by Piper Wilson

Created on: December 15, 2010

Intelligence is the capacity for learning.  The more intelligent you are, the more you can learn and potentially accomplish.  Human beings are complex and that makes generating a concise list of factors affecting intelligence difficult.  Some factors, like brain damage, have an immediate and measurable impact.  Other physical aspects, like heredity, birth order and nutrition, are less easy to quantify.  Education, overall health, and culture affect how well people can utilize their intelligence, but they don’t necessarily “change” intelligence.   

The precise way heredity and genetics plays a role in intelligence isn’t entirely understood, in part because genetic theories often spawn controversy.  In 1969, Arthur Jensen published an essay in the “Harvard Educational Review” presenting “evidence that racial differences in intelligence test scores may have a genetic origin.”  In “The Bell Curve”, a book published in 1994, authors Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray say that people with high IQs will produce intelligent children, while people with low IQs will produce less intelligent children.

Evaluating environmental influences on intelligence is like trying to unravel the Gordian Knot; it is next to impossible to tease apart one factor from another.  The population of lower economic classes have lower IQ scores compared to their more well to do counterparts.  The question is, did the poverty cause low intelligence or did low intelligence cause the poverty?

A well balanced diet, medical care and physical exercise all work together to produce an environment where potential can be recognized and children can thrive.  In addition, some research studies indicate that breast feeding can enhance a child’s intelligence.  A study by University of Illinois researchers states, “In humans, children who are breastfed have higher IQs than children not fed breast milk and this advantage persists into adulthood.”   

Ethnicity appears to have an effect on intelligence, but in reality, the impact is cultural.  In the United States, Japanese children tend to receive higher scores than other groups.  Within Japan itself, the Buraku, a Japanese minority group, consistently score lower on intelligence tests than the rest of their peers.  Outside of Japan, Buraku children receive scores more in line with other Japanese

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