Chapter 7 Thinking and Intelligence 253In 1980, the Asian children far outperformed
the American children on a broad battery of math-
ematical and reading tests. On computation, read-
ing, and word problems, there was virtually no
overlap between schools, with the lowest-scoring
Beijing schools doing better than the highest-scor-
ing Chicago schools. By 1990, the gulf between
the Asian and American children had grown even
greater. Only 4 percent of the Chinese children
and 10 percent of the Japanese children had math
scores as low as those of the average American
child. Educational resources did not explain thesemost successful men were ambitious, were socially
active, had many interests, and had been encour-
aged by their parents. The 100 least successful
drifted casually through life. There was no aver-
age difference in IQ between the two groups.
Once you are motivated to succeed intellectu-
ally, you need self-discipline to reach your goals.
In a longitudinal study of ethnically diverse eighth
graders attending a magnet school, students were
assigned a self-discipline score based on their
self-reports, parents’ reports, teachers’ reports,
and questionnaires. They were also scored on a
behavioral measure of self-discipline—their abil-
ity to delay gratification. (The teens had to choose
between keeping an envelope containing a dollar
or returning it in exchange for getting two dollars
a week later.) Self-discipline accounted for more
than twice as much of the variance in the students’
final grades and achievement test scores as IQ did
(Duckworth & Seligman, 2005). As you can see
in Figure 7.8, correlations between self-discipline
and academic performance were much stronger
than those between IQ and academic performance.
Self-discipline and motivation to work hard
at intellectual tasks depend, in turn, on your atti-
tudes about intelligence and achievement, which
are strongly influenced by cultural values. For many
years, Harold Stevenson and his colleagues studied
attitudes toward achievement in Asia and the United
States, comparing large samples of grade school
children, parents, and teachers in Minneapolis,
Chicago, Sendai (Japan), Taipei (Taiwan), and
Beijing (Stevenson, Chen, & Lee, 1993; Stevenson
& Stigler, 1992). Their results have much to teach
us about the cultivation of intellect.
Average IQ scores1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000
Year707580859095100105FIGuRE 7.7 Climbing IQ Scores
Raw scores on IQ tests have been rising in developed countries for many decades at a rate much too steep to be
accounted for by genetic changes. Because test norms are periodically readjusted to set the average score at 100,
most people are unaware of the increase. On this graph, average scores are calibrated according to 1989 norms. As
you can see, performance was much lower in 1918 than in 1989. Source: Data from Horgan, 1995.
Final GPA80828486889092941 2 3 4 5
QuintilesSelf-Discipline
IQFIGuRE 7.8 Grades, IQ, and Self-Discipline
Eighth-grade students were divided into five groups
(quintiles) based on their IQ scores and then followed
for a year to test their academic achievement. Self-
discipline was a stronger predictor of success than IQ
was (Duckworth & Seligman, 2005).