr. McCain and a string of Republican activists and party officials, all of whom accused Mr. Obama of elitism and belittling the working class.

The greater appeal of religion to the middle and lower classes remains a hot topic, as candidate Obama found out. Wealthy communities worldwide generally have fewer places of worship, or at least fewer that are well attended. Most high income countries, like Japan and in Western Europe, have declining attendance at religious services. Not well understood is why the United States is an exception to this wealth pattern. Similarly, there is not a satisfactory explanation of why wealthy communities worldwide in the past built so many churches and temples - quite different from today.

A review of the literature indicates that logic plays a part in most religions. The whole body of Christian ethics can be considered a logic system for how people can get along better with others. In fact, I believe that Jesus' washing the feet of his disciples was a revolutionary act of a leader acting as a servant of the people – a focal point in history of politics.

But Christianity and most other religions have much mythical or right brain aspects that do not succumb to logical analysis. For more on this, here is one reasonable analysis:

Before we dive into Mysticism proper, lets explore how the human brain/mind works. This is important to know because some religions understand God in a logical way and other religions are more intuitive or inspired in their knowledge. This will especially help us to understand God from a Buddhist or Taoist perspective. The left brain is a world of business, logic, reason and of practicality. The right brain is a world of art, emotion, intuition and of feelings. The left brain requires logical, linear, factual data to be satisfied. The right brain is more comfortable with leaps of faith, inspiration and intuition. To better understand God and how God is communicated it helps to understand that the brain/mind operates and functions on these two levels and through both we can achieve a more complete understanding of God. The best example of a right brain religion is Tao. Tao is nonsense to the logical western mind. Yet Taoism is a great sourse of mystic knowledge. Judaism is an example of a left brain religion. Ten commandments, Holy Days, clean and unclean meats, etc... The logical mind understands rules and regulations and Judaism is a very structured ordered and logical religion. All of the other religions are somewhere in between with Islam being almost as logical as Judaism and Buddhism almost as right brained as Tao. Hinduism and Christianity are balanced in the middle with Hinduism slightly more right brained and Christianity slightly more logical. from http://reluctant-messenger.com/citsym/right-left.htm

Ernie replies: Thank you for such an informative reply and I can find nothing to disagree with in what you say. My years of experience on this earth have made me very cautious when discussing religion or politics or anything else that seems to find its home on the right side of the brain. I haven't read much as yet of this division of activities in the brain so I have additional reading to pursue. I will explore the sites you mention and will continue research in your fine material. Please keep dispensing your fine wisdom.

My name is Megan Johntz and I speak on Likeability. I ran across your site today and liked your inventory very much. I have an upcoming speech in Orlando , and am curious if you ever allow your inventory to be used in that type of setting. When you get a free moment, I’d love information on any options.

Sloan replies: Megan, yes, I do allow the information in my site to be used by others. My main concerns are that the information be used accurately and that credit be given (mention of the page(s) in my site that are being referenced.) I would welcome receiving a copy of such credit, along with audience reactions.

You do not indicate which of my website pages you want to use. I assume it is the male and female likablility self tests, such as at http://www.sq.4mg.com/j_male.htm A version of these questions was published by SELF magazine. An audience should know that my questions were not just made up, but were the results of mathematical correlations between self-marked characteristics and the likeability of those individuals as assessed by their peers. That is why males and females have different tests. Their correlations were slightly different. I may not agree that fat females are more unlikeable than fat men - but society does!

Let me know if you have other questions. I would welcome learning more about how you you would like to use the results of my research.

Megan replies: Thanks for allowing others to benefit from your work. I will most happily give credit in the form of your name and contact info at the bottom of the inventory, as well as on the PowerPoint slide and in my speech. It would be tragically ironic to preach likeability and then steal someone else’s research, wouldn’t it?!

I can email the PowerPoint slide if you’d like, and let you know how it was received by the audience. They estimate a little under a thousand in this audience.

Sloan replies again: Megan, let me suggest that you reference my webpage http://sq.4mg.com/traits_2437.htm at the bottom of your inventory and in your speech. It gives my contact information at the bottom, as well as summarizing my research findings in this area. It is interesting that the results on likeability traits were quite similar in most high school classrooms. The one exception was the trait of courtesy, which varied between upper and lower class students.

I visited your web site. Some of the findings are exaggerated I believe. You state that SQ predicts income twice as much as IQ. What is defined as social is agreeableness and – or extraversion. They are 2 traits of the big 5. I don’t find the claim scientific and serious. I also wondered what makes the nations and the individuals successful. I believe 3 things play the most important role. They are IQ (vocabulary and math, not much spatial), creativity and ambition (motivation). The Millionaire Mind (T. Stanley) says that the millionaires don’t have high IQ but they are ambitious and creative in entrepreneurship. The English speaking countries also have an advantage. I don’t believe the social skills play a major role.

Sloan replies: Deniz, Perhaps some of the pages you saw on my website were not clear. Let me refer you to my pages with links to the success research of recognized experts:

http://www.sq.4mg.com/SuccessSQ-EI.htm - where I write: "Thus an individual's success likely develops from: 1/3 IQ, 1/3 social skills, 1/3 ambition." That page also includes conclusions from Stanley's "Milliionaire Mind."

On national success, IQ plays a major role. You are likely right that social skills seem to matter much less than with individual success. The same appears to be the case with ambition. Instead, economic competitiveness and corruption appear to be important factors in a nation's success. See my http://www.sq.4mg.com/NationSuccess.htm

Other factors like creativity and an individual's energy can play a role in success. But in my opinion, the research done to date in these areas is not conclusive.

I want to ask something. What is the best prediction of creativity? The openness index, the Torrance test, the bipolar disorders? Which one? The bipolar disorders are seen mostly among the writers, poets and the artists linked to creativity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_(board_game)#Software_players Go poses a daunting challenge to computer programmers.[71] While the strongest computer chess hardware has defeated top players (for example, the IBM computer Deep Blue beat Garry Kasparov, the then-world champion in 1997), the best Go programs only manage to reach an intermediate amateur level. On the small 9×9 board, the computer fares better, and some programs have reached a strong amateur level. Human players generally achieve an intermediate amateur level by studying and playing regularly for a few years. Many in the field of artificial intelligence consider Go to require more elements that mimic human thought than chess.[72]

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3852/is_200001/ai_n8898213 Torrance (1963) has found that creative boys possess more feminine characteristics than their peers, and that creative girls are perceived as more masculine than other girls.

http://kyunghee.myweb.uga.edu/portfolio/review%20of%20ttct.htm Torrance’s (1981) 22-year longitudinal study, Yamada and Tam’s (1996) reanalysis, and Plucker’s (1999) reanalysis of the Torrance’s data have concluded that the creative index is the best predictor for adult creative achievement. Plucker (1999) found that adult creative achievement is explained by the TTCT score about 50%, which is three times larger than that of IQ score; this is contrary to Baer’s (1994) opinion that the TTCT scores might not provide more information than the intelligence test scores already did.

http://www.livescience.com/health/051129_creative_sex.html A study of 425 British men and women found the creative types averaged between four and ten partners, while the less creative folks had typically had three. The more creative the study participants, the more partners they'd had.

Sloan responds: Deniz, Using the information you highlight from http://kyunghee.myweb.uga.edu/portfolio/review%20of%20ttct.htm it appears that the Torrance test is the most valid predictor of creativity yet developed. I believe that useful creativity requires a reasonable intelligence.

Because intelligence is made up of verbal and math skills, it is likely that racial differences in such skills affect levels of creativity. Thus, I would suspect that East Asian science creativity is relatively high, while Jewish creativity in writing is notable. Blacks do well in fields that reward improvisation skills (as jazz and basketball) - so their creativity may be high in such areas.

One measure of outstanding creativity is in Nobel prize awards. While many of the prizes are in science, the awards in literature and economics reflect non-science skills. A comparison of the ethnic backgrounds of Nobel laureates may shed some light on the racial basis of different kinds of creativity.

Theories on creativity or other aspects of social science can be interesting. But I believe that data, such as provided by the longitudinal studies of Torrance tests, provide us the most useful information for understanding.

Lynn said that the East Asians in the East Asia had a mean IQ of 105 but the East Asians in America (Chinese, Koreans and Japanese) had a mean IQ of 101. That is exactly what he says because mostly the chidren of the workers migrated to the US. As far as I know the Asians make up 4.2 percent of the population in America but this number also includes the people from Philippines, Cambodia, Vietnam, Middle East etc who have low IQ. As to the Indians they make up 0.5 percent of the population. They are either very highly selected from India or mostly from the Brahmins and the Parsees (probably both). According to the data in Arthur Hu's web site they compete with the Jews in the SAT scores far ahead of the East Asians and the whites. I don't know where you read that they have 118 IQ but this is extremely ridiculous (I don't want to go through it) but the very dark skinned Dravidian speaking Brahmins from the South India (Bangalore) are very good at software and math. Maybe Steve Sailor can answer you about what you wonder. He knows much better about India. Though there is almost no data about the smart races in India the high castes (at least the Dravidian Brahmins, if not all) are very likely to be better in math than the Jews. You are right. They are also South Asians but they make up only 0.5 percent of the population.

assertions on race and IQ

To: vansloan@yahoo.com

I do not normally respond or comment on articles such as the one found here, however I found the overly simplistic explanations for the averages of IQ based on race troubling. There are far more factors involved than I believe anyone has taken the time to study.
Being a person of mixed race (Irish-America and African-American) I have observed a broad spectrum of ability within my own family. Interestingly my father(African-America) and his family tend to be very intelligent. Although I am not aware of most of their IQ scores I do know that mine is 137 and two of my cousins are in the 150 range. Being a middle class family I believe accounts more for this than race. People seem to be amazed in the south where my fathers family is from, that they are articulate. As if that is not possible for anyone with dark skin. As a matter of fact, many of my fathers generation actually "dumbed themselves down" so as not to draw attention of those that would feel threatened by an intelligent black man.
On the other hand my mother's (Irish-American) family was very poor. Of interest is that while her Grandparents who immigrated from Ireland were of some means and owned stables of race horses, her parents squandered any money they had and ended up living in "the projects". They are not known to be very smart, but they are pretty good entrepreneurs. They do however fit what I find to be most peoples stereotype of the Irish.
I always find the generalizations about race and IQ, propensity towards criminal behavior, etc very interesting in light of a family that does not meet these stereotypes.
I could go on and on, but must be going. Thank you for the interesting content on your site.

Sloan replies: Samantha, thanks for your comment about the "interesting content" on my site. You raise the important issue of stereotyping based on group averages. Unfortunately I know of no workable system that counteracts such biases. Exceptional individuals, like your father's family, tend to be judged by group averages. Even teachers subconsciously set expectation for students based on IQ group averages. Hopefully the election of President Obama will enable high IQ Blacks worldwide to escape some stereotypes.

Nevertheless, I feel that to pretend that group average IQ's do not exist, or to explain them away with unsubstantianted or anecdotal evidence does more harm than good. As I have explained at the bottom of my http://www.sq.4mg.com/success.htm page, the popular notion that IQ group differences are due to social factors causes unreasonable expectations for teachers of inner city youth. A similar problem exists with the expectation that girls ought do as well as boys in advanced math and science.

Re: social quotinent questionnaire reliability

Sunday, January 4, 2009 12:02 AM

From: "halina noordin" halina_noordin@yahoo.com

To: vansloan@yahoo.com

dear van sloan,

still remember me halina? the one who intrested to use your questionnaire in my research. i would like to ask about the realibiality and liabilty of the questionaire. my supervisor ask me to ask you more detail. isthere any article or thesis related to the questionnaire that i can refer to. i really hope that you can help me.all your effort in helping me only can be paid by God.hope to hear from you soon.

Sloan replies, Halina, for questions on the reliability and related matters on Social Quotient, you can go to http://www.sq.4mg.com/site_outline.htm and check out the pages in the Range and calculation of SQ scores section. That page is an overview of how SQ is calculated and how it relates to the traits in the simple male and female tests. Your professor should find the SQ reliability page as answering many of his questions. I do not know what you mean by liability. Some students who are given low SQ scores by their classmates can become upset, but they do not sue the school for revealing the truth to them. You might be interested in the SQ validity page, which shows how SQ results compare with other assessments of a person's social skills, particularly teacher's opinions of students.

IQ and voter trends

Tuesday, December 2, 2008 11:33 PM

From: "Mark G. Kuzyk" <mgk@turbonet.com>

To: vansloan@yahoo.com

How would you interpret the plot on http://blog.faithnscience.com/ that shows a correlation between the percentage of voters in a state that vote democrat and IQ?
Mark

Sloan replies: Mark, your graph appears to be accurate and similar to state IQ/ vote results in the 2004 election. Others commenting on that earlier result pointed out that the racial makeup of US states vary, likely causing much of the state IQ differences. One particularly thoughtful analysis came from a Chicago MBA student, shown at http://www.sq.4mg.com/RaceVoting.htm

My interpretation of state IQ/ vote results is that people tend to vote for their self interests. Voters with below average incomes and IQ's (including most minorities) typically favor Democrats who propose increased spending for social services, funded by additional taxes on the wealthy. Republican candidates generally opposes higher taxes.

In the early 1960s, Bill Buckley famously observed that he would rather be governed by the first two thousand names in the Boston phone book than the two thousand faculty members of Harvard University. I agree. High IQ is associated with higher incomes, but it does not necessarily mean smart political leadership.

I enjoyed reading the information in your sites, particularly http://www.faithnscience.com/tips.html Americans generally believe in science, but occasionally resist its findings. The existence of a personal God is one case (see my http://sq.4mg.com/personalGod.htm ) and the ethnic group differences in IQ is another (see my http://www.sq.4mg.com/IQrace.htm ). Discussion forums such as yours can foster better understanding in such cases.

Mark replies: I agree with your assessments on the topics of IQ, God, and race. I find it
particularly annoying how people routinely ignore the facts to believe crazy
things. It seems that religion and political philosophy are equally blinding
when it comes to seeking the truth.

I would like to post your email on my site, along with all of your links. Any
objections?

Sloan responds again: Mark, I would be pleased if you posted my email and links on your site. The approach you take is excellent, and it would be useful if university students discussed the ideas in your site. While physical sciences teachers would readily support your points on the scientific method, it would be interesting to see how other professors would feel. At Princeton, I remember an economics professor (who later became University president) who promoted liberal policies in his classes as desirable economics.

At the other end of the political spectrum, I have also been disappointed by business leaders who unabashedly promote their company's self-interest, even when it conflicts with the public's general good. Drug companies are a glaring example. My overall point is that citizens should not blindly follow what their intellectual, business, and political leaders promote. They should think for themselves, using the tools you suggest.

intelligence question

Tuesday, November 25, 2008 8:32 PM

From: "d.. d." <germanshepherddogz@graffiti.net>

To: VanSloan@yahoo.com

Prof. Sloan, I recently listened to a radio program on This American Life that profiled a charter school in a poor and predominantly black neighborhood in Harlem. The charter school was founded on the principle that poor--and incidentally black--children were not receiving the same mental stimulation in early childhood as their upper class--and often non-black--peers elsewhere. As one would expect, parents and children that passed through this charter school experienced dramatic improvement in parenting skills and academic performance.

My question to you is: How can you omit the influence of culture and class as a determinant of how one will do on a standardized and culturally biased test of intelligence? Can one rightfully draw any useful conclusions from a crude ranking of IQ scores without looking at culture and class influences?

Sloan replies: d..d., my website presents the majority scientific opinion on IQ and related matters. That is: Measures of intelligence like SAT tests show consistent group differences that are not explainable by culture or class differences. Your email shows a different view, similar to the majority political opinion. But the evidence does not support the popular idea that, with effort, IQ can be noticeably changed. Early Childhood Education programs do give a boost to school performance of youngsters. But the boost is only temporary. See my http://www.sq.4mg.com/HeadStart.htm page. See also: http://www.sq.4mg.com/IQgenetics.htm - which shows the research on identical twins raised by different families. Their different environments cause only a 10-20% difference in their IQ's.

It seems that IQ is mostly a genetically determined characteristic, like height. In both traits, children end up similar to their parents, but with a range of variation. Both traits are affected negatively by poor nutrition in youth. That is a significant problem in parts of Africa, but not in the USA. Few believe that an exercise program will affect a youngster's eventual height. Similarly, good parenting does not seem to affect IQ as much as many would like to think. But it can affect a student's attitude toward education and likelihood to graduate from high school. Success in school is based on more than IQ. On average, Latinos have higher IQ's than Black Americans, yet Latinos have lower graduation rates.

A further note - I strongly support charter shools and other educational options for parent choice. As a school administrator for many years, I saw the negative effects of an education monoploy and strong teacher unions. But while competition can greatly improve American schools, it is harmful to have unrealistic expectations. We can improve how much our students learn, but we should not expect that schools can raise IQ's any more than they can raise average heights.

likable person

From: will will will , I will not tell <00.error_girl.00@live.com>
To: vansloan@yahoo.com
Date: Tuesday, October 28, 2008, 7:29 AM

hello , I want to write a report about how to be a likable person what can I write about?

Sloan replies: error girl, for your report, let me suggest that you click on http://www.sq.4mg.com/traits_2437.htm and look at its female traits that affect being a likable person. Having an upbeat, positive attitude and lots of smiles helps. Being very fat or having strong opinions hurt your chances for being likable. For girls in all types of high schools, these traits were found to be significant when classmates rated girls for their likability.

African IQ Analysis

Wednesday, September 24, 2008 9:42 AM

From: "Adebayo Thomas" <thomas_adebayo2001@yahoo.com>

To: vansloan@yahoo.com

Prof.,

I read through your analysis and I am impressed by the level of research on African intellect. The question you were unable to answer is "what distractions would have resulted into the Africans low ability to reason abstractly?". Since reasonable ability is connected to security, I would love to relate with you my ongoing research on security and academic performance in Nigeria.

Adebayo T. A.

Sloan replies: Adebayo, the only distraction lowering Africans' reasoning ability (IQ) that has been clearly identified is poor nutrition up to age five. Richard Lynn, a leading authority on IQ differences around the world, has written a new book: Race Differences in Intelligence: An Evolutionary Analysis . A well-received review of this book at Amazon.com includes:

"Lynn...concludes that the East Asians-Chinese, Japanese and Koreans-have the highest mean IQ at 105. Europeans follow with an IQ of 100. Some ways below these are the Inuit or Eskimos (IQ 91), South East Asians (IQ 87), Native American Indians (IQ 87), Pacific Islanders (IQ 85), South Asians and North Africans (IQ 84). Well below these come the sub-Saharan Africans (IQ 67) followed by the Australian Aborigines (IQ 62).
The lowest scoring are the Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert together with the Pygmies of the Congo rain forests (IQ 54)."

The reviewer goes on to comment: "These findings in Lynn's latest book have profound geopolitical significance. They imply it may simply not be possible to transmit Western-style democratic and economic systems to the populations of Latin America and Moslem North Africa and the Middle East, let alone sub-Saharan Africa."

Personally, I worry that while average African IQ is low, the normal curve distributions of IQ means that there will always be a small but powerful number of smart Africans. Unfortunately, many use their high IQ for personal gain, often with corrupt practices. So do some smart people in all nations. But in Europe and North America, there are plenty of other high IQ individuals in the press, in legislatures, and other institutions who act against the intrigues of the greedy. Africa lacks that countervailing force. So ineffective governance and poor security for the average African is the result. This conclusion might relate to your research on security and academic performance. I would welcome learning more about your work.

Adebayo replies: Thanks for your letter. I believe that anxiety and worry are part of the major factors that lower abstract reasoning ability. Let me give a small breakdown of the normal Lagosian(residents of Lagos) life in Nigeria.

- He is worried about security of his life, his spouse/siblings and that of his properties at home since Nigerian Police and Armed robbers actions cannot be predicted. Most Nigerians are trustworthy but the Police, armed forces and the judiciary and majority of those in authority are not so. Hence, average Nigerian is always worried about Police brutality, and if possible, robbery.

-Near his home, he is worried about the possibility of public electricity failure.

By the time he got home he must be totally wearied. He is not interested in deep thinking but how to eat and sleep. All his plan to work at home is defeated due to lack of good governance. If he is an higher institutional student, he is worried about cult activities since at least about 10% of the students are in the cults taking arms in order to protect themselves and terrorize others due to Police inabilities. In the night, he is not totally relaxed as he may be worried (if he is not a practicing christian) about possibility of burglars and armed robbers attacks. The second morning is a great relieve to him but it is also the beginning of worried about when he will be able to get to the office considering the chaotic transport system in Lagos area.

Interested in social quotinent questionnaire

Thursday, September 18, 2008 11:47 AM

From: "halina noordin" halina_noordin@yahoo.com

To: vansloan@yahoo.com

i'm halina a master student in Universiti Tun Hussein Onn (UTHM). I have gone through your website and find out about social quotinent questionnaire.i find it intresting and relate to my research. i want to test group of student social skills who take technical communication subject.

Sloan replies: Halina, you are free to use the male and female questionaires you likely got to by clicking the top of the first page of www.sq.4mg.com They are based on the SQ traits identified in research on http://www.sq.4mg.com/traits_2437.htm Because you are doing research with a group, you also might want to try the SQ questionnaire at http://www.sq.4mg.com/side_a.htm While I am no longer processing these forms by computer to get individual SQ scores, it may be interesting for your students to find out how many social skills A's and E's they received from their peers.

Halina replies: hi van, thanks for your help.i'm very grateful for your help.i cannot wait to try it.thanks again.hope that you can guide me with your knowledge in social skills.i'm very grateful to know people like you.thanks again.

From: Yuval Levental superyuval10@gmail.com

Subject: Sorry, but environment does have an impact on a person's IQ.

To: VanSloan@yahoo.com

Date: Friday, August 22, 2008, 9:13 AM

According to this article (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/23/magazine/23wwln_idealab.html?ei=5090&en=2c93740d624fe47f&ex=1311307200&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all, right from the New York Times, IQ does depend on a family's economic level. This article says that the problem with most research studies is that the twins/families that are being studied come from middle-class to upper-class backgrounds. It shows that in poor backgrounds, there is a huge environment impact. I would like for you to read it thoroughly and tell me what you think about it. Also, here's another associated article (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/23/magazine/23wwln_idealab.html?ei=5090&en=2c93740d624fe47f&ex=1311307200&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all).

Please don't reject these articles immediately.

Thanks, SuperYuval

Sloan replies: Yuval,thanks for alerting me about the NY Times articles on IQ research. It is well accepted that poor nuturiton up to age 5 can have a negative effect on IQ, and that may account for some of the low performance of adopted children raised by poor families.

When more research confirms that other factors affect IQ, I will change my website to reflect generally accepted scientific opinion. One reason for not doing this sooner is the unreasonable expectations that it places on educators in low income areas. Many people think that if only there were more Headstart or that teachers did a better job, there would be much less difference in IQ's and school achievement among different neighborhoods. That may be an unrealistic expectation.

Yuval replies: There is a study that says that training working memory can significantly increase iq (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/29/health/research/29brai.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin ) I bought a version of the dual n-back last month on http://mindsparkebrainfitnesspro.com/ and it is amazing.

Also, I like the idea of the SQ. I myself have an amazing IQ (158 SD=15) from an official test at the age of 7, but shamefully, I have moderate ambition and a low SQ. I also think there is a cognitive aspect to this SQ....

Also, I'm afraid I noticed a few contradictions:

On the HeadStart page, you talk about how the gains fade into the first few years of elementary school. Yet, you stress that IQ is fixed after age 5. Also, on this page, you say that IQ's are 70% genetic, which means that there should be a possible significant amount of improvement, but you then say that they are extremely stable.

Also, on your IQ differences page, you talk about how IQ alone has selected people over time, but you leave out ambition and social skills in these selections, which you say are more important. In "Many European countries have IQ's about as high as China and nearby Asian countries", this doesn't explain why the avg. hispanic IQ is lower than the Avg. european/Asian IQ's.

Sloan responds again: Yuval, you continue to raise interesting points. As a general response, I tend not to believe something on the internet unless it is confirmed by several reputable sources and is backed by solid data. For example, the site http://mindsparkebrainfitnesspro.com/ you mentioned features this chart: Susanne Jaeggi Martin Buschkuehl Perrig PNAS April 2008 Bern Michigan increase intelligence and brain power by training working memory

Susanne Jaeggi Martin Buschkuehl Perrig PNAS April 2008 Bern Michigan increase intelligence and brain power by training working memory

These convenient, round percentages of 10, 25, and 50% s look much more like advertising claims than hard data from careful research. In any case, memory training seems far away from problem solving ability. Yet, people who believe that IQ is very important will grasp for opportunities to improve it. Usually they end up just improving a related skill that some claimed IQ test is measuring.

I'm glad that you like my concept of SQ (Social Quotient). My studies show that it and Ambition are more important to success than just IQ. Recently, I have added the quality of being Energetic as also important in one's success. Information on my high school, college, and business school classmates (plus my knowledge of their energy levels) has convinced me that one's general energy plays a role in success. Secondly, successful people I have met seem to be more energetic that normal. There is good data that US cities with the most energetic people also often have the highest incomes. You can check it out in my new web page http://www.sq.4mg.com/energetic.htm

On your comments on my other website pages, I stand by what is written in them. In Head Start, the initial gains are in school grades, not in IQ. Memory training, attentive behavior in class, and other non-IQ factors can affect grades. On the 30% non-genetic components of IQ, little good research has been done, outside of nutrition up to age 5.

On IQ differences around the world, it seems that genetics also are key factors. Some experts believe that humans who adapted to colder climates like Europe and northern China had to use their brains more to survive. Their lower IQ clan members who could not adapt just died out, leading to higher IQ clans. It's interesting speculation, but little proof has been offered. On Latin American IQ's, I do have a large web page and much data at: http://www.sq.4mg.com/latino.htm Basically, it shows that the more European a Latin population is, the higher is that country's IQ and income. But the recent increasing income of Mexico, as compared to Argentina, is likely due to differences in the quality of governments, not IQ.

SQ tests request

Wednesday, June 25, 2008 8:06 PM

From: "norawan bhuripun"

To: vansloan@sq.4mg.com, vansloan@yahoo.com

Dear Mr. Van Sloan,

I am a postgraduate student in the department of Developmental Psychology, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand. I am very interested in SQ related matters and thinking about doing a thesis on "SQ and Career success of Music Artists". I have read some articles and information about SQ on www.sq.4mg.com and found some tests which I understood that they are simplified versions of the SQ tests (i.e. http://www.sq.4mg.com/j_male.htm#z and http://www.sq.4mg.com/j_female.htm#z).

So I was wondering, do you have the full or extended versions of those forms?

And if you do would you please allow me to use them as part of my thesis, I would really appreciate that. Any words of advice would be great. What I need are SQ tests, and how to interpret the results including the reliability rate of the tests.

Looking forward to hear from you

Sincerely, Norawan B. (OFF)

Sloan replies: Norawan, I would like to help with your thesis plans. Are you thinking of having music artists fill out SQ tests? If so, their reliabilty, as with all self-scored tests, depends on the honesty of the marking individuals. The more reliable SQ tests are scored by groups who know each other fairly well, as a high school classroom.

To get an understanding of the SQ process, its reliability, and its link to the simplified tests you mention, let me suggest you go to my http://www.sq.4mg.com/site_outline.htm/ Click near the bottom on Range and calculation of SQ scores and then read its links and the following pages in the outline. You will see that the simplified tests for male and female are taken from the results of side B of the main SQ test. I think those simplified tests should provide fairly reliable results for you - IF you emphasise that the test takers be honest and that you will only be writing about group, not individual results.

Let me know what other questions you have.

From: Quinton Lester lesterq@telkomsa.net

Subject: IQ

To: vansloan@yahoo.com

Date: Monday, June 23, 2008, 9:11 AM

Hi, I wonder if you can help me. I have tested myself on various IQ test on the web and I score between 131 and 145. I live in South Africa and find myself extremely frustrated with the politics and working opportunities here. My question is this, are there companies out there that hire on IQ tests as I only have a diploma that probably will not get recognized anywhere else anyway?

Kind regards, Quinton Lester

Sloan replies: Quinton, I don't know any organizations that hire on IQ alone. They generally seek other qualities like experience, enthusiasm for the tasks, and ambition/ drive. The latter can be indicated by the completion of educational degrees. When IQ is an important criteria for a job, firms sometimes give IQ-type tests as part of the interview process. They usually do not rely on scores you would report.

Let me suggest that you figure out which industries or types of jobs grab your interest. If you cannot get the exact job you seek, offer to work as an intern, to show what you can do. Your enthusiasm will likely get your foot in the door. Good luck!

Re: Israeli IQ

Wednesday, June 11, 2008 11:01 AM

From: newxfoll@gmail.com

To: VanSloan@yahoo.com

Hello Sloan

I came across your site (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=69157), and I wish to add a few things, that may or may not help you understand the different IQ scores between American/European and Israeli Ashkenazis, as well as suggestions as to why ethnic-based IQ test aren't as credible as they seem. I have very little knowledge in genetic studies, anthropology or psychology. I'm talking out of my own experience and general knowledge. I'm 19 years old, Israeli. of Ashkenazi and Sephardic heritage.

First of all, A general definition:

Ashkenazi Jews - Yiddish speaking Jews from Europe (excluding Southern Europe), and the non-European western world. Not every European Jew is an Ashkenazi Jew (though most of the European Jewry back in the day were)

*predoninately Poland, Eastern Europe, Germany

Sephardic Jews - (the wider definition) - Jews from North Africa, Middle East, the Balkans, Turkey, most of modern day French Jews, and other parts of Asia

*predominately Morocco, Iraq, Yemen & Iraq

#1-Jews of full or partial Sephardic background are mistaken by society for being Ashkenazis, or present themselves as ones. This characterizes the following groups

1a: Jews of mixed heritage. Intermarriages are very common these days. Many of them often choose to embrace only their Ashkenazi heritage (b/c of social class, old stereotypes etc.) and present themselves as ones, even if they're only 1/2 or 1/4 Ashkenazis.

1b: Jews of Sephardic-European/Soviet heritage (The Balkans, Turkey, Asian Soviet Republics) Often are sometimes labeled as Ashkenazis.

1c: ~950,000 migrants from the USSR came to Israel from 1990 till this day. Intermarriages between Ashkenazis and non-Jewish Latvians, Russians and Ukrainians were quite common in the USSR. 'Half' Jews from the integrated quite well into the Israeli society, so many of them consider themselves to be ethnic Ashkenazis (though they are very connected to the Russian culture), even in cases where one has only a Jewish grandparent.

#2-The Dominant Israeli-Ashkenazi groups are the least successful ones (in comparison) – Especially Romanian Jews, but also, to some degree, Russian and Ukrainian Jews. They were stereotyped in the past as poor and less educated, as opposed to Jews from Germany, Poland (not all), Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Austria (who then made up the majority of the European Ashkenazi Jewry), and indeed, Their achievements pale in comparison to the others. In today's Israel the Polish-Jewish community is relatively big (~350,000), and not surprisingly is the one that keeps the country from falling apart, but the other ones are very small (keep that in mind, more Romanian Jews immigrated to Israel since 1948 than Polish, German, Austrian and Hungarian Jews combined)

#3-The Israeli culture/mentality is becoming more and more Middle Eastern.

-Guilt over the supposed discrimination of Sephardic Jews in the 1950's had led the mainstream music and TV prefer the Arabic/Middle Eastern music and culture, as a way to compensate the community.

-The increasing numbers of the Sephardic Jews.

What was once considered to be the norm among teens from European-Jewish families - embracing European culture, values of hard work, respect and dignity, the importance of education - is now rejected for being square and arrogant. In small towns with a Sephardic/Black Ethiopian nature, 'Ashkenazi' is often a curse word.

- - - -

The Israeli census doesn't hold data for 3rd+ generation Israeli Jews, so there's no way to know for sure how many Ashkenazis, Sephardic and 'mixed' Jews there are. My everyday life experience gives me the impression there are more Sephardics than Ashkenazis in Israel. Excluding northern rural settlements, I believe most Israeli cities/villages hold a Sephardic majority. I believe that in the future, the Sephardic, with the Arabs, will make up the overwhelming majority of Israeli population due to:

-Immigration of Ethiopian Jews + high fertility rates.

-Emigration of Russian Jews back to Russia, or to Canada.

-Emigration of Israeli born Ashkenazis to the EU countries and North America.

-High fertility rates for the religious Sephardic community.

-High fertility rates for the Arab community.

Well, that's prety much all. Thank you for reading!

Sloan replies: Newxfoll, thanks for your thoughts on Israeli IQ. Your points may explain why it is not as high as some might think, based on the IQ's of Eastern European Jews in the United States. I have added a link to your thoughts at the bottom of my http://SQ.4mg.com/IQIsraeli.htm webpage. That probably was what your go.microsoft.com link was based on.

Date: Sun, 20 Apr 2008 10:16:25 -0700 (PDT)

From: ""Dreamer"

Subject: iq article

To: vansloan@yahoo.com

Gosh I hope this does not mean you are a racist!

You do not say what instruments were used to assess IQ. Was the same instrument used for all? In the states, the Weschler is the most commonly used, with a mean of 100. It is my understanding that the Stanford-Binet is more commonly used in Europe, with a mean of 90. You have also not addressed language and cultural bias of tests. Were the tests used normed and standardized on the population on which they were administered?

I do not personally believe that IQ is inherited, at least not to a great degree. For some it appears to be an accident of genes (as shown in identical twin studies), while for others it appears to be based upon environment. Exposure to a wide range of experiences that are tested surely has a great effect on scores.

