Countries with higher estimated IQs are *generally* more prosperous, better educated, more innovative, healthier, and more democratic

National Mean IQ Estimates: Validity, Data Quality, and Recommendations. Russell T. Warne. Evolutionary Psychological Science, Dec 19 2022. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40806-022-00351-y

Abstract: Estimates of mean IQ scores for different nations have engendered controversy since their first publication in 2002. While some researchers have used these mean scores to identify relationships between the scores and other national-level variables (e.g., economic and health variables) or test theories, others have argued that the scores are without merit and that any study using them is inherently and irredeemably flawed. The purpose of this article is to evaluate the quality of estimates of mean national IQs, discuss the validity of different interpretations and uses of the scores, point out shortcomings of the dataset, and suggest solutions that can compensate for the deficiencies in the data underpinning the estimated mean national IQ scores. My hope is that the scientific community can chart a middle course and reject the false dichotomy of either accepting the scores without reservation or rejecting the entire dataset out of hand.

Notes

1. This Flynn effect adjustment is often misunderstood. It does not increase or decrease the score of the country to reflect the age of the test. Rather, it adjusts the international IQ standard (where 100 = the mean in the UK) to the year of the test administration in a country so that the country’s measured IQ is compared to the estimated standard for the same year.

2. Only one sample had an overall quality rating of .18; it was collected in the United States. Four samples achieved an overall quality rating of .90. The data for these samples were collected in Tajikistan, the UK, the USA, and Yemen.

3. The width of a confidence interval is equal to ± 1.96(σn√)$\pm 1.96(\frac{\text{σ}}{\sqrt{n}})$, where σn√$\frac{\text{σ}}{\sqrt{n}}$ is equal to the standard error of the mean, σ = 15 (the default SD of a population on the IQ metric), and n is the combined sample size of all samples that contribute to a country’s mean IQ estimate (Warne, 2021, pp. 199–201).

4. These statistics are calculated using the absolute value of the differences between the QNW + SAS + GEO IQ in the Lynn and Becker (2019b) dataset and the IQ + GEO IQ for the previous version.

5. Listed in descending order of the magnitude of IQ change: Nicaragua (− 23.78 IQ points); Haiti (21.60 IQ points); Honduras (− 18.84 IQ points); Nepal (− 18.00 IQ points); Guatemala (− 17.71 IQ points); Saint Helena, Ascension, and Tristan da Cunha (− 17.01 IQ points); Belize (− 16.25 IQ points); Cabo Verde (− 16.00 IQ points); Morocco (− 15.39 IQ points); Yemen (− 14.39 IQ points); Mauritania (− 14.00 IQ points); Chad (11.83 IQ points); Saint Lucia (11.71 IQ points); Barbados (11.69 IQ points); Senegal (− 10.50 IQ points); Republic of the Congo (− 10.03 IQ points); Côte d’Ivoire (− 10.02 IQ points); and Vanuatu (10.02 IQ points). Positive values in this list indicate that the new IQ estimates from Lynn and Becker (2019b) are higher than the earlier estimate. Negative values indicate the new value is lower.

6. This finding also occurs in cross-national comparisons of educational achievement test scores. See, for example, Angrist et al. (2021), Gust et al. (2022), and Patel and Sandefur (2020).

7. The PERCE 1997 and SERCE 2006 data are taken from official publications reporting country means for each grade level and subject (Oficina Regional de Educación para América Latina y el Caribe/UNESCO, 2001, p. 176; 2008, Tables A.3.1, A.3.5, A.4.1, A.4.5, and A.5.1). TERCE 2013 and ERCE 2019 data can be downloaded at https://raw.githubusercontent.com/llece/comparativo/main/datos_grafico_1-1.csv

8. Cuba did not participate in TERCE 2013. Its ERCE 2019 data are much more similar to data from other countries in Latin America.

9. The 1995 SACMEQ test only produced reading scores. The 2000 and 2007 SACMEQ tests produced a reading and mathematics score. The 2000 and 2007 scores were combined as an unweighted mean for each country when calculating correlations with the estimated national-level IQs.

