A note on general intelligence and the MA deviation concept

Restraints are imposed on the fullest emergence of g when subjects of equal chronological age are drawn from a restricted range of intelligence, or when groups representing different levels of IQ are factor-analyzed separately. Realistically, persons representing the extremes of intelligence cannot be included in the same study unless they are approximately equated on mental age (MA), in which case the relative performances of the extreme groups can provide useful information about the nature of intelligence. Comparisons of less extreme groups (e.g., average vs intellectually retarded or gifted) are also informative, particularly when attention is given to the types of tasks on which the retarded show the largest MA lag and the gifted show the largest MA acceleration.     

A multilevel approach to the relationship between birth order and intelligence

Many studies show relationships between birth order and intelligence but use cross-sectional designs or manifest other threats to internal validity. Multilevel analyses with a control variable show that when these threats are removed, two major results emerge: (a) birth order has no significant influence on children's intelligence and (b) earlier reported birth order effects on intelligence are attributable to factors that vary between, not within, families. Analyses on 7- to 8 - and 13- to 14-year-old children from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth support these conclusions. When hierarchical data structures, age variance of children, and within-family versus between-family variance sources are taken into account, previous research is seen in a new light.     

A note on notes: note taking and containment

In extreme situations of massive projective identification, both the analyst and the patient may come to share a fantasy or belief that his or her own psychic reality will be annihilated if the psychic reality of the other is accepted or adopted (Britton 1998). In the example of' Dr. M and his patient, the paradoxical dilemma around note taking had highly specific transference meanings; it was not simply an instance of the generalized human response of distracted attention that Freud (1912) had spoken of, nor was it the destabilization of analytic functioning that I tried to describe in my work with Mr. L. Whether such meanings will always exist in these situations remains a matter to be determined by further clinical experience. In reopening a dialogue about note taking during sessions, I have attempted to move the discussion away from categorical injunctions about what analysis should or should not do, and instead to foster a more nuanced, dynamic, and pair-specific consideration of the analyst's functioning in the immediate context of the analytic relationship. There is, of course, a wide variety of listening styles among analysts, and each analyst's mental functioning may be affected differently by each patient whom the analyst sees. I have raised many questions in the hopes of stimulating an expanded discussion that will allow us to share our experiences and perhaps reach additional conclusions. Further consideration may lead us to decide whether note taking may have very different meanings for other analysts and analyst-patient pairs, and whether it may serve useful functions in addition to the one that I have described.     

Resolving the debate over birth order, family size, and intelligence

Hundreds of research articles have addressed the relationship between birth order and intelligence. Virtually all have used cross-sectional data, which are fundamentally flawed in the assessment of within-family (including birth order) processes. Although within-family models have been based on patterns in cross-sectional data, a number of equally plausible between-family explanations also exist. Within-family (preferably intact-family) data are prerequisite for separating within- and between-family causal processes. This observation reframes an old issue in a way that can be easily addressed by studying graphical patterns. Sibling data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth are evaluated, and the results are compared with those from other studies using within-family data. It appears that although low-IQ parents have been making large families, large families do not make low-IQ children in modern U.S. society. The apparent relation between birth order and intelligence has been a methodological illusion.     

Relation of handedness with season of birth of professional baseball players revisited

We reexamined the relationship between month and season of birth and handedness in male professional baseball players listed in Lahman's Baseball Archive Vol. 4.5 database. The sample of 8,016 individuals (left-handed = 1,658; right-handed = 6,358) played major league baseball between 1900-2001. A slightly higher, but statistically significant, percentage of left-handed players were born in June compared to other months, and in the winter-spring months, but we were unable to corroborate Rogerson's spring and early summer categorization of handedness as related to birth season. The data did not support the hypothesis that the prevalence of left-handedness is related to season of birth.