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The intelligence of six-year-olds in Hong Kong

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 July 2008

Jimmy Chan
Affiliation:
University of Hong Kong, Coleraine, Northern Ireland
Richard Lynn
Affiliation:
University of Ulster, Coleraine, Northern Ireland

Summary

Evidence has accumulated to suggest that the mean IQs of Orientals in the United States and in the countries of the Pacific Basin are higher than those of Whites (Caucasoids) in the United States and Britain. This paper presents evidence from IQ tests on 4858 6-year-old Chinese children in Hong Kong. On the Coloured Progressive Matrices these children obtained a mean IQ of 116. Samples from Australia, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Romania, the UK and the US obtain IQs in the range 95–102. It is suggested that these results pose difficulties for the environmentalist explanations commonly advanced to explain the low mean IQs obtained by some ethnic minorities in the United States.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1989

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