If you look at families rather than twins, a wide range of scores can appear in children with the same parents raised in the same environment. In these cases, intelligence appears to be a toss of the dice.

I can trace successful people in my family back for 400 years on my mother's side. I have grandparents and great-grandparents who were college educated. Yet, my mother is no brain-trust. Her brother was brilliant. I have above average intelligence myself, and three of my four children are brilliant. The other is average. Of my seven grandchildren, three are brilliant. Two are too young still to tell. Same genes, same environment. Toss of the dice.

I do think that living conditions effect both physical and intellectual development. When looking at Europe, we must remember that some of those who are alive today, therefore probably in the test population, spent their early years in war-torn environments with a scarcity of proper food. This is also true in Ireland, where the current, affluent youth are one generation away from being barefoot. Just looking at the average heights attained now as opposed to in the past, gives a clue to this situation. Young people in developed countries have undoubtedly attained more of their genetic growth and intellect than their parents and grand parents.

Though your information is interesting, it could also nourish racist sentiments in those leaning that direction.

I would like to see you boost your information with more details and more insight into causes for differences rather than genes.

S. Roberts New Mexico

Sloan replies: No, I am not a racisit. But I think a better public understanding of how most scholars view IQ data will help in setting policies, such as in reasonable expectations for schools. The IQ data for countries vaires in quality. You can read how the authors assembled it at http://www.rlynn.co.uk/pages/article_intelligence/7-a1.asp

You are right that the IQ of children in a family varies widely. We do not know the causes for that. The twins studies show that the effect of genetics in IQ is quite large. The only proven environmental effect on IQ is nutrition up to the age of five. Yes, I too wish there was more good data on causes of IQ differences. As it becomes availiable, I plan to add it to my website.

Date: Sat, 19 Apr 2008 21:05:41 -0700 (PDT)

From: "Cheryl Voelker"

Subject: Comment

To: vansloan@yahoo.com

Dear Mr. Van Sloan,

I would just like to thank you for all the work and research that you put into your website, it has much of the information I have searching for, all contained in one place. I previously had many theories dealing with much of the items presented, and having so much data in one spot is very helpful. You certainly have given me much to take into consideration. I'm not going to get into details or explain my views, has it would take too long and would be unnecesssary, but I generally agree with your theories (although some are, however, reworkings of other lesser known theories and ideals[not that that makes them any less true!] ). I would, though, like to add that although I understand the need for all humans to be treated equally, I do not think it's right that our society uses that as a reason to suppress rational truths in relation to genetics, as our society does with many other issues. Anyways, Thanks again.

Sloan replies: Cheryl, thanks for your supportive comments. I agree it is unfortunate that political correctness and other pressures sometimes prevents findings in the social sciences from being accepted as readily as in the physical sciences. Such reluctance to accept well-documented truths can hurt in setting realistic public policies (as in education and economic growth).

Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 00:49:32 -0800 (PST)

From: ""jay thompson"

Subject: Your IQ & political analysis

To: VanSloan@yahoo.com

Hello, I thought it a bit interesting that you corrected a faulty analysis of IQ compared to election data. Are you implying that this is at all scientific? The IQ average of a state comes from a very large sample, but it is only a very narrow age bracket. Those in School who are being tested, most of whom probably are just a few months too young to be elegible to vote. The election was determined from a completely different sample of the population. Those who first were qualified to vote, (old enough and not a convicted felon), who second took the trouble get registered to vote, and thirdly took the trouble to go to the polls (or fill out an absentee ballat) to vote. We would assume that the smarter a person is the more likely they will take part in an election. So most of the lower inteligence scores are probably not voting sanyway.

So the sampling of the population which actually voted in the election vs. the sampling of the population which was used to compute the average IQ were almost categorically two different groups of people. So how can it have any relevence to who the various states elected?

Conclusion: Yours as well as the original comparison are both bad science.

Sloan replies: Jay, you are right that it probably is impossible to measure the IQ's of voters in each state. But my data for average IQ's in each state is probably reasonably accurate. Near the bottom of my http://www.sq.4mg.com/IQ-States.htm web page showing how my data was calculated, a German professor notes that a later study based on elementary school test results came up with very similar IQ's by state. Since accurate IQ type test results are not available for most adults, this is probably as accurate as we are likely to get at present. You seem to feel that no data on a subject is better than incomplete or partially inaccurate data. I disagree. South Carolina, which scored quite low in IQ, has been motivated to put more money and emphasis on a good primary education for its children. Good leaders do not wait for ideal data or perfect science to take useful action.

Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2008 21:16:18 -0800 (PST)

From: ""Ben Magnie"

Subject: about IQ

To: vansloan@yahoo.com

hi there, i happen to stumble upon a site discussing IQ which i found interesting and thought id make a little comment about. Theres a part where it discusses that IQs for the most part dont change once physical adulthood is met. The point i thought you might find interesting though is that when i was about 15 i had an IQ of 117. I've taken a few since then and its steadily gone up and is currently at 146( im 22 now). Its hard for me to explain this without sounding like im proselytizing, because i dont mean to, but the sole reason my IQ has jumped so much is becuase of a process within scientology called auditing which basically eliminates all the "guck" if you will, from your mind via handling past painful moments and so increases your awareness and incidentally IQ. i know scores of people who've raised their IQ this way as much as i have. anyways, purely from a clinical point of view i thought you'd find this interesting.personally, i've always found it interesting to see it "concluded" that IQ is so unchangable. feel free to respond if you have something you'd like to ask or say of this, or not. :)

cheers, ben magnie

Sloan replies: Ben, the IQ changes you describe do not fit with scientific studies of how constant IQ is during a person's life after the age of five. Your data makes me wonder if all the IQ tests you have taken were valid measurements. Yes, sometimes problems in a person's mental or physical health at the time of testing can depress IQ results. If there truly was a way to increase one's IQ, the SAT test preparation companies like Kaplan would be using it. Their approach to raising SAT scores emphasizes test taking techniques, not raising a student's actual IQ.

Date: Tue, 25 Dec 2007 07:27:46 -0800

From: "Tom"

To: vansloan@yahoo.com

Subject: improving one's SQ

"Reorganizing a school to promote future success of students would place greater emphasis on non-IQ skills. Some medical schools are now using SQ type surveys as part of their instructional program." (Quote from Sloan's SQ website)

The term "social intelligence" sounds kind of nice, but what does it actually mean? In practice, it means networking, workplace politics, persuasion, and manipulation. It shouldn't come as a surprise that people who are good at those skills are the most successful. It's been that way throughout history and in all fields of human endeavor.

Schools clearly can teach these skills and they will help their graduates be more successful. But is that actually desirable? Do we want a nation of graduates who are successful not because they are the best at what they do, but because they are the best at networking and politics? Do you want to be operated upon by the brilliant surgeon who works 16h/day and happens to be a jerk at a dinner party, or do you want the surgeon who got his job because he plays golf with the CEO of the hospital?

It is probably a good idea to teach the brilliant surgeon enough social skills to get by in the world as it is. However, as a long term educational vision, this approach seems flawed to me. It seems to me that the real problem is not that IQ is overvalued in entrance requirements and academic evaluations, it is that it is undervalued in real life, and that's what we need to address.

Sloan replies: Tom, you look at social skills from an interesting, different point of view. My website focuses on what leads to success for individuals and for nations. We agree that social skills is important in such success. But you then ask if the world would be better off with more networking and politics. On balance, I think it would be.

Let's look at your case of the high IQ versus the more personable doctor. Yes, people do choose the doctor with more social skills the majority of the time. They value his or her positive attitude and communication skills, particularly listening. Very smart individuals often do not have the patience or ability to explain complex matters simply. Thus a person seeking a cure or a jury listening to legal arguments is typically better served by a professional who has good social skills, not just the highest IQ. So I cannot support your theory that the world would better off if more people selected the brightest individuals to serve them.

There is one big area where your idea of selecting high IQ individuals is gaining ground. Employers are more and more seeking out the highest IQ job applicants. These hires learn their jobs faster, are better at dealing with unexpected problems, and typically are promoted faster. If they have social skills problems, training can help them improve. But no training will improve one's IQ.

You may be thinking that social skills training might emphasize technical methods like networking and playing politics. Unfortunately, I am not aware of any training program with a testable, proven record of improving general social skills. My correlation of traits with high social skills individuals (at www.sq.4mg.com/traits_2437.htm ) indicates that general happiness and having an upbeat outlook are significant. These may be fundamental in one's personality. I believe that techniques for manipulating others would be much less important in one's overall social skills ranking. Much more research is needed in this whole area. Thoughtful comments like yours are helpful!

From:

To: vansloan@yahoo.com

Subject: IQ and Social Skills

Date: Sun, 25 Nov 2007 04:01:29 +0200

Hi, I find your web page extremely interesting Have you done any studies on the influence of physical attributes as a predictor of success I believe, this is only subjective, that people who are considered physically attractive would generally receive more favourable treatment generally with a resultant increased self esteem and probably superior social skills I would be interested in your opinion and any studies you may have conducted

Many thanks,

Sloan replies: My research findings at http://www.sq.4mg.com/traits_2437.htm show that physical attractiveness has a slight positive effect on a man's Social Quotient, and for a woman less of an effect. This finding was obtained by asking high school students to rate themselves on a variety of characteristics, then correlating the match of those characteristics to their Social Quotient scores, as determined by their classmates. Much more important to being rated highly for SQ (or a person one would seek out for sales assistance in a store) are one's general happiness and having a positive, upbeat attitude. Most physical characteristics have little relation to SQ, except that long hair on a man and excess fat on a woman are undesirable.

In talking to students about the results (which varied little among communities of greatly varying social conditions), comments were made like "She thinks that she is so attractive, and doesn't have the time to listen to what others are interested in." Fortunately, it seems that one's social skills can be readily improved, while physical attractiveness and intelligence are much harder to improve. And those better social skills do translate into increased success. One firm promotes their training capabilities in this area, at https://www.talentsmart.com/media/uploads/pdfs/Learning_Emotional_Intelligence_.pdf

He writes again: Dear Mr. Van Sloan ,

Many thanks for your comprehensive reply to my query and do appreciate the fact that a person of your stature has replied personally Reading the information on you web site has given me an insight into something that has been a curiosity to me for some time. Given both my IQ and EQ I have underachieved and now am able to fill in the missing component which is ambition, I am intellectually ambitious rather than financially ambitious and further, whilst a professional person with a college degree, have hated the work I do and in fact every aspect of my profession. For this insight I must thank you and your tireless research

If I may impose further, I have a query as to the IQ of the average South African IQ, listed at 72, which approximates -2 standard deviations. I do not understand how it is possible to quantify the average IQ given the high percentage of illiterate people, who would not even be able to complete an IQ test. From everything I have read there is no correlation between education and IQ and an illiterate person deprived of education due to a former oppressive political regime may be highly intelligent. I would appreciate your comments and the manner in which this was quantified By deduction I gather you are associated with TalentSmart. I strongly believe that South Africa is ready and has the need for the expertise of TalentSmart with a captive market. There is a strong emphasis on psychometric test testing at the employment stage and it is my perception that thereafter little effort is expended to maximize the potential of employees. The market is extensive and would extend from government departments to the private sector with large, medium and small corporations as well as schools and colleges, in fact the possibilities seem unlimited. There is also the possibility of favorable taxation treatment and government has a strong initiative to improve and uplift previously disadvantaged people The exchange rate at approximately 7 units of our currency, the Rand , has both a positive and negative impact for TalentSmart. The initial establishment and marketing cost would extremely cost effective but any repatriation of profits would be adversely effected Should you be interested in investigating a Southern African business initiative, should you not already have a presence here, I would enthusiastically assist. Obviously there must be some financial reward for me, but it is something I feel is meaningful and evokes a passion. I believe I have been influenced by your research and see a way to combine my intellectual ambition with financial ambition Please revert to me on this matter

Kind regards

Sloan replies again: Your last email was most interesting. You are not alone in finding dissatisfaction in a prestige job. In New York and London, many skilled accountants, lawyers, and bankers feel the way you do. Their jobs are technically demanding, stressful, and require long hours - mainly to help the rich keep more of their money. The big pay for their work does not compensate for the feeling that what they are doing is not really worthwhile or fulfilling. You would like to help South Africans lead a better life, and I applaud your interest. Similarly, my whole Social Quotient website is designed to help discover what leads to success for individuals and nations. It has been more fulfilling than other work I have done. My site started with an approach to measuring a person's social skills that remains unique. Unlike all other psychological tests other than IQ, one cannot slant the answers to get a more desirable score. The SQ result one gets is determined solely by the marks that others give you.

The social and economic situation in South Africa make me think of similar challenges in Indonesia, which I have visited several times. Both countries are very interested in tourism to bring in revenue, and have much to offer visitors. In Indonesia, the island of Bali has been very successful in attracting tourists, while the rest of Indonesia has not. As a result, the average income in Bali is twice what the average person earns in neighboring Java. The real surprise is that the IQ and emphasis on education is much higher in Java than in any of the other Indonesian islands. Yet only Bali has that higher income than Java. Bali does have a different religion and culture that the rest of Indonesia. But I think the main reason why hotels are successful there is the natural friendliness of the people. The beaches and scenery in Java are just as good, but tourists enjoy being around the warm Balinese hotel staffs. (It is relevant that Carnival Cruise Lines has a big recruiting center in Bali, but none on neighboring islands - where they could get employees at half the cost!) I have not been able to fully understand the reasons behind the natural social skills of the Balinese. But as Talent Smart and others point out, social skills can be improved, while IQ (normally key for success) cannot. Yes, the IQ numbers for South Africa and neighboring countries are low by world standards. I am not an expert on how those national IQ numbers were determined, but the academically qualified authors seem to have analyzed all the existing data and made their best judgment comparisons. No other respected researchers have successfully shed doubt on the general accuracy of their country IQ findings.

You mention that there is strong emphasis on psychometric test testing in South Africa. That may fit with what I have pioneered. My emphasis has been on testing that provides valid results. Other firms like Talent Smart offer training to improve people's social skills, particularly needed for low scoring individuals. I have no professional or personal relationship with Talent Smart, except that we work in the same general area of social skills. My Social Quotient surveys have been well received in all types of neighborhoods, including low income, mostly Black schools in California and New York City. One Brooklyn teacher wrote me: "I must tell you that several students used the SQ when they went for job interviews & it made a great impression (in a few cases, it may have been the deciding factor in getting the job)."

Your interest in pursuing a business connection in South Africa for social skills testing is of interest to me. My system seems to work best in high school settings, where students know each other and can evaluate the personality of their classmates. And high schools also offer a natural forum for training in social skills, along with job seeking skills. A government grant to finance a pilot program for testing and perhaps training in several schools would be an effective way to start. I do not have the funds to pay for initial marketing costs. But if you have the interest, I would welcome partnership proposals from you to investigate possibilities to do schools testing in South Africa. Together, we could help your country position itself well in the booming worldwide tourist/ service jobs sector, as Bali has done. South Africa cannot do much to improve its national IQ scores and competitiveness in technology, particularly against many Asian nations. But valuable social skills are largely independent of IQ scores. South African employment, particularly in tourism, could boom. It would be exciting to help that happen. What do you think?

Sincerely, Van

www.SQ.4mg.com/vansloan.htm

PS Feel free to share this email (or parts of it) with others in South Africa

From: "jay baker" bakerjm_1@bigpond.com

To: vansloan@yahoo.com

Subject: IQ, Asian european comparison, doesnt make sense

Date: Thu, 26 Jul 2007 22:48:09 +1000

Hello there, out of curiosity, i find it quite contradictory that east asian nations apparently have higher IQ's yet european nations have been without a doubt the most successful race on the planet in terms of technology etc and space of time of which this has occured.

Ive read through a number of pieces of iq data and found German and Dutch average IQ's of 109 as well as whites,(mostly german, norwegian and dutch), compared against asians,( mostly japanese chinese and korean), with whites scoring 105 and asians scoring 104.

Also in comparing some of your SAT data i found that the verbal scores all added together equalled 3815 while math was 3888. I find this unusual because i was under the impression that whites were significantly better at verbal, not at maths.

Could this be potentially caused by the weighting systems, the same of which are used in IQ tests, where spatial and math is weighted higher than that of verbal? Why is it that males have apparently higher IQ's than females, yet females almost consistantly out-perform males in academics and hold the majority of university placements?

Taking into account certain social differences between the two, it seems odd that males would exceed females in IQ by this much. But overall my general question is " why is it that east asians apparently have higher IQs than whites when europeans are clearly more technologically adavnced?",

Is it to do with IQ test weighting?, The lack homogenity in europeans and greater variation? Or a greater value on education which has transferred itself on to IQ over time in relation to east asians? My main reasons for questioning the statistics today is that they dont seem to correlate with history.

Virtually every other IQ comparison between races and nations seems to make sense historically except this one, i understand that there are other factors but generally to an extent the results correlate.

What do you think?

Sloan replies: Jay, you ask a lot of good questions. Let me answer, as I do in my website, emphasizing what professionals generally agree about IQ. The numbers below refer to your paragraphs.

1. IQ is important, but is obviously not the only factor in the success of nations. Check out my http://www.sq.4mg.com/NationSuccess.htm - especally the leading nations throughout history. In the Middle Ages, Chinese culture was much more advanced than that of Europe. Another page ( http://www.sq.4mg.com/corrupt.htm ) presents data showing that corruption is also an important influence in economic success. Asian nations today score worse than Europe on corruption.

2. A German professor who has analyzed IQ's in various German regions (see http://www.sq.4mg.com/IQGerman.htm ) does not show any approaching the 109 you mention. That professor has recently commented favorably on my original work on IQ's for US states.

3. Yes, whites are somewhat better in verbal than in math skills, compared to world averages. The differences in SAT totals are related to the construction of subtests, and are not a valid measure of IQ skills.

4. The only weighting of IQ/ SAT tests that I am aware of is to make the overall average for males and females to be the same (normally 100). Females on average score slightly better on verbal tests, males are typically better in math. In overall IQ, males have a greater range of scores (both high and low) which likely accounts for more men winning Nobel prizes, etc. Women do better in getting in and staying in college probably due to study skills, not superior IQ.

5 - 7. (see item 1 above).

Jay answers: Thankyou very much for your answer, it clears a few things up, in relation to much of the IQ data regarding germans i found this, its the only source i could confirm as being potentially primary as it seems to have come from a newspaper, it may be of some use for your information, as much of the data available over the internet is often un sourced. I am aware through more recent research that IQ tests dont test creativity and problem solving, so creativity is probably the driving force of European technological advancement, creativity essentially is the process of abstract thought as you know. Also you have said that the chinese characters could stifle creativity, yet arnt languages the manifestations of an individuals or races general intelligence, or in other words languages materialise in the image of our own intelligence. the attachment is the iq data info, i understand it may be an outlier in statistics or possibly not, Germany and the neatherlands score at 107. the sample seems to be real and not contrived.

Sloan replies again: Jay, I think we will just have to agree to disagree on German IQ. From your comments, it would seem you did not go to Volkmar Weiss's webpage cited in my last email. He is a Member of the International Academy of Sciences and in Germany's Who's Who - and I trust his well documented research much more than an IQ number from any newspaper. Academics have thorough peer review on IQ numbers, as shown in my website at http://www.sq.4mg.com/UsingSQ4.htm#W

You are right that the connection (if any) between IQ and creativity is not well known. IQ is more than verbal skill, and the Chinese do better in the math part of IQ. I don't recall saying anything about Chinese creativity. However, the difficulty of learning Chinese characters may explain why their verbal part of IQ is lower (and their math part higher) than Europeans with similar overall IQ's.

copy to Volkmar Weiss

Weiss responds in 8/13/07 email: Of course, Germany and the Netherlands had never an IQ average of 107 or even 109. Volkmar Weiss www.volkmar-weiss.de/table.html

From: "Jim DeLap" jimala4@comcast.net

To: vansloan@yahoo.com

Subject: SOCIAL SKILLS/AMBITION??? 90% non-verbal in service smile economy?

Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2007 21:12:41 -0700

Sloan replies: Jim, I am not sure what your email question means. My research indicates that success in life (measured by money earned) is due roughtly 1/3 each to intelligence, social skills, and ambition. This likely varies with types of jobs. Managerial jobs seem to have greater dependence on social skiils as one climbs the corporate ladder. But I have not found reliable numbers beyond the 1/3 components above.

Date: Tue, 3 Apr 2007 11:56:20 -0700 (PDT)

From: "Parhatsathid Napatalung" parhat@yahoo.com

Subject: How Well a Child Behaves Predict Future Success

To: "Van Sloan" vansloan@yahoo.com

Dear Van Sloan:

More information to say that you were right about social skills being a future predictor of success.

Ted

http://www.umich.edu/~urecord/0607/Oct30_06/12.shtml

Behavior at age 8 may be enough to predict future career success

By Diane Swanbrow, News Service

New findings from long-term studies conducted in two nations over more than 30 years show that children's social behavior as early as age 8 is a powerful predictor of how well they will do in middle age......

Sloan replies:

Dear Professor Ted,

Thank you so much for your sharp eyes in finding the article below. It provides wonderful confirmation of my research on the importance of social skills.

Recently a German professor provided confirmation of my work on IQ's in US states (see the bottom of www.sq.4mg.com/IQ-States.htm ). Hopefully, what you found below will similarly lead to a renewed interest in the teaching of social skills and in my SQ measure of those skills. It is most interesting that the study's methodology is the same as mine: each person's social skill was measured only by the ratings of peers, on very similar questions!

I've just returned to California from three delightful months in Mexico. Most Mexicans have wonderful social skills and a happy family life. Now I am ejoying some spring skiing at Lake Tahoe before taking off again in late May to Rio de Janeiro. You can see photo albums of my travels at www.vansloan.shutterfly.com

Thanks again, Van

From: "Linda Vincent" linda@3smartcubes.com

To: "Van Sloan" vansloan@yahoo.com

Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 05:56:38 -0800 (PST)

Subject: Re: Permission to Link Your Site - "Social Quotient"

Hi. We checked out your site 'Social Quotient' and liked the content provided on it. We have a site offering IQ tests. Since yours is a related site, we would like to put up a link to your site on this page. http://www.3smartcubes.com/pages/iq_tests.asp In return we wish that you would put a link to our site on yours. To help you in doing so we have provided the information given below:

Sloan replies: Linda, Thanks for your good words on my Social Quotient site. I have tried to give unbiased information on IQ. Did you see my http://sq.4mg.com/IQtests.htm webpage, which generally discourages online IQ tests as unreliable? If you have research that your IQ test is better than most online tests, and that your results approximate MENSA and similar standard IQ tests, I would welcome the reciprocal links you suggest. It would be good for people to have reliable, low cost, online IQ tests available. I could not find such research

From: preeth menon rehannamenon@hotmail.com

Date: Sat, 6 Jan 2007 06:37:21 -0800 (PST)

To: "Van Sloan" vansloan@yahoo.com

Subject: Re: IQ

I beleive Asian Indians are racially heterogenous and so have a large distribution of IQ for exampl mine is 138. Cn you tell me more about Asian Indian IQs

Sloan replies: Preeth, your thoughts about IQ in India are likely correct. Steve Sailer has written a good analysis of it at http://www.vdare.com/sailer/india.htm - here is an excerpt:

The average IQ of India and China is crucial to the future of the world. But the question is far from settled. Richard Lynn and Tatu Vanhanen's IQ and the Wealth of Nations found three IQ studies of China, which averaged out to 100 on a scale where the U.S. average is 98. As I've tried to emphasize, single-country averages from that important book should be taken with a grain of salt, but regional averages are more reliable. The more advanced and better-documented countries bordering China feature even higher average IQs. So the future looks bright for China. In contrast, Lynn and Vanhanen found four studies of Indian IQ that average out to only 81. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the variance in IQ is greater in India than in China. There may be more geniuses in India than in China but the average level of competence seems lower. However, putting together a nationally-representative sample is harder in India than anywhere else on Earth. The caste system, by discouraging intermarriage, has in effect subdivided the Indian people into an incredible number of micro-races. In India, according to Cavalli-Sforza, "The total number of endogamous communities today is around 43,000…" So I would keep an open mind on just what the IQ of India is. And, of course, better nutrition, health care, education, and more outbreeding could all work to raise it.

From: "Michael A McDaniel/AC/VCU" mamcdani@vcu.edu

To: "Van Sloan" vansloan@yahoo.com

Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2006 08:02:37 -0800 (PST)

Subject: Re: Fw: Estimating IQ averages in US States

Mr. Sloan,

Given your interest in state IQ, I thought I would alert you to this blogger who is having fun with state IQ estimates. http://anepigone.blogspot.com/2006/11/interesting-bits-on-state-iq-estimates.html

Best wishes, Mike

Michael A. McDaniel, Professor - Human Resources and Organizational Behavior

Department of Management, Virginia Commonwealth University

Sloan replies: Mike, Thanks for the alert. But I'm more intersted in what serious observers (like yourself and Volkmar Weiss) have to say.

You might be interested in one unexpected finding I came across this summer, in Indonesia. Since it is from unexpected results that science often advances, I wonder what you two might think. Here is a definite case where IQ and income are not in step:

Subject: question on IQ and politics

To: vansloan@yahoo.com

Has there been more in depth research done on this and if so do you know where I could find some literature on it? The numbers are fun, but I would really like to read more on it. Thank you., Nick

Sloan replies: Nick, I too would like to find good research on IQ and politics. What I have on my site is the best information I know about - including the IQ of the various US states.

One new political aspect of IQ I have recently discovered is in Indonesia . The country's vice president notes that Java students have always scored higher on standard tests than students in neighboring islands. This is surprising for two reasons:

1. The genetic makeup in Indonesia is about the same on all islands. 2. Bali people earn about twice what Java people do. If Java people are smarter, why don't they earn more, as is the case in the US and other countries where IQ varies by region?

copy to: Volkmar Weiss - which is answered below

Date: Sat, 2 Dec 2006 09:46:53 -0800 (PST)

From: Volmar Weiss" Volkmar-Weiss@t-online.de

To: "Van Sloan" vansloan@yahoo.com

Subject: Bali - Java income difference

Java has a substantial Chinese minority with a much higher IQ mean and a higher income than the native people. Volkmar

Sloan replies: Yes Volkmar, the Chinese in Java likely are a reason for that island's higher school scores. But that still leaves the mystery of why the non-Chinese in Java earn so much less than their Balinese peers. I suspect that Balinese friendliness is a big reason behind their much higher incomes. That friendliness draws major resorts to Bali, which raises overall wages there. Another example is that Carnival Cruise Lines has a big recruiting center in Bali, but none in Java - where they could hire workers for half the pay. Since social skills can be improved, the Bali model may be a lesson to other low wage areas around the world - particularly where the average IQ is below 90. Thailand similarly seems to benefit from being the "land of smiles." Van

From: Volkmar Weiss" Volkmar-Weiss@t-online.de

Date: 11/26/2006 03:01 PM

To mamcdani@vcu.edu, s.kanazaw@lse.ac.uk

cc "Dr. Heiner Rindermann" Heiner.Rindermann@GSE-W.Uni-Magdeburg.DE, "Siegfried Lehrl" Siegfried.Lehrl@psych.imed.uni-erlangen.de, Detterman@cwru.edu

Subject Estimating IQ averages in US States

Dear Dr. McDaniel:

Dear Dr. Kanazawa:

Since years you can find on my homepage www.volkmar-weiss.de/table.html a link to http://sq.4mg.com/IQ-States.htm, leading to IQ averages in US States, best estimate from actual SAT and ACT scores by Van Sloan. These scores are nearly identical with the NAEP derived scores by McDaniel.

I am very astonished that neither you nor the editor of "Intelligence" were aware of this link. Within the next hour I will load the arithmetic mean of the data by Van Sloane and McDaniel to my webpage mentioned above.

Sincerely yours

PD Dr. Dr. habil. Volkmar Weiss

Leipzig, Germany

www.volkmar-weiss.de/publ-e.html

From: Michael A McDaniel/AC/VCU

To: Volkmar Weiss

Cc: Detterman@cwru.edu ; Dr. Heiner Rindermann ; Siegfried Lehrl ; s.kanazaw@lse.ac.uk

Sent: Sunday, November 26, 2006 9:46 PM

Subject: Re: Estimating IQ averages in US States

Dr. Weiss,

Thank you for informing me of this link. If you had your data in a peer reviewed journal, it would be more widely known. The peer review of your findings would also permit one to place more confidence in the estimates.

By tracing citations on my recent article, I have come across a few other websites and blogs that offer IQ listings by state. Here are two:

http://anepigone.blogspot.com The November blog entries list a variety of estimates by race. The blogger is purportedly using the NAEP data.

http://vdare.com/sailer/061022_iq.htm This article discusses my estimates and provide information on past estimates (none of them yours).

Best wishes,

Mike

Michael A. McDaniel

Professor - Human Resources and Organizational Behavior

Department of Management

Virginia Commonwealth University

From "Volkmar Weiss" Volkmar-Weiss@t-online.de

Date: 11/26/2006 04:36 PM

To "Michael A McDaniel/AC/VCU" mamcdani@vcu.edu

Subject: Re: Estimating IQ averages in US States

Dear Mike,

these were not my findings, only linking my homepage to Van Sloans webpage is my contribution.

You should be glad, you and Van Sloare are confirming each other . Kanazawa calculations are biased in a nonsensical way, and if were aware of Van Sloane before writing your comment on Kanazawa you could have said it more frankly.

I have published more than 180 papers and, now, I am only modestly interested in the opinion of a broader public.

Volkmar

From: Michael A McDaniel/AC/VCU

To: Volkmar Weiss

Sent: Monday, November 27, 2006 1:42 AM

Subject: Re: Estimating IQ averages in US States

Volkmar,

Check the links on your page. I could find no information of how the IQ estimates were calculated. Also I do not know who Van Sloan is or why I should trust his numbers. Given this lack of documentation, why would you expect anyone to cite this information in a journal article or rely on it for research?

Mike

Date: Mon, 27 Nov 2006 13:24:28 -0800 (PST)

From: Volkmar Weiss" Volkmar-Weiss@t-online.de

Subject: Fw: Estimating IQ averages in US States

To: "Van Sloan" vansloan@yahoo.com

CC: MAMcDani@vcu.edu

(Weiss forwarded the above emails to Sloan)

Sloan replies: Hello Volkmar,

The page on my website that shows how the state IQ's were calculated is http://www.sq.4mg.com/IQ-States.htm /P>

The IQ's were developed out of SAT and ACT test scores in each state. The page above and its links (mostly below the chart) show in detail where all the data came from. Information on my degrees and experience are at http://www.sq.4mg.com/vansloan.htm#z

I am sending Mike McDaniel a copy of this email as a response to his concerns. His email indicated that my findings on state IQ's were cited in a journal article. I would welcome knowing which journal. If possible, I would also welcome an email copy of the article, or at least the paragraph in which my work is cited. To my knowledge, my state IQ numbers are the only ones available for which there is solid data backup.

Thanks for forwarding your information to me. Hope this helps!

Van Sloan

From: Michael A McDaniel/AC/VCU

To: Van Sloan

Cc: Volkmar Weiss

Sent: Tuesday, November 28, 2006 12:47 AM

Subject: Re: Fw: Estimating IQ averages in US States

Mr. Sloan,

I attach a copy of my paper on estimating state IQs. According to Professor Weiss our estimates are very close. I was not aware of your web site when I did my article. The estimated state IQ is predictive of gross state product, government effectiveness, crime and health. You can download another paper of mine critiquing Kanazawa's estimates of state IQ based on SATs. He ignored the ACT data and got odd results. The web site is: http://www.people.vcu.edu/~mamcdani/CV_and_Research_Publications.htm If you do any additional work on estimating IQ, please share it with me so I will know about it.

Best wishes, Mike McDaniel

Volkmar Weiss wrote:

Dear colleagues:

I am very glad to see that you have made contact. Your results are confirming each other in a very remarkable way, and this is in science always an extraordinary event.

My only merit in this is to have made a link to Van Sloans webpage about a year ago. I would never made this link if I had not found Van Sloanes data reasonable. Sometimes an outsider, but with a firm academic background, does a better work than a peer referenced journal, in this case I mean Kanazawa and his referees. Kananzawas paper should not have been printed.

In the meantime you can find the arithmetic means of your data on my homepage, see www.volkmar-weiss.de/table.html

I wish you much further success! Your results, deducing IQ values from educational tests with math, reading etc. confirm the importance and meaning of general intelligence in an excellent way, this is the general message of your work and of confirming each other.

Mit freundlichen Grüßen

Volkmar

From Weiss' site -

IQ averages in US States (in the following the arithmetic means of these estimates from SAT and ACT scores by Van Sloan and the NAEP derived scores published by M. A. McDaniel: Intelligence 34 (2006) p. 612, corrected by minus 3 to an average of IQ 97:

Massachusetts IQ 101, New Hampshire IQ 101,

Connecticut IQ 100, Iowa IQ 100, Kansas IQ 100, Minnesota IQ 100, North Dacota IQ 100, Montana IQ 100, Vermont IQ 100, Wisconsin IQ 100,

Wyoming IQ 99 ,Nebraska IQ 99, New Jersey IQ 99, Ohio IQ 99, Colorado IQ 99, Oregon IQ 99. Maine IQ 99, Washington IQ 99,South Dacota IQ 99,

New York IQ 98, Pennsylvania IQ 98, Maryland IQ 98, Missouri IQ 98,Oklahoma IQ 98,Utah IQ 98, Michigan IQ 98,Virginia IQ 98,Idaho IQ 98, Illinois IQ 98, Indiana IQ 98,

Rhode Island IQ 97, West Virginia IQ 97, , Delaware IQ 97, Alaska IQ 97, Arizona IQ 96, Nevada IQ 96, Texas IQ 96,North Carolina IQ 96

Florida IQ 95, Tennessee IQ 95, , Kentucky IQ 95, Arkansas IQ 95, California IQ 95, Georgia IQ 95, Hawaii IQ 95,

Alabama IQ 94

South Carolina IQ 93,New Mexico IQ 93,Louisiana IQ 93,

Mississippi IQ 91

Date: Wed, 29 Nov 2006 06:33:47 -0800 (PST)

From: "Van Sloan" vansloan@yahoo.com

Subject: Re: Fw: Estimating IQ averages in US States

To: "Volkmar Weiss" Volkmar-Weiss@t-online.de

CC: MAMcDani@vcu.edu

Dear Volkmar,

Thank you so much for your kind words and for bringing several of us in contact. We are a minority. It is unfortunate that serious study of population IQ remains politically incorrect in much of academia and the press.

I support your averaging of McDaniel's and my data as the current best estimate of IQ's in US states. But I think further refinements could be made. For example, several states with large Spanish speaking populations (California, Florida, New Mexico) calculate to lower IQ scores than what might be expected. One must wonder if the lower NAEP test scores in those states reflect a limited student familiarity with English, rather than lower IQ's.

Second, net in and out migration could be a factor affecting the accuracy of using elementary school test scores. Many US plains states youngsters move to the coasts for jobs when they become adults. Those coastal states generally have higher average home prices, reflecting their high wage (and high IQ) jobs. Most of the public's fascination in state IQ's relates to the adult population, particularly as voters.

My interests now are moving away from IQ to studying other reasons for individual and national succsss. It is frustrating that so little can be done to improve IQ, especially after the age of five. And although my website gets good comments for handling ethnic questions on IQ, I am not as strong as Charles Murray in handling skepticism on it, even with family. My http://www.sq.4mg.com/SQ-NextSteps.htm webpage describes my current efforts to develop measurement of social skills. They also relate to success and can be improved, unlike IQ This research has a side benefit in taking me to friendly, beautiful spots like Bali. And it gves me the opportunity to pioneer in an area badly needing numerical analyis rather than its current Emotional Intelligence generalizations.

Thanks again,

Van Sloan

Date: Fri, 20 Oct 2006 12:24:42 -0700 (PDT)

From: "Parhatsathid Napatalung" parhat@yahoo.com

Subject: ethics around the world

To: "Van Sloan" vansloan@yahoo.com>

Van Sloan:

While I.Q. is related to economic development, the lack of ethics (for lack of a better word) is a variable that tends pull down economically also. It is no wonder that ethics is an important variable in business. But this is not the only score of course, a more wider score as you have mentioned is the friendliness score too. A company can't simply work together if your co-workers are absolutely abnoxious!

Ethics is an issue that I find to have a very good predictive variable of corruption and was important during my studies of corruption. A person without ethics could write laws till the end of time and there will always be loopholes or lapses in the word of the law.

Some parts of the world, such as Thailand, and the South East Asian Pacific rim, ethics is really not part of the cultural makeup. Most of the ethics is based on the untaught individual ethic, which works like face saving mechanism. This level of ethics is even lower still in Africa where it is almost non-existent.

For instance, in Thailand personal ethics is somewhat lacking, while business ethics is somewhat better. Japan is unique, their level of ethics is quite high (keeping their word) and it is in my personal opinion is at least higher or equally higher than U.S. Japan, therefore is unique in that aspect, while Korea, is not as high on that area.

Most ethics taught and ethics practice are two wholly different things. Ethics is taught in Buddhist precepts occurs a lot here in Thailand, but rarely is it practiced. It is only lip service and part of the social functions than it is about the philosophy.

In U.S., things that are taught are quite often implemented. In U.S. most ethics have a firm roots in religion and most of them is actually practiced, but rarely is it questioned. And in certain parts of Europe, ethics is learned somewhat with historical references as opposed to religious doctrine.

What I can say is religion, especially the U.S. religion plays a very important part on the ethics, moral and behavior of people, while most other countries, this is an exception to the rule. This I can say with certainty.

Ted

Sloan replies: Hi Ted,

My travels around the world make me realize that corruption and lax morals are much more of a problem than in the US. While we have headline stories of governmental and business lapses, these seem exceptions to me - as compared to what I see in Indonesia, for example. I wonder if the ethics taught by Christian churches influence the difference between American/ European practices vs those in other parts of the world. I do believe that those differences contribute to a lower standard of life in many parts of the world.

Last night I watched on TV the last of a PBS series: Guns, Germs, and Steel. It is based on a 1997 Pulitzer prize-winning book of the same name. Fortunately, the South Lake Tahoe library was able to get that book for me and I have enjoyed reading it. The author offers many insights into why history developed differently around the world, a topic of interest to me. The book was prompted by a question from a New Guinea friend of the author as to why Europeans were so much more advanced technologically than those in his country. Thr author completely dismisses any differenced in human groups (like IQ), focusing on other, more politically correct explanations, like differences in geography. Unfortunately this IQ blind spot if typical of liberals, particularly in university professors (who are supposed to be open to all truth).

In contrast with other research at universities, a politically correct approach seriously hurts the ability of researchers to find good answers to vexing human problems. For example, the TV series ended with a comparison of the economies of sub-Saharan Africa with those in similar latitudes in Singapore and Malaysia. It was ironic to me that the show lamented the effects of European colonization in Africa, while not mentioning the impact of British governing on the success of its Asian colonies. Test scores in the US and around the world abundantly show that, on average, East Asians have the highest IQ’s, followed by Europeans, and Latinos. Black average IQ’ are consistently the lowest, as is the success of their economies (as shown in my popular www.sq.4mg.com/NationIQ.htm webpage). As someone heavily involved in Education, these persistent IQ differences concern me, and I cannot suggest good answers. But I am strongly convinced that ignoring IQ differences, as many of our intellectual leaders do, will never lead to new approaches that have real promise.

Typical Amazon.com review of the book: Perhaps the overriding problem with "Guns, Germs and Steel" is its political correctness. (My sentiments exactly! The book and TV programs lack the understanding of IQ and ethics differences around the world that you and I have been discussing.)

Date: Tue, 17 Oct 2006 11:37:13 -0700 (PDT)

From: "Parhatsathid Napatalung" parhat@yahoo.com

Subject: Re: Fat people have lower intelligence?

To: "Van Sloan" vansloan@yahoo.com

Amusing research on intelligence and fat people. Not to be taken seriously of course, but something to think about.

Sloan replies: Ted,

Thanks for sending me that clip on obesity and IQ. I wonder if it should be taken seriously. This abstract below from the Neurology journal looks real to me.

http://www.neurology.org/cgi/content/abstract/67/7/1208

Relation between body mass index and cognitive function in healthy middle-aged men and women

M. Cournot, MD , J. C. Marquié, PhD , D. Ansiau, PhD , C. Martinaud, MD , H. Fonds, MD , J. Ferrières, MD, MSc, FESC and J. B. Ruidavets, MD From INSERM U558, Toulouse University School of Medicine (M.C., J.F., J.-B.R.); Department of Epidemiology, CHU Toulouse (M.C., J.F., J.-B.R.); Work and Cognition Laboratory, CNRS UMR 5551, University of Toulouse-le Mirail (J.-C.M., D.A.); Service Interuniversitaire de Médecine Préventive et de Protection de la Santé (C.M.); and Inspection Médicale du Travail, Direction Régionale du Travail et de l’Emploi (H.F.), Toulouse, France. Address correspondence and reprint requests to Dr. Maxime Cournot, Department of Epidemiology, Toulouse University Hospital, INSERM U558, 37, allées Jules Guesdes, 31073 Toulouse cedex, France; e-mail: cournot@cict.fr Objective: To assess whether body mass index (BMI) is associated with cognitive function and cognitive decline in healthy men and women. Methods: In this prospective cohort study, we analyzed data from 2,223 healthy workers aged 32 to 62 years at baseline. Medical, psychosocial, and environmental data were collected in 1996 and in 2001. We tested cognitive functions at baseline and at follow-up with word-list learning (four recalls), a Digit–Symbol Substitution Test, and a selective attention test. Results: Cross-sectionally, a higher BMI was associated with lower cognitive scores after adjustment for age, sex, educational level, blood pressure, diabetes, and other psychosocial covariables. A higher BMI at baseline was also associated with a higher cognitive decline at follow-up, after adjustment for the above-cited confounding factors. This association was significant for word-list learning. For the changes in scores at word-list learning (delayed recall), regression coefficients were –0.008 ± 0.13, –0.09 ± 0.13, –0.17 ± 0.14, and –0.35 ± 0.14 (p for trend < 0.001) for the second, third, fourth, and fifth quintiles of BMI at baseline when compared with the first quintile. No significant association was found between changes in BMI and cognitive function.

Conclusions: Body mass index was independently associated both with cognitive function (word-list learning and Digit–Symbol Substitution Test) and changes in word-list learning in healthy, nondemented, middle-aged men and women.

Date: Fri, 6 Oct 2006 15:03:57 -0700 (PDT)

From: "Van Sloan" vansloan@yahoo.com

Subject: Re: IQ Question

To: "Jeremy -----"

Hello I have some questions that you might beable to answer for me. I recently had my IQ scores from the WISC-3 test. They were as follows...

115 Verbal IQ

95 Performance IQ

106 Full Scale IQ

I've been dianosed with a Basic Reading Skills and Written expression disability. Now it has been well noted that I suffer from depression and ADHD. I've been reading about IQ testing directly relating to your academic achievement and the such. Well it has me very worried to the point where I feel like just giving up because I have so many things telling me I can't do it. I've completed my associates degree in Business Adminstration with a 3.172 GPA at a community college. I will admit though that I don't put for any effort at all, I study 30 mins to 3 hours before the test and usually get B's and A's. I'm transfering to a 4 year university next quarter and I'm majoring in Economics. My goal in life is to teach. It's my passion in life, it's what keeps me going. It just feels like I'm trying to pull a 2000lb boulder up a hill and I'm not going anywhere. Now, heres my question for you. What is the different between Verbal and Performance IQs? Is one a more accurate predictor of my true IQ? I've taken IQ tests online and the scores usually come out to be 120-130 which is within the 1 standard deviation of my 115 Verbal IQ. I feel like I'm much smarter than a true IQ of 106. I was one of them children who didn't care about anything.... I sat through my professiency test and just went... A B C D A B C D A B C D.... just to get out of class. I've always been a slacker all my life. My brain has always been selective of what I want to learn... Like I can tell you all of Adam Smiths theorys and I can explain the whole entire Wealth of Nations book to you... But my brain won't allow me to process information such as Robert Frost's poems... I start going to my 4 year university next year and I'm scared. I don't know what to do... Can you give me your opinion?

Sloan replies: Jeremy, your record of success in school is more important than what you happened to score on an IQ test. It is likely that the test you took did not take into account your disabilities. Verbal IQ is considered closest to true IQ. To lessen your worries about University courses, you might want to talk to a counselor there about how some subjects are more challenging for you than others. You might try to fill course requirements with subjects you like and can do well with. I also am turned on by Economics, and have even written a well received high school text on the subject. Check out my www.Econ.4mg.com - you can even read some chapters from my book there. You seem to be progressing well towards your goals. Good luck!

Date: Sun, 9 Jul 2006 20:58:55 -0700 (PDT)

From: "Jason Auxier" dr_aux@yahoo.com

Subject: Re: IQ stability

To: "Van Sloan" vansloan@yahoo.com

Please let me begin by saying that I find your website on IQ very intriguing. For a number of years, I have questioned fundamental meaning and interpretation of IQ. Physical quantities like force, distance, electrical charge, and electrical current are defined in definite experimental terms without the need to lean on examples. Can IQ really be clearly defined without example? Without giving an example, what do you really mean by cognitive, spatial, or mathematical ability? Also, I have a question concerning IQ being stable for an individual. When I was in elementary school and in high school, I was tested resulting in 105 to 110 range (unfortunately, I do not know which test was used). In the second year of graduate school, I was tested using the Wechsler and Standford-Binet with scores of 134 and 136, respectively. I also went from a score on the ACT in the 55th percentile to a GRE score of 2100. During graduate school, I have met a number of others with similar results (even one who went from below 100 to the mid-130's) . How common is it for a person to increase their IQ by over a standard deviation like this?

Thanks, Aux

Sloan replies: Aux, your questions point out some of the limitations of our knowledge of IQ. It is part of psychology, a much less exact science than others. Definitions of intelligence are largely made by the tests that IQ reseachers develop. In spite of its limitations, however, I believe that IQ studies can provide useful information that organizations and nations can use. We do have information that IQ is much more stable than your results would indicate. Except for medical problems, it is fairly constant over a lifetime. Problems with individual testing, rather than IQ itself likely caused the differences you have noted.

Aux replies: Hi Slone, Thanks for addressing my questions. This does clear some things up, but answers always raise additional questions. The definition of intelligence in terms of the IQ tests seems reasonable; however, it would create some serious interpretive problems. Perhaps this is where much of the controversy lies. There is plenty of evidence to suggest medical problems can decrease intelligence of an individual, but what kind of medical problem would IMPROVE intelligence (youth to adult)? Wouldn't a formal scientific education greatly enhance one's aptitude for solving analytical problems and recognizing patterns? Wouldn't this enhancement show up in the results of an IQ test? A definition in terms of exams opens the door to the possibility that IQ can be altered by education, even if this is a rare occurrence. The question is how rare.

Sloan replies: You ask great questions. On IQ tests, the best ones try to correlate as closely as possible to other measures of intelligence: SAT tests, school grades, reading scores, etc. Most scientists believe that intelligence is a single, but elusive trait. On improving IQ, the strongest evidence is for good nutrition from pregnancy to age 5. Africa's low IQ scores are somewhat due to poor nutrition and health factors that don't allow children to reach their IQ potential. On study programs to enhance IQ, only one so far has solid data to support that: the study of Chinese, Japanese. or Korean ideograms (writing). Interestingly, east Asian children in the US who learn only English score lower in math IQ ( and particularly the spactial component) than their immigrant parents or east Asian peers. Your ideas of a scientific education would probably increase math IQ scores, but only to the extent the math tests assume certain knowledge skills. Vebal tests expect less specific knowledge and their scores are considered closer to true IQ than math test results. For students at all IQ levels, the better their education the better their test scores - as seen with SAT tests. But I feel that their IQ does not improve compared to their peers. Rather their ambition and ability to think more like the test creators leads to higher scores - as in SAT prep courses. Nevertheless, higher scores reflecting more knowledge is still a good outcome. Actually average IQ scores have been steadily increasing in developed countries for decades. No one has offered a satisfactory explanation, but some of my above points may play a factor. IQ remains an important but elusive topic!

Aux replies: Hi Slone, Thank you for the complement. I do appreciate it, but it was unnecessary. As you know, asking the right questions (no matter how obvious) is the only way that science progresses. You make some interesting points and I was unaware that Asian Americans underperform their homeland counterparts. Do you know of anyone who has looked at GRE scores of Asians who came here for graduate school as compared to Americans, especially in engineering and science? There is plenty of data to be had (order of magnitude of 10,000/year). Throw out the slugs that don't graduate. Now, one thing that I know is that the only foreign students that come over are the best from their country, so they scored much higher (mean and median) than their American classmates. May I note that this is in all three subjects, including verbal. And, if you have every had an Asian TA or worked with one in the lab, you know that they do not have a mastery of the English language (written or verbal). Additionally, I would rather have an American graduate student working in my lab since they have better intuition concerning solving hands-on problems. The question is why do Americans outperform Asians in research and collect more Nobel Prizes? You point concerning the elusiveness of IQ is interesting. Perhaps we have a lot to learn about intelligence and how it manifests itself. Properly interpreting data is sometimes difficult, especially when things are not concrete. Perhaps ponder some of the following questions and let me know what you think. Why do some of the most brilliant theoretical physicists have the best skills in mathematics, spatial manipulation, and the verbal and written word, but cannot fix their car or program a computer? Why can some mechanics can intuitively understand how to maximize the horsepower of an engine without being able to learn how to read, write, and perform simple arithmetic? Why can many of the best software engineers write code in many programming languages, but cannot figure out anything about the hardware they are writing their code on? Likewise, why can't some of the best computer engineers write C++ code to save their life? Why do physicists have such a hard time understanding biology/medicine and why do biologists have such a hard time understanding physics? In other words, if IQ increases your ability to solve problems, then wouldn't a person with a higher IQ have the ability to learn each of these skills with greater ease than someone with a lower IQ? Also, wouldn't someone with a higher IQ be able to learn all of these with the same level of ease? If not, then what is the proper interpretation of one's IQ score?

Sloan replies: Aux, as usual, you ask good questions. But I have no new information to help in their answers. I do believe people have traits or skills other than IQ which causes some of the situations you describe. Howard Gardner of Harvard believes some of these are evidence of multiple intelligences, but his is a minority view, mainly popular with educators. We do need more research and hard evidence on IQ. Garder and I (supported by a Yale prof) had a spat on this! It's in my website.

Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2006 00:38:04 -0700 (PDT)

From: "Mikko Wanzek" mkienz@hotmail.com

Subject: Re: Finnish IQ

To: "Van Sloan" vansloan@yahoo.com

Hello, my mom was born in Finland and I am half Finnish, so I might be slightly biased, but I was wondering about your IQ estimates for Finland, on your website it says the average IQ of Finland is only 97, I saw this a long time ago and it sounded somewhat reasonable, maybe slightly low, but a while ago I noticed that Finland was one of the highest scorers on the PISA test which is a test administered to many countries, and is basically an IQ test (do a internet search) in fact I think they scored the highest out of any country that took it (even the East Asian Countries) on the Reading Comprehension section and Mathematical Reasoning section, and were like third on the Science section, on a recent test. This actually made more sense to me because most of the Finns I know are fairly smart, and I scored quite well on my SAT. They also have the lowest rate of corruption according to your website which correlated quite well with IQ. If I had to guess I would say their average IQ is more around 108. Where did you get your estimates? I personally would think the PISA would be a better predictor of IQ than some small study because it was administered to many people. Also unlike the East Asian countries, from what I've read and heard the Finnish school system is not very rigorous, which means they scored high on the test despite an unrigorous school system.

Also, I have a question. I think it would be interesting to see a some information on what the average income for certain IQ ranges are in the United States, for example what the average income for somebody in the 130-135 IQ range is, but I haven't yet been able to find this information on the internet, do you have any suggestions, or would you be interested in finding the information?

Sloan replies: Mikko. my webpage listing nations IQ also includes this section:

The book's authors Lynn (psychology, U. of Ulster) and Vanhanen (political science, U. of Helsinki) analyzed 168 national IQ studies. They argue that a significant part of the gap between rich and poor countries is due to differences in national intelligence. There is a similar pattern within the United States, where higher IQ states have higher incomes. On Lynn's website you can see:

the IQ data sources used for 60 countries (at http://www.rlynn.co.uk/pages/article_intelligence/7-a1.asp) and IQs for 185 countries - some "Based on the IQs of Neighbouring or Other Comparable Countries" (at http://www rlynn.co.uk/pages/article_intelligence/t4.asp).

Since one of the authors who came up with the IQ by nation data is Finnish, Iit would seem unlikely that he would allow an innacurate, low score for Finland! On your question of incomes for different IQ's, I am not aware of data like that. Many high IQ people do not achieve the incomes of bright lawyers and doctors, perhaps because thay are smart not to want to work too hard, according to some studies.

Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2006 15:48:04 -0700 (PDT)

From: "Van Sloan" vansloan@yahoo.com

Subject: Our great phone conversation

To: Daniel@proflinx.com

Hi Daniel,

It was wonderful to get your call today. You are full with enthusiasm on ways to bring Social Quotient to the world! I look forward to your ideas and to working with you.

From out chat, here are some SQ website pages you might want to check out:

http://SQ.4mg.com/vansloan.htm - information on me

http://SQ.4mg.com/SQhistory.htm - history of SQ and its website

http://SQ.4mg.com/SQ-NextSteps.htm - my research on friendliness in SE Asia

I'll be in Bali, Indonesia for this from May 18 to September 10.

Your idea of having groups of 15-20 people, who all know each other, take the SQ test online could work. But perhaps we might first concentrate on the corporate training/ evaluation market. It would require minimal new programming and the process could be quite similar to the SQ surveys I have done with over 80 classes of high school students. Your friends at Proflinx would know how to sell to this market, we could seek high prices, and any difficulties in operation could be solved without becoming a public relations embarrassment. We could use our experience there to move carefully into an online market worldwide for individuals and small groups.

So glad you contacted me,

Van

http://SQ.4mg.com/vansloan.htm

Date: Sat, 22 Apr 2006 16:50:29 -0700 (PDT)

From: "dick lokken" revlokken@yahoo.com

Subject: Re: IQ

To: "Van Sloan" vansloan@yahoo.com

I am a retired Navy man with some college and my IQ was recently measured at 126. How does this fair among my brothers and sisters in the United States? Rich

Sloan replies: Rich,

Check out http://SQ.4mg.com/IQ-SATchart.htm It shows that a 126 IQ is in the top 4% of Americans, and just above the IQ of President Bush. One note of caution: if your 126 number was from an Internet or other casual IQ test, your real IQ number is likely to be lower.

From:	"Bob Sommers" <bobsommers@hawaii.rr.com>
Subject:	Re: an added phoning time
Date:	Fri, 7 Apr 2006 16:08:07 -1000
To:	"Van Sloan" <vansloan@yahoo.com>

Van. I do have a question. I'm under the impression that we tend to like smart/intelligent people. Not know-it-alls however. Is that true based on what your studies have found?

Thanks a million, Bob Sommers

Sloan replies: Bob, my research showed that there was no correlation with brains when the question on the Social Quotient survey was: "Who in your school class would you most/ least want to spend a lunch break with?"

But that question was felt to be just a popularity question, and students soon forced a change to a criteria they could mark more easily (which employers also preferred): "If all your classmates were sales clerks at a department store, whom would you most/ least want to help you?" This question did have a correlation with IQ. When asked, students admitted they didn't want a dumb clerk to help in a transaction." But I do not consider this to be as pure a likability question as the lunch break one.

Almost all my data was collected using the sales clerk question. You can see the correlations of social skills to intelligence and other personal characteristics (like happiness) at www.SQ.4mg.com/traits_2437.htm

Click for: questions prior to April 1, 2006

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