10. The correlations between PASEC scores and the GEO IQ scores from the Lynn and Becker (2019b) dataset—i.e., with Benin and Burkina Faso removed—are r = .142 (for PASEC grade 2 language), r = .153 (for PASEC grade 2 mathematics), r =  − .662 (for PASEC grade 6 language), and r = −.262 (for PASEC grade 6 mathematics). This does not change the conclusion that geographically imputed scores have a poor correspondence with data drawn from a country.

11. The national PIRLS/TIMSS scores and the chart to convert LLECE and PASEC scores to PIRLS/TIMSS scores to one another are available at https://www.cgdev.org/sites/default/files/patel-sandefur-human-capital-final-results.xlsx

12. I used the American mean in this calculation because the UK was not one of the countries in Patel and Sandefur’s (2020) study. The 2.5 IQ point adjustment is the standard adjustment that Lynn and Becker (2019b) used when examinees took a test normed in the USA instead of the UK.

13. Two regions, England and Northern Ireland, were part of the same country. When calculating correlations with QNW + SAS IQs, the Northern Ireland data were dropped, and the data for England was compared to QNW + SAS IQs for the entire UK.

14. Sear’s (2022) criticism of using IQ data from children to estimate IQs for an entire population shows that she does not understand that IQ scores are calculated by comparing examinees to their age peers. This functionally controls for age and allows scores from different age groups to have the same meaning. For an accessible explanation of how IQ scores are calculated, see Warne (2020), pp. 5–9.

15. Readers may be aware of Lim et al.’s (2018) study that measures human capital in 195 countries. These scores are not included in the discussion in this article because the underlying data are not solely cognitive/educational scores. Lim et al. (2018) also used health data and longevity/life expectancy data in the calculation of their human capital scores. Therefore, the Lim et al. (2018) data cannot be interpreted as a cognitive measure, which makes it inadequate to use for convergent validity purposes when studying the Lynn and Becker (2019b) dataset.

16. Available at https://datacatalog.worldbank.org/search/dataset/0038001.

17. This statistical truism is why the Flynn effect (a purely environmental effect) can coexist with high heritability (a variance statistic measuring the strength of generic influence on a phenotype in a population) of IQ. The same secular mean increase occurred in height (a phenotype with high heritability) in many countries during the twentieth century. Changes in the mean do not automatically result in changes in the variance—and vice versa.

18. It is important to recognize that mean QNW + SAS IQs below 70 are also found in some Central American nations (Belize, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua), the Caribbean (Dominica and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines), and Morocco, Nepal, and Yemen.

19. For the 2018 PISA, the SD for the UK data was 93 for math scores and 99 for science scores (Schleicher, 2019, pp. 7–8). In these calculations, I used the standard deviation of 99 to be more conservative. My choice of standard deviation will not affect any correlations, but it will change differences between these IQs and others and make outlier national mean IQs slightly less extreme.

20. This is not an artifact of the extrapolation based on nearby countries’ data that Gust et al. (2022) used. The correlation between scores for the 12 countries that had imputed data in both datasets was r = .608; for the 13 countries that had geographically imputed scores in the Lynn and Becker (2019b) dataset and scores based on educational achievement testing data in the Gust et al. (2022) dataset, the correlation was r = .511. The average difference between the two sets of scores is also similar.

21. Gust et al. (2022, p. A1) noted that Angrist et al.’s (2021) method overestimates academic achievement HLOs, compared to the Gust et al. (2022) method. The average scores in Table 2 are much more similar than would be expected because of the different means for the UK that were used to calculate z-scores and IQs. The HLO mean for the UK is 527.8 in the Angrist et al. (2021) data, compared to the Gust et al. (2022) mean of 503.2. The higher HLO mean for the UK provides a correction to the HLO scores, when converted to IQs, and makes the weighted mean IQs for both datasets in Table 2 much more similar.

22. The QNW + SAS IQs for these countries are 69.45 (Botswana), 60.98 (Ghana), and 69.80 (South Africa). However, note that these are not independent of the PIRLS and TIMSS data because Lynn and Becker (2019b) used the educational achievement data to calculate SAS IQs, which contributed data to the QNW + SAS IQs.

