IQ is a measure which indicates the human’s intelligence.
It is generally believed that the higher IQs people have, the more success they achieve.
There are many factors affecting intellectual abilities.
Some of them are heredity and environment.
First, hereditary factor plays an important role in the human’s intelligence.
Most researchers believe that heredity’s influence on intelligence is between 60 percent and 80 percent.
Through hereditary process, mental and physical characteristics are passed from parents to their children.
Francis Galton (1885) – an English psychologist demonstrated convincingly that intelligence is mostly inherited.
His researches pointed out that children whose parents have high IQs are more intelligent than ones whose parents have lower IQs.
Besides, if parents have special abilities, their children will also have them.
Moreover, according to Adoption studies, the adopted children somewhat are similar with their adoptive parents in intelligence.
Apart from looking at the parents IQs, twin’s intelligence also contributes to the genetic debate.
Studies about intelligence of Arthur Jensen - a professor of educational psychology at the University of California showed that the IQ levels of identical twins are 32% more similar than the IQ levels of fraternal twins.
He also found that the IQ levels of identical twins reared together are just 11% more similar than the IQ levels of identical twins reared apart.
Second, environmental effects leave a consequence in human IQ.
They contain many factors such as family, community and education.
The environment provides human with knowledge and experience for intellectual development.
People live and grow in their own environment that obviously creates distinctions in their abilities.
For example, Lewis Terman (1877-1956) – an famous American psychologist, known as president of the American Psychological Association figured out that children who live in a happy family and be well-educated tend to have higher IQs than homeless children because the environment affects their emotions, motivations and beliefs, which are closely related to intellectual competence.
In conclusion, it is evident that human IQs depend on variety of factors.
Parents should have more positive effects to improve their children’s intelligence. Nana
August 2014
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