The Scarr-Rowe Interaction in Complete Seven-Year WISC Data from the Louisville Twin Study: Preliminary Report.
We examine updated Wechsler IQ data in 7-year old twins from the Louisville Twin Study for evidence of an interaction between the heritability of IQ and socioeconomic status. Data records that had never been entered were recovered, allowing us to increase previously reported sample sizes by more than 20%. Twin families were assigned socioeconomic status scores using a Hollingshead index based on parental education and occupation. A structural equation model in which genetic and environmental variances were modeled as squared linear functions of SES provided ambiguous replication of earlier findings from the National Collaborative Perinatal Project: relations between SES and heritability for performance and full scale IQ were in the same direction as the previous report, but at p < 0.07. As was the case in Turkheimer et al. (Psychol Sci 14(6):623-628, 2003), no interaction was found for VIQ. These results cannot yet be taken as a definitive replication of Turkheimer et al. (Psychol Sci 14(6):623-628, 2003). Many more measurement occasions, subtests and environmental moderators remain to be analyzed.
Department of Psychology, University of Virginia, PO Box 400400, Charlottesville, VA, 22904-4400, USA. ent3c@virginia.edu.
Eric
E
Turkheimer
University of Southern California, Los Angeles, USA.
Christopher E
CE
Beam
University of Louisville, Louisville, USA.
Deborah W
DW
Davis
D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007360:Intelligence / Q000235:genetics*; D008297:Male; D012923:Social Class; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D014888:Wechsler Scales
GE interaction; Socioeconomic status; Wechsler intelligence scale for children