Think you’re smarter than your parents or grandparents? Could be.
New research suggests IQ points have risen by as much as 30 points over the last century, mostly due to better health, nutrition, and a larger proportion of individuals who go to — and complete — school, the
Wall Street Journal reports.
In new research published in the journal
Perspectives in Psychological Science, Jakob Pietschnig and Martin Voracek of the University of Vienna report a new “meta-analysis” of intelligence studies that shows performance on IQ tests — the actual number of questions people get right — has greatly improved over the last 100 years.
The combined data from 271 studies involving four million people from 31 countries, done from 1909 to 2013, found that scores increased by three points every decade — so the average score is 30 points higher than it was 100 years ago.
The researchers said IQ scores are still rising, but more slowly than over the last century.
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