Researchers from Texas and Scotland have discovered that a potential relationship between poverty and IQ can have a marked effect on the development of a person. The discovery suggests that socioeconomic status and childhood social factors can override the genetic prospective for intelligence.
The new research conducted over various countries combined the results of 14 peer-reviewed papers on 25,000 sets of twins and siblings. Australia, Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands and the United States, all of which have different levels of healthcare and education, provided a platform where researchers were able to study the impact of social environment on development.
“The hypothesis that the genetic influence on intelligence depends on socioeconomic status was not supported in studies outside of the US,” said co-author of the study, Tucker-Drob, associate professor at the University of Texas, Austin. The lack of access to healthcare and education being contributing factors.
Dr Tucker-Drob
The findings defined a strong gap between European countries and the U.S., where the U.S. displayed a higher proportion of subjects supporting the initial hypothesis. European countries and Australia yielded results to support the closure of socioeconomic gaps to combat this.
“The authors determined that childhood poverty appears to reduce the potential contained with a person’s genes, and that the situation varies from country to country. Poverty seems to have the biggest impact in US,” according to one statement from the University.
European countries and Australia have better access to healthcare and education. The relationship between a lower IQ and poverty was recorded as less noticeable in these countries, but not in the Netherlands, and considered a relevant and potential impact to IQ development.
The University of Edinburgh’s Professor Timothy Bates told the Daily Mail Online that “We showed that Britain and Australia have created a level playing field where class is no longer a limiting factor for the expression of genetic potential,” with high levels of IQ heritability equal through all social classes.
The study, which was published in the Psychological Science journal argued that improvement to education and healthcare accessibility could counteract or reverse the negative effect poverty has on IQ-related genes in the United States, and other countries.
“Once such characteristics are identified, they could inform policies directed at narrowing test score gaps and promoting all of the positive consequences of higher IQ, such as heath, wealth, and progress in science, art and technology,” Professor Bates added.
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