Abstract
The relation between skin color and intelligence was examined in a representative sample of 430 adult African Americans. A statistically significant positive correlation of 0.17 was obtained between light skin color and intelligence. It is proposed that the result supports the hypothesis that the level of intelligence in African Americans is significantly determined by the proportion of Caucasian genes.
Similar content being viewed by others
REFERENCES
Bean, R. B. (1906). Some racial peculiarities of the Negro brain. American Journal of Anatomy, 5, 353–432.
Brody, N. (1992). Intelligence. San Diego: Academic.
Davis, J. A., & Smith, T. W. (1996). General Social Surveys; Cumulative Codebook. Chicago: National Opinion Research Center.
Flynn, J. R. (1980). Race, IQ and Jensen. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Flynn, J. R. (1991). Asian Americans: Achievement Beyond IQ. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Herrnstein, R. J., & Murray, C. (1994). The Bell Curve. New York: Free Press.
Herskovits, M. J. (1926). On the relation between Negro-white mixture and standing in intelligence tests. Pedological Seminary, 33, 30–42.
Hill, M. E. (2000). Color differences in the socio-economic status of African American men: Results of a longitudinal study. Social Forces, 78, 1473–1460.
Howe, M. J. (1997). IQ in Question. London: Sage.
Jensen, A. R. (1973). Educability and Group Differences. London: Methuen.
Jensen, A. R. (1981). Obstacles, problems and pitfalls in differential psychology. In S. Scarr (Ed), Race, Social Class and Individual Differences in IQ. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Jensen, A. R., & Reynolds, C. R. (1982). Race, Social Class and ability patterns on the WISCR. Personality and Individual Differences, 3, 423–438.
Klineberg, O. (1928). An experimental study of speed and other factors in racial differences. Archives of Psychology, 15, No. 93.
Krieger, N., Sidney, S., & Coakley, E. (1998). Racial discrimination and skin color in the CARDIA study: Implications for public health research. American Journal of Public Health, 88, 1308–1313.
Loehlin, J. C., Vandenberg, S. G., & Osborne, R. T. (1973). Blood group genes and negrowhite ability differences in ability. Behavior Genetics, 3, 263–270.
Lynn, R. (1996). Racial and ethnic differences in intelligence in the United States on the Differential Ability Scale. Personality and Individual Differences, 20, 271–273.
Lynn, R. (1997).Geographical Variation in Intelligence, in H. Nyborg (Ed.), The Scientific Study of Human Nature, Oxford: Pergamon.
MacDonald, K. (1994). A People that Shall Dwell Alone: Judaism as a Group Evolutionary Strategy. Westport, CT: Praeger.
Mackintosh, N. J. (1998). IQ and Human Intelligence. Oxford,UK: University Press.
Nisbett, R. E. (1998). Race, genetics and IQ. In C. Jencks & M. Phillips (Eds.), The Black-White Test Score Gap. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.
Pearl, R. (1934). The weight of the Negro brain. Science, 80, 431–434.
Peterson, J., & Lanier, L. L. (1929). Studies in the comparative abilities of whites and Negroes. Comparative Psychology Monographs, No. 5.
Rushton, J. P. (2000). Race, Evolution and Behavior. Port Huron, MI: Charles Darwin Research Institute.
Scarr, S. (1981). Comments and replies. In S. Scarr Race, Social Class, and Individual Differences in IQ. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Scarr, S. (1995). Inheritance, intelligence and achievement. Planning for Higher Education, 23, 1–9.
Scarr, S., Pakstis, A. J., Katz, S. H., & Barker, W. B. (1977). Absence of a relationship between degree of white ancestry and intellectual skills within a black population. Behavior Genetics, 39, 68–86.
Shockley, W. (1971). Hardy-Weinberg law generalized to estimate hybrid variance for Negro populations and reduce racial aspects of the environment-heredity uncertainty. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 68, 1390.
Shuey, A. (1966). The Testing of Negro Intelligence. New York: Social Science Press.
Vint, F. W. (1934).The brain of the Kenyan native. Journal of Anatomy, 48, 216–223.
Weinberg, R. S., Scarr, S., & Waldman, I. R. (1992). The Minnesota transracial adoption study: A follow-up of IQ test performance at adolescence. Intelligence, 16, 117–135.
Witty, P. A., & Jenkins, M. D. (1936). Intra-race testing and Negro intelligence. Journal of Psychology, 1, 179–192.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Lynn, R. Skin Color and Intelligence in African Americans. Population and Environment 23, 365–375 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1014572602343
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1014572602343