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28-5 Are intelligence tests inappropriately biased?

If one assumes that race is a meaningful concept, the debate over racial differences in intelligence divides into three camps (Hunt & Carlson, 2007):

We have considered group differences from the first and second perspectives. Let’s turn now to the third: Are intelligence tests biased? The answer depends on the definition of bias we use.

The scientific meaning of bias hinges on a test’s validity—on whether it predicts future behavior only for some groups of test-takers. For example, if the SAT accurately predicted the college achievement of women but not that of men, then the test would be biased. In this statistical meaning of the term, the near-consensus among psychologists (as summarized by the U.S. National Research Council’s Committee on Ability Testing and the American Psychological Association’s Task Force on Intelligence) has been that the major U.S. aptitude tests are not biased (Hunt & Carlson, 2007; Neisser et al., 1996; Wigdor & Garner, 1982). The tests’ predictive validity is roughly the same for women and men, for various races, and for rich and poor. If an intelligence test score of 95 predicts slightly below-average grades, that rough prediction usually applies equally to all.

But we can also consider a test biased if it detects not only innate differences in intelligence but also performance differences caused by cultural experiences. This in fact happened to Eastern European immigrants in the early 1900s. Lacking the experience to answer questions about their new culture, many were classified as “feeble-minded.” In this popular sense, intelligence tests are biased. They measure your developed abilities, which reflect, in part, your education and experiences.

You may have read examples of intelligence test items that make assumptions (for example, that a cup goes with a saucer). Such items bias the test (in this case, against those who do not use saucers). Could such questions explain cultural differences in test performance? In such cases, tests can be a vehicle for discrimination, consigning potentially capable children (some of whom may have a different native language) to unchallenging classes and dead-end jobs. For such reasons, some intelligence researchers recommend creating culture-neutral questions—such as assessing people’s ability to learn novel words, sayings, and analogies—to enable culture-fair aptitude tests (Fagan & Holland, 2007, 2009).

So, test-makers’ expectations can introduce bias in an intelligence test. This is consistent with an observation you have seen throughout this text: Our expectations and attitudes can influence our perceptions and behaviors. This is also true for the person taking the test.

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If, when taking an intelligence test or an exam, you are worried that your group or “type” often doesn’t do well, your self-doubts and self-monitoring may hijack your working memory and impair your performance (Schmader, 2010). This self-confirming concern that you will be evaluated based on a negative viewpoint is called stereotype threat, and it may impair your attention, performance, and learning (Inzlicht & Kang, 2010; Rydell, 2010).

When Steven Spencer and his colleagues (1997) gave a difficult math test to equally capable men and women, women did not do as well—except when they had been led to expect that women usually do as well as men on the test. Otherwise, stereotype threat affected their performance. And with Claude Steele and Joshua Aronson, Spencer (2002) again observed stereotype threat when Black students were reminded of their race just before taking verbal aptitude tests and performed worse. Follow-up experiments have confirmed that negatively stereotyped minorities and women may have unrealized academic potential (Nguyen & Ryan, 2008; Walton & Spencer, 2009).

Critics argue that stereotype threat does not fully account for Black-White aptitude score differences or the gender gap in high-level math achievements (Sackett et al., 2004, 2008; Stoet & Geary, 2012). But it does help explain why Blacks have scored higher when tested by Blacks than when tested by Whites (Danso & Esses, 2001; Inzlicht & Ben-Zeev, 2000). It gives us insight into why women have scored higher on math tests with no male test-takers present, and why women’s online chess performance drops sharply when they think they are playing a male opponent (Maass et al., 2008). It also explains “the Obama effect”—the finding that African-American adults performed better if they took a verbal aptitude test immediately after watching then-candidate Barack Obama’s stereotype-defying nomination acceptance speech, or just after his 2008 presidential victory (Marx et al., 2009).

Steele (1995, 2010) concludes that telling students they probably won’t succeed (as is sometimes implied by remedial “minority support” programs) functions as a stereotype that can erode performance. Minority students in university programs that have challenged them to believe in their potential, to increase their sense of belonging, or to focus on the idea that intelligence is malleable and not fixed, have produced markedly higher grades and have had lower dropout rates (Walton & Cohen, 2011; Wilson, 2006).

These observations would not surprise psychologist Carol Dweck (2012a,b, 2015). She reports that believing intelligence is changeable fosters a growth mind-set, which focuses on learning and growing. To foster this mind-set, Dweck teaches early teens that the brain is like a muscle that grows stronger with use as neuron connections grow. Praising children’s effort rather than their ability also encourages their growth mind-set and their attributing success to hard work (Gunderson et al., 2013). Fostering a growth mind-set makes teens more resilient when others frustrate them (Paunesku et al., 2015; Yeager et al., 2013, 2014). Indeed, superior achievements in fields from sports to science to music arise from the combination of ability, opportunity, and disciplined effort (Ericsson et al., 2007).

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Real world studies confirm that ability + opportunity + motivation = success. High school students’ math proficiency and college students’ grades reflect their aptitude but also their self-discipline, their belief in the power of effort, and a curious “hungry mind” (Murayama et al., 2013; Richardson et al., 2012; von Stumm et al., 2011). Indian-Americans won all seven national spelling bee contests between 2008 and 2014, an achievement likely influenced by a cultural belief that strong effort will meet with success (Rattan et al., 2012). Believing in our ability to learn, and applying ourselves with sustained effort, we are likely to fulfill our potential.

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Perhaps, then, our goals for tests of mental abilities should be threefold.

The point to remember: There are many ways of being successful: Our differences are variations of human adaptability. Life’s great achievements result not only from “can do” abilities (and fair opportunity) but also from “will do” motivation. Competence + Diligence → Accomplishment.