23. The largest discrepancies were for the Dominican Republic (+ 20.11 IQ points), Yemen (+ 19.34 IQ points), Tunisia (+ 12.39 IQ points), Argentina (+ 11.45 IQ points), Kuwait (+ 10.59 IQ points), and Honduras (− 10.47 IQ points). In this list, positive numbers indicate a higher QNW + SAS score in the Lynn and Becker (2019b) dataset, and negative numbers indicate a higher IQ derived from the Patel and Sandefur (2020) study.

24. The four countries with geographically imputed IQs in Lynn and Becker’s (2019b) dataset that have discrepancies of at least 10 IQ points are Paraguay (+ 17.26 IQ points), Senegal (− 15.76 IQ points), Chad (+ 13.92 IQ points), and Niger (+ 10.10 IQ points). In this list, positive numbers indicate a higher QNW + SAS + GEO score in the Lynn and Becker (2019b) dataset, and negative numbers indicate a higher IQ derived from the Patel and Sandefur (2020) study.

25. The largest discrepancies were for Cambodia (+ 26.4 IQ points), Venezuela (− 23.1 IQ points), Cuba (− 20.6 IQ points), Pakistan (+ 18.4 IQ points), Nicaragua (− 15.9 IQ points), Sri Lanka (+ 15.9 IQ points), Guatemala (− 15.4 IQ points), the Dominican Republic (+ 15.3 IQ points), the Philippines (+ 14.8 IQ points), Kyrgyzstan (+ 13.1 IQ points), Argentina (+ 12.4 IQ points), Haiti (+ 12.2 IQ points), Morocco (− 11.4 IQ points), Mongolia (+ 10.8 IQ points), and the United Arab Emirates (− 10.1 IQ points). In this list, positive numbers indicate a higher QNW + SAS score in the Lynn and Becker (2019b) dataset, and negative numbers indicate a higher IQ derived from the Gust et al. (2022) study. The inclusion of Cuba on this list is due to the use of SERCE 2006 data in the Gust et al. (2022) paper. As I stated earlier in this article, the Cuban data for this test are an outlier and likely fraudulent. This shows that when national IQ discrepancies arise in different datasets, it does not always indicate that Lynn and Becker’s (2019b) data are wrong.

26. In descending order of the magnitude of the discrepancy, these countries were Honduras (22.62 IQ points lower), Botswana (18.52 IQ points lower), South Africa (13.80 IQ points lower), and Egypt (11.65 IQ points lower).

27. Testing students one grade higher typical is standard practice for South Africa when administering PIRLS and TIMSS tests.

28. The Burundi data are clearly an outlier. Patel and Sandefur (2020) reported that 43% of examinees in Burundi met or exceeded the TIMSS low international benchmark in reading, which is typical of PASEC countries (PASEC, 2015, p. 50). The discrepancy between Burundi’s math and reading performance originates in the PASEC data and is not an error in Patel and Sandefur’s conversion of PASEC scores to TIMSS scores.

29. Pupil age is another factor to consider in making these comparisons. Repeating a grade is much more common in sub-Saharan Africa than it is in Western countries. However, these older pupils score worse on the PASEC than their classmates who have never repeated a grade (PASEC, 2015, pp. 78–81). Unlike testing students in a higher grade, the inclusion of these older students does not increase the countries’ percentages of students who meet the TIMSS low international benchmark.

30. I only compared mathematics scores here because language differences (e.g., one language being easier to learn to read than another) make comparing reading scores and competency less straightforward than comparing proficiency in mathematics (Gust et al., 2022). Additionally, many children in African learn to read in a non-native language (i.e., Swahili, or a colonial language instead of their local African language), which would be a penalty when comparing reading scores to children in economically developed nations where most children are tested in their native language.

31. There are three versions of the Raven’s: the Colored Progressive Matrices, Progressive Matrices, and Advanced Matrices (listed in ascending order of difficulty).

32. Countries with a low NWQ + SAS IQ (≤ 75) based solely on matrix test data are Benin, the Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Dominica, Eritrea, Ethiopia, The Gambia, Guatemala, Malawi, Mali, Morocco, Namibia, Nepal, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Sudan, Syria, Tanzania, Yemen, and Zimbabwe.

33. This is why I have preferred to use the QNW + SAS IQs whenever possible in this article. QNW + SAS IQs are based on the most data and do not include countries with geographically imputed mean IQs.

34. That is, unless one does not believe that educational performance, life outcomes, health and disease, economic prosperity, and strong civic institutions are important.

Our findings suggest though that liberals view emotion as a feature of rationality while conservatives view it as a bug

Do liberals value emotion more than conservatives? Political partisanship and Lay beliefs about the functionality of emotion. Minyoung Choi, Melissa M. Karnaze, Heather C. Lench & Linda J. Levine. Motivation and Emotion, Dec 19 2022. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11031-022-09997-4

Abstract: Relying on feelings to guide thoughts and plans may be functional from the perspective of the individual but threaten the cohesion of social groups. Thus, liberals, who prioritize caring and fairness for individuals, may view emotion as more functional than do conservatives, who prioritize preserving social groups, hierarchies, and institutions. To test this, participants in three studies (total N = 1,355) rated political partisanship, beliefs about the functionality of emotion, and well-being. Study 3 also assessed how much participants prioritized “individualizing” versus “socially binding” values (Graham et al., 2011). Across all studies, the more liberal participants were, the more they viewed emotion as functional, despite reporting less emotional well-being. In Study 3, the link between liberalism and valuing emotion was mediated by more liberal participants’ greater endorsement of individualizing than socially binding values. These results suggest that emotion is viewed as more functional by those who prioritize the needs of individuals, but as less functional by those who prioritize the cohesion of social groups.

General discussion

As the gap between liberals and conservatives widens to a chasm, and each group accuses the other of being either heartless or bleeding hearts, it becomes critically important to understand partisan perspectives on emotion. This investigation examined the relation between people’s political orientation and their beliefs about the functionality of emotion. The results across three studies were strikingly similar. The more liberal participants were, the more they viewed emotion as functional despite also reporting less well-being. In Study 3, the link between liberal partisanship and viewing emotion as functional was mediated by liberals’ greater endorsement of “individualizing” than “socially binding” moral values. These findings suggest that emotion is viewed as more functional by those who prioritize the needs of individuals, and as less functional by those who prioritize the cohesion of social groups.

Liberals value emotion more than conservatives

Powerful emotion, and appeals for greater rationality, are prevalent on both sides of the political continuum (Finkel et al., 2020; Frimer et al., 2019). Our findings suggest though that liberals view emotion as a feature of rationality while conservatives view it as a bug. Across three studies, liberals viewed emotion as more functional than conservatives – that is, as a healthy source of information about the self that provides direction in life rather than as a weakness and a waste of time. This link between liberalism and viewing emotion as functional remained after taking into account participants’ gender (in all studies) and religiosity (assessed in Studies 1 and 2). In Study 1, participants also reported the intensity with which they typically experience emotion and how they regulate emotion. The more liberal participants were, the more they reported experiencing intense emotion and the less they reported suppressing the expression of emotion. Further, viewing emotion as more functional mediated the association between liberal partisanship and reports of experiencing more intense emotion and engaging in less suppression. Thus, beliefs about the functionality of emotion may help to explain why people who are more liberal value emotional expressiveness more (Matsumoto et al., 2008), whereas people who endorse conservative policies are more motivated to avoid emotion (Leone & Chirumbolo, 2008).

Social values explained the Link between partisanship and Lay beliefs about emotion

In Study 3, we investigated whether participants’ social values explained the association between liberal partisanship and valuing emotion. Emotions provide information and guide action in a manner that is often functional for attaining the goals of the individual (Keltner & Gross, 1999; Scherer, 2019). However, relying on personal feelings to guide thoughts and plans may disrupt the harmonious functioning of social groups which include individuals with disparate goals (Mooijman et al., 2018). Thus, we expected participants who were primarily concerned with the needs of individuals to view emotion as more functional than those who were more attuned to the needs of social groups. We tested this by examining participants’ responses to the Moral Foundations Questionnaire (Graham et al., 2011).

Consistent with prior research, when judging actions as right or wrong, the more liberal participants were, the higher they scored on progressivism (Graham et al., 2009, 2011). That is, more liberal participants prioritized the “individualizing” moral foundations of caring and fairness, which address the needs of individuals, to a greater extent than the “binding” moral foundations of loyalty, authority, and sanctity, which help to maintain the cohesion of social groups. As expected, the link between liberalism and viewing emotion as functional was mediated by liberals’ greater endorsement of individualizing than binding social values. Thus, prioritizing the needs of individuals more than the cohesion of social groups helped explain the association between liberal partisanship and viewing emotion as more functional.

Openness to experience and well-being

We also assessed whether participants’ openness to experience (Study 1) or well-being (all three studies) could account for the link between liberal partisanship and viewing emotion as more functional. In Study 1, participants who were more open to experience viewed emotion as more functional. However, in contrast to past research (e.g., Desimoni & Leone, 2014; Sibley et al., 2012), openness to experience was not associated with political partisanship in our sample. Thus, this personality trait did not explain the association between partisanship and beliefs about emotion. Study 1 included relatively few conservative participants, so we interpret this finding with caution. Future research sampling a broader range of political partisanship should examine whether conservatives’ preference for stability and certainty over novelty and ambiguity contributes their view of emotion as less functional.

With respect to well-being, past research shows that feeling threatened and anxious can lead people to endorse more conservative views (e.g., Jost et al., 2003; Oxley et al., 2008). We found that participants who reported less well-being viewed emotion as less functional (Karnaze & Levine, 2018, 2020; Luong et al., 2016). But the link found between conservatism and viewing emotion as less functional was not explained by poorer well-being. In all three studies, more conservative participants viewed emotion as less functional despite reporting greater well-being. In summary, participants’ social values, but not their openness to experience or well-being, helped explain the association between liberal partisanship and viewing emotion as more functional.

Emotional responses to specific events

Finally, we explored whether participants’ beliefs about the functionality of emotion explained associations between partisanship and emotional responses to specific events. In Study 2, we assessed participants’ emotional responses to a personal experience of success or failure – receiving a favorable or unfavorable grade on an exam. After adjusting for the appraised importance of their grade and the specific letter grade received, participants’ feelings about their grades were not related to political partisanship. Irrespective of partisanship, those who viewed emotion as more functional felt happier about getting the grade they expected or higher. Emotion beliefs were not related to the unhappiness participants felt about receiving a grade that was lower than expected. In Study 3, we assessed participants’ emotional responses to a political experience of success or failure – Biden’s victory in the 2020 U.S. presidential election. After adjusting for how important the election outcome was for participants, and how much they agreed that Biden’s election was good for the country, partisanship did not predict how happy participants felt about Biden’s victory, but more conservative participants reported more anger and fear. Participants’ beliefs about the functionality of emotion were not related to the intensity of happiness, anger, or fear they reported.

In summary, our findings with respect to partisan differences in emotional experience were mixed. On one hand, as noted above, viewing emotion as functional explained more liberal participants’ reports of generally experiencing more intense emotion and engaging in less expressive suppression. On the other hand, when participants reported their actual emotional responses to specific events, we found few associations between emotional experience and partisanship after accounting for their appraisals of those events. The one partisan association found – between conservatism and greater anger and fear about Biden’s victory – was not related to beliefs about the functionality of emotion. Overall, these findings were in keeping with past research showing that group differences in emotion values (e.g., differences in the emotions people ideally want to feel) are more pronounced and consistent than group differences in people’s actual feelings in response to concrete day-to-day events (Tsai et al., 2006).

Limitations and directions for Future Research

This investigation extended the emerging literature on lay beliefs about emotion to address an increasingly contentious and defining feature of people’s identity – political partisanship. Our findings suggest that prioritizing the needs of individuals over those of social institutions contributes to the association between liberal partisanship and the belief that emotions are functional. A limitation of this investigation, however, is that the causal direction of the relationship between partisanship and beliefs about emotion cannot be determined from correlational data. Future research could assess if experimentally manipulating whether people prioritize the needs of individuals over groups increases the value they place on the directive and expressive functions of emotion.

A second limitation is that factors in addition to social values may contribute to partisan differences in valuing emotion. For example, children’s early experiences shape both their political orientation and their attitudes about emotion. Children tend to adopt their parents’ political ideology (Boshier & Thom, 1973) and, when it comes to responding to children’s emotions, the parenting philosophies and practices of liberals and conservatives differ. Liberal parents encourage children to identify and communicate emotions rather than suppress them (Friedlmeier et al., 2011). What liberals consider to be sensitive and responsive emotion coaching, conservatives consider irresponsibly indulgent (Schreiber et al., 2013). Future research should explore how these parenting approaches shape liberals’ and conservatives’ differing beliefs about the value of emotion.

A third limitation is that, Studies 2 and 3 used the most common unidimensional measure of U.S. political partisanship which ranges from strongly conservative to strongly liberal. A recent meta-analysis showed that the association between moral progressivism (that is, individualist vs. binding values) and political partisanship is stronger for social than economic political orientation, varies modestly across countries with different political histories, and even varies across U.S. demographic and political groups (Kivikangas et al., 2021). For example, when libertarians make more decisions, they rely less on emotion, less on all five moral foundations, and more on considerations of individual freedom, than both liberals and conservatives (Iyer et al., 2012). Thus, extending the research beyond a unidimensional measure of partisanship, and to demographic groups from non-university samples, may yield further insights about the generalizability of the findings and the relations among political orientation, social values, and beliefs about the functionality of emotion.

Finally, participants in our studies may have interpreted questions about the functionality of emotion as referring to individuals’ emotional responses to events that impact their personal goals. Future research should examine whether conservatives value emotions as much or more than liberals when emotions are experienced and expressed on behalf of their social groups and institutions. For example, compared to liberals, conservatives may place greater value on feelings of pride toward family, community, and country, and anger toward perceived threats to these institutions (Porat et al., 2016). Compared to both liberals and conservatives, libertarians may value pride in individual achievement and anger about infringements on individual autonomy (Iyer et al., 2012).

Human capacity for emotional experiences of pleasure and pain spans an incredibly wide range of intensity, a minimum of two orders of magnitude between the most mild and the most intense experiences

Gómez-Emilsson, Andrés, and Chris Percy. 2022. “The Heavy-tailed Valence Hypothesis: The Human Capacity for Vast Variation in Pleasure/pain and How to Test It.” PsyArXiv. December 19. psyarxiv.com/krysx

Abstract: This paper proposes the "Heavy-Tailed Valence” (HTV) hypothesis: the notion that human capacity for emotional experiences of pleasure and pain spans an incredibly wide range of intensity, a minimum of two orders of magnitude between the most mild and the most intense experiences. We set out a thought experiment, the "integer experiment test", to demonstrate that such a capacity is not arbitrary: a wide range could not simply be mapped onto a narrow range without losing something tangible.

In directional support of the hypothesis, we discuss three stylized facts, based on heavy-tailed neurological functions, the application of pain/discomfort scales, and the existence of extreme events. We also present five intuitions against the hypothesis and suggest reasons to reject these counter-intuitions. Recognizing this theoretical ambiguity, we turn to specifying additional assumptions under which the hypothesis results in testable empirical claims.

A pilot survey (n=97) investigated how people describe their most intense experiences, finding tentative support for the hypothesis in preparation for a larger survey revised based on insights from the pilot. Over half said their most intense painful experience was at least three times more intense than the second most intense. Simulations further suggest an underlying heavy-tailed distribution of experience valences is more consistent with the survey responses. The results also raise doubts over the cardinal interpretation at the high end of 0-10 scales for pleasure or pain, with over 80% of respondents appearing to compress experienced intensity in order to report high values.

Finally, we discuss how a larger future survey could mitigate the limitations in the pilot study and discuss potential implications of the hypothesis for wellbeing economics, ethics, and personal life choices.

We found that androgynous group reported themselves to be more creative than the gender conforming group, but they did not score higher than the latter on behavioral creativity

Liu, T., & Damian, R. I. (2022). Are androgynous people more creative than gender conforming people? Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, Dec 2022. https://doi.org/10.1037/aca0000536

Abstract: Psychological androgyny refers to possessing both masculine and feminine characteristics. Sandra Bem (1974) proposed that androgynous people are more creative, because they are less limited by gender boundaries. This so-called androgyny-creativity effect contributes to the gender equality movement by ameliorating stereotypes about people who stepped out of gender boundaries. However, the evidentiary value of the available research testing this hypothesis has been limited by suboptimal (by current standards) methodology, such as small samples, antiquated statistical analysis, and inconsistent measurement. The current study attempted to replicate the androgyny-creativity effect in a large sample (N = 672), with both self-report and behavioral measures of creativity, and following both original and optimized statistical analyses. We found that androgynous group reported themselves to be more creative than the gender conforming group, but they did not score higher than the latter on behavioral creativity. This suggests that the androgyny-creativity effect (a) could be just a popular lay theory, (b) might only hold for certain types of creativity, and (c) might be a true effect but no longer exist due to societal changes in gender roles.

The great decline in adolescent risk behaviours, 1999—2019: Unitary trend, separate trends, or cascade?

The great decline in adolescent risk behaviours: Unitary trend, separate trends, or cascade? Jude Ball et al. Social Science & Medicine, December 16 2022, 115616. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2022.115616

Abstract: In many high-income countries, the proportion of adolescents who smoke, drink, or engage in other risk behaviours has declined markedly over the past 25 years. We illustrate this behavioural shift by collating and presenting previously published data (1990–2019) on smoking, alcohol use, cannabis use, early sexual initiation and juvenile crime in Australia, England, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and the USA, also providing European averages where comparable data are available. Then we explore empirical evidence for and against hypothesised causes of these declines. Specifically, we explore whether the declines across risk behaviours can be considered 1) a ‘unitary trend’ caused by common underlying drivers; 2) separate trends with behaviour-specific causes; or 3) the result of a ‘cascade’ effect, with declines in one risk behaviour causing declines in others. We find the unitary trend hypothesis has theoretical and empirical support, and there is international evidence that decreasing unstructured face-to-face time with friends is a common underlying driver. Additionally, evidence suggests that behaviour-specific factors have played a role in the decline of tobacco smoking (e.g. decreasing adolescent approval of smoking, increasing strength of tobacco control policies) and drinking (e.g. more restrictive parental rules and attitudes toward adolescent drinking, decreasing ease of access to alcohol). Finally, declining tobacco and alcohol use may have suppressed adolescent cannabis use (and perhaps other risk behaviours), but evidence for such a cascade is equivocal. We conclude that the causal factors behind the great decline in adolescent risk behaviours are multiple. While broad contextual changes appear to have reduced the opportunities for risk behaviours in general, behaviour-specific factors have also played an important role in smoking and drinking declines, and ‘knock-on’ effect from these behavioural domains to others are possible. Many hypothesised explanations remain to be tested empirically.

Introduction

Throughout much of the developed world, adolescent smoking, drinking, underage sex, and juvenile crime declined dramatically between the late 1990s and around 2015 (Ball et al., 2018; Pape et al., 2018; Twenge, 2017), yet the reasons for this widespread and long-term trend are not well understood. Better understanding of what caused declines in risk behaviours is vital if we are to predict and influence future trends. Trends for some risk behaviours plateaued or even began to reverse in some countries in the 2015–2019 period, adding urgency to the need to understand what drives teen trends and apply the lessons to preventive efforts.

In this narrative review we document this shift in adolescent behaviour and discuss evidence to date on possible causes. Potential causes are explored within three overarching hypotheses which are not mutually exclusive: 1) declines represent a ‘unitary trend’ with common underlying causes resulting in simultaneous declines in many risk behaviours; 2) declines in various risk behaviours are separate, caused by behaviour-specific factors; and 3) declines in certain risk behaviours have caused declines in others (the ‘cascade’ hypothesis).

To contextualise the changes in risk behaviours it is important to consider how the lives of adolescents have changed over recent decades within the economic, social, cultural and technological spaces they inhabit. Contextual changes over time in the labour market, regulatory environment, school environment, parenting norms, youth culture, and information technology, for example, have undoubtedly shaped the experiences of young people as well as their worldviews, attitudes and behaviours. The idea that young people's development and behaviour are influenced by the contexts in which they grow up has been termed the social ecological approach (Brofenbrenner, 1977; Sallis et al., 2008). This approach provides an overarching theoretical framework within which we explore the recent shift in adolescent behaviour and possible causes.

This review has two parts. In the first, we present an overview of recent international trends in substance use, sexual behaviour and juvenile crime, highlighting long-term changes. In the second we discuss the plausibility of selected causal hypotheses for the simultaneous decline in multiple risk behaviours, drawing on theory and empirical evidence to date.