Exponential fitting of suicide rate and national intelligence estimates.
Positive ecological (group-level) associations of Lynn and Vanhanen's 2002 national intelligence (IQ) estimates with the suicide rates of men and women across 85 countries and with the suicide rates of the male, female, and total elderly population across 48 Eurasian countries reported recently is extended by the finding that this ecological association was notedly better accounted for by exponential fitting than by linear fitting. This evidence implies that the effect of a shift in the national IQ on the suicide rate is proportional, not absolute. As a rule of thumb, a 5-point shift in national IQ roughly corresponds to a 50% change in the national suicide rate.
Voracek
Martin
M
Department of Basic Psychological Research, University of Vienna, Austria. martin.voracek@univie.ac.at
D017677:Age Distribution; D000368:Aged; D001208:Asia / Q000453:epidemiology; D002391:Catchment Area, Health; D005060:Europe / Q000453:epidemiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D015995:Prevalence; D017678:Sex Distribution; D013405:Suicide / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*