Russell T. Warne, PhD - Psychologist, author, and educator

05/11/2026

What can a card game tell us about intelligence? The authors of a new Czech study found that the card game Dobble (also called "Spot It!") can function as an intelligence test.

Dobble is a card game that requires players to quickly identify the matching symbol in a pair of cards (see 2nd image). Examinees who completed the Dobble game faster performed better on a nonverbal matrix test, an attention test, and the Trail Making Test (which measures visual attention, processing speed, and cognitive flexibility).

Card-specific characteristics had little impact on task performance, and most examinees enjoyed playing Dobble. Therefore, Dobble is a promising task that can measure intelligence in an non-threatening way.

Read the full article (open access):
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2026.106696

05/10/2026

From social psychologist Adam Mastroianni:

Scientific theories don't die; they merely become embarrassing.

Read more:

OR: the Halo theory of science

05/09/2026

Probably the area of psychology that attracts the most pseudoscience is autism. When a child has profound autism, parents are desperate for hope, and that makes the a ripe target for fraudsters.

One discredited treatment is "facilitated communication," in which an aide holds the autistic person's hand or arm as the person supposedly types out their thoughts on a keyboard. (In reality, the assistant is responsible for the content of the messages.) Despite being discredited for decades, facilitated communication still has advocates. Read this opinion piece in the The New York Times about why techniques like this are so harmful to some of society's most vulnerable people.

Study after study has called facilitated communication into question.

05/07/2026

A new must-read article from the Plomin lab was published this week in the journal Intelligence & Cognitive Abilities.

Lin and Plomin used polygenic scores (derived from DNA variation in people) predict life outcomes from ages 2 to 25 in the same sample. Results showed that the scores predicted cognitive abilities (including IQ) and educational attainment well (up to r = .37). But they could also predict some non-cognitive outcomes, such as conduct problems and hyperactivity.

Predictions of IQ started weak (r = .03 at age 2) and increased steadily through adulthood (r = .37 at age 25). Predictions of educational outcomes also increased throughout childhood, though they peaked at age 16. Non-cognitive predictions were weaker (all r's between 0 and .25), but that was expected because the polygenic scores were designed to maximally predict IQ and educational outcomes.

Because this was a longitudinal study, the authors could also see whether they could predict trends and growth. They found that children with higher polygenic scores started off with higher IQs and educational attainment and had faster growth over time. (In other words, "the rich got richer.")

The results confirm findings from other behavioral genetics studies using other methodologies. For example, the study supports the claim that heritability of IQ increases with age. The study also supports the idea that genes and environment become more strongly correlated as children grown into adulthood.

Read the full open-access article here:
https://doi.org/10.65550/001c.160052

05/05/2026

Human evolution did not magically stop when humans stopped living in caves. In fact, new research from David Reich's lab at Harvard University shows that for some traits it has sped up in the past 10k years (at least in western Eurasians).

By comparing differences in DNA ancient remains with living humans' DNA, Reich et al. were able to identify traits that were under evolutionary selection in western Eurasians during recent evolution. One of these traits is higher intelligence, which has been under positive selection. In other words, in the past 10k years, people with DNA variants that today are seen in smarter people were more successful in their reproduction.

Other traits that were under positive selection pressure include B blood type, celiac disease susceptibility, multiple schlerosis susceptibility, lighter hair and skin tone, walking pace, household income, and years of schooling. Traits selected against Type A blood antigens, include bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, being a current smoker, having a health decline in old age, and body fat percentage (see 2nd and 3rd images).

What's interesting is that this is a mix of purely biological traits (e.g., blood type) and purely psychological traits (like intelligence). So, evolution worked on both body and behavior in recent times. Additionally, some of these traits would have shown up differently thousands of years ago than they do today. For example, ancient Europeans and west Asians didn't have access to to***co until 500 years ago. But for thousands of years before that the behaviors that today lead to people smoking were selected against--even though those people never saw to***co in their life. SOMETHING biological and/or behavioral was being selected against... we just don't know what that was. The same is true with intelligence: no one ever took an IQ test before 1905. Yet, higher intelligence was selected for long before the tests were invented.

The article also confirms a lot of previous studies, such as the finding that intelligence is influenced by a large number of genes, each with a small effect. The authors also found evidence supporting the idea that a partial reason IQ is positively correlated with household income, years of schooling is that these traits share genes (see 4th image).

Access the full article here:
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10358-1

05/03/2026

🚨New article!🚨

For 45 years, ethics committees (called "IRBs") have governed research at American universities. No one could start a research project without first getting approval from the IRB committee.

But a grad student's lawsuit may change that for most social science research. Her lawsuit argues that it is unconstitutional to require approval from a government panel before starting research that consists solely of speech (e.g., interviews). A recent Supreme Court case just bolstered her chances of winning.

Learn more:

For 45 years, research at American universities has been supervised by Institutional Review Boards (IRBs), which are committees that ensure scientific research is conducted ethically. At most universities, faculty, students,…

05/02/2026

In a new German study, higher-IQ people are better at judging the intelligence of others.

Participants in this study watched short videos of 50 people reading a weather report and explaining the concept of "symmetry." In addition to IQ, raters' emotional perception and life satisfaction were positively correlated with the ability to judge others' intelligence. Negative affect was negatively correlated with the ability to judge intellgence. The best cues of intelligence were the target's articulation and the content of their speech (i.e., how sophisticated, accurate, insightful, or elaborate the speaker was).

The correlations aren't very strong (all

04/26/2026

Are you on Reddit? If you are, then come join the RIOT IQ community. Over there, we share the latest IQ news, discuss tests and scores, and discover the latest research. Check it out!

https://www.reddit.com/r/RiotIQTest/

04/25/2026

On Wednesday, I shared a link to my new article about the Vietnam-era "Project 100,000," which lowered the minimum IQ for military enlistment by over 10 points. If you don't want to read a full scholarly article, you can read the summary I wrote on my personal web site:

Apr 21, 2026Russell T. Warnearticles, human variability, intelligence, IQ, IQ testing, military research, Project 100000, Robert McNamara, U.S. military, Vietnam War Project 100,000 was a social program started in 1966 that lowered minimum medical and IQ standards for acceptance into the military. S...

04/23/2026

On Tuesday, I shared my podcast episode with Charles Murray. In that discussion, I mentioned my