ABSTRACT
In comparative studies of the mental abilities of racial groups, environmentalists are most insistent that the racial samples being compared on intelligence be matched, or otherwise equated, on indices of socioeconomic status (SES), which usually includes father’s occupation, education of parents, income, quality of housing, and place of residence. When groups are thus ‘equated’ and a substantial mean IQ difference still shows up, it is claimed that not enough environmental factors were controlled. As one sociologist put it: ‘… the kinds of socioeconomic measures that have been used so far in attempting to control on environmental effects appear to omit a wealth of cultural and psychological factors’. This is a testable hypothesis; it should be determined how much the cultural and psychological factors (assuming they can be specified and measured) add to the multiple R 2 with IQ over and above the R 2 yielded by good indices of SES.
