WORDSUM is a proxy for IQ in the General Social Survey. Like IQ tests, few do very well at it. Few do very poor at it. Most are somewhere in between. We can sort the results of the WORDSUM quiz by region. The results are much like you would expext from what you see on prime time TV and at the movies. Brains are over represented in the Northeast and West Coast. Folkwise cowboys roam the Moutain West. The Southern regions show an over representation at the other end of the scale. This pattern does not disappear if you look at whites alone, although the magnitude of the brain scarcity in the South declines.
4 comments:
So there was something to that red state blue state IQ thing after all.
Though it says mountain IQ > pacific IQ.
Yes and no.
The picture has different layers.
If we look at regions that relate to Red States and Blue States, the relationship matches up with the stereotypes we often find in pop culture (which is disproportionately produced in Blue States.) If you look at the state level data, the relationship weakens, as the averages of Red States and Blue States converge. At the level of individual voters, the relationship both disappears and re-emerges. The average Kerry voter scored no different than the average Bush voter (6.48 vs. 6.49 -- Bush voters were microscopically ahead.) But the variation among Kerry voters was greater than the variation among Bush voters (a standard deviation of 1.97 for Kerry vs. a standard deviation of 1.79 for Bush). The Kerry distribution had fat tails. At the top end, there were more high scoring Democrats than Republicans. Blacks fill out the ranks at the bottom of the Democratic distribution.
I’ve posted a data table of the comparison of Bush voters and Kerry voters.
I’m not reporting anything new here. I just like to run the numbers myself from time to time.
Engram,
Forgive me for self-promoting, but you might find this post of interest. I looked at several good-faith measures of IQ by US Census region (including Wordsum scores from the GSS).
Thanks AE,
I recognize you have done a lot of work on this, and the link to your work makes it easier for me to backtrack should I need to refer to it in future.
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