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Does your Family Make You Smarter?: Nature, Nurture, and Human Autonomy
Does your family make you smarter? James R. Flynn presents an exciting new method for estimating the effects of family on a range of cognitive abilities. Rather than using twin and adoption studies, he analyses IQ tables that have been hidden in manuals over the last 65 years, and shows that family environment can confer a significant advantage or disadvantage to your level of intelligence. Wading into the nature vs. nurture debate, Flynn banishes the pessimistic notion that by the age of seventeen, people's cognitive abilities are solely determined by their genes. He argues that intelligence is also influenced by human autonomy - genetics and family notwithstanding, we all have the capacity to choose to enhance our cognitive performance. He concludes by reconciling this new understanding of individual differences with his earlier research on intergenerational trends (the 'Flynn effect') culminating in a general theory of intelligence.
- GenresNonfiction
284 pages, Kindle Edition
Published May 31, 2016
11 people are currently reading
185 people want to read
About the author
James R. Flynn
27 books92 followersJames Robert Flynn, PhD, aka Jim Flynn, is Emeritus Professor of Political Studies at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand, researches intelligence and is famous for his publications about the continued year-after-year increase of IQ scores throughout the world, which is now referred to as the Flynn effect. The Flynn Effect is the subject of a multiple author monograph published by the American Psychological Association in 1998. Originally from Washington DC and educated in Chicago, Flynn emigrated to New Zealand in 1963.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
March 28, 2024
I like the content of the book, but I thought the book was a hard to book to read unless someone knew a lot about the subject. It also requires a good understanding of statistics for someone to read it. I think the author makes a good case against the genetic deterministic view against intelligence.
January 30, 2026
James Flynn is a conflicted man.
His heart is all liberal, but he is a conscientious researcher whose findings support the hereditarians. This book discusses the effect of family on a child's educational prospects.
If the child is smart – IQ of a hundred and thirty or so, the upper 2% – it doesn't matter. The schools will figure out that the child is smart and will be sure he gets an appropriate education. It is the children who are merely above average who benefit most from family.
Although Flynn must agree with the hereditarians that intelligence is ultimately 80% due to genetics, he will also tell you that the 80% only hardens into a measurable fact later in life. The family environment is more influential in school children.
A child with an IQ of 115 growing up in a family with substantially smarter parents has a significant advantage – Flynn puts it at about three IQ points – over similarly smart kids growing up in merely average households. He will be at a significant disadvantage if he grows up in a below average household.
In America most people go to college. Flynn points out that there are colleges tailored to serve the least intelligent quarter of the population. In this broad middle spectrum, a few IQ points difference this way or that translates into a difference of 50 to 60 points on SAT scores. The difference between 500 and 560 is dramatic in terms of which colleges will admit the kid.
I read this book for a different reason. Caltech polymath Stephen Hsu wrote in a 2011 paper that smart people usually do not have similarly smart children. Quite specifically, the average intelligence of offspring will be only 60% as far above the population mean as the average of the parents. Two parents each with an IQ of 150 can expect to have children whose intelligence averages only 130. Moreover, the standard deviation around that 130 will be 13 points – fairly broad. Smart people can have some pretty dumb kids. As a parent, trustee and teacher in Washington DC area private schools this was certainly my observation.
Flynn addresses this question only indirectly, but he seems to agree totally with Hsu. Children who test in the 98th percentile – IQ of about 130 – on average come from families where the family IQ is in the 69th percentile. That would be pretty close to the 118 that Hsu would predict.
This book is fairly heavy reading, but the product of a scrupulously honest, moral and highly intelligent man. I recommend it to those with an interest in the subject.
His heart is all liberal, but he is a conscientious researcher whose findings support the hereditarians. This book discusses the effect of family on a child's educational prospects.
If the child is smart – IQ of a hundred and thirty or so, the upper 2% – it doesn't matter. The schools will figure out that the child is smart and will be sure he gets an appropriate education. It is the children who are merely above average who benefit most from family.
Although Flynn must agree with the hereditarians that intelligence is ultimately 80% due to genetics, he will also tell you that the 80% only hardens into a measurable fact later in life. The family environment is more influential in school children.
A child with an IQ of 115 growing up in a family with substantially smarter parents has a significant advantage – Flynn puts it at about three IQ points – over similarly smart kids growing up in merely average households. He will be at a significant disadvantage if he grows up in a below average household.
In America most people go to college. Flynn points out that there are colleges tailored to serve the least intelligent quarter of the population. In this broad middle spectrum, a few IQ points difference this way or that translates into a difference of 50 to 60 points on SAT scores. The difference between 500 and 560 is dramatic in terms of which colleges will admit the kid.
I read this book for a different reason. Caltech polymath Stephen Hsu wrote in a 2011 paper that smart people usually do not have similarly smart children. Quite specifically, the average intelligence of offspring will be only 60% as far above the population mean as the average of the parents. Two parents each with an IQ of 150 can expect to have children whose intelligence averages only 130. Moreover, the standard deviation around that 130 will be 13 points – fairly broad. Smart people can have some pretty dumb kids. As a parent, trustee and teacher in Washington DC area private schools this was certainly my observation.
Flynn addresses this question only indirectly, but he seems to agree totally with Hsu. Children who test in the 98th percentile – IQ of about 130 – on average come from families where the family IQ is in the 69th percentile. That would be pretty close to the 118 that Hsu would predict.
This book is fairly heavy reading, but the product of a scrupulously honest, moral and highly intelligent man. I recommend it to those with an interest in the subject.
May 29, 2020
Flynn is one of the best researcher's on topic of intelligence. One of the things thats frustrating about psychologists(or social science field in general) is that they ignore studies that is counter to their narrative when they are presenting to readers. Flynn is objective, cautious and very good at looking through nuances of different study to explain differences and proposes some theories on intelligence.
Some amazing things I got from this book :-
1. How gene and environment effect is not zero sum but additive.
2. How much autonomy humans have over cognitive skills (Flynn estimates it to be around 10%)
3. He argues against pessimism post twin studies and argues family environment is potent to cause injustice and and adult environment is potent enough for people to upgrade cognitive ability.
4. He is critical of Arthur Jensen's g factor.
Flynn could have structured and written the book that is more friendly to general reader, but the content in the book makes up for it.
Some amazing things I got from this book :-
1. How gene and environment effect is not zero sum but additive.
2. How much autonomy humans have over cognitive skills (Flynn estimates it to be around 10%)
3. He argues against pessimism post twin studies and argues family environment is potent to cause injustice and and adult environment is potent enough for people to upgrade cognitive ability.
4. He is critical of Arthur Jensen's g factor.
Flynn could have structured and written the book that is more friendly to general reader, but the content in the book makes up for it.
March 11, 2018
Repeats arguments previously made in "What is Intelligence", but expands on the statistical analysis of within-cohort (synchronic) intelligence differences and reasons to be skeptical of 'g-centric' explanations. A usual with Flynn, also includes a bunch of broadsides and speculative theories of a sociological and historical nature, which are of varying quality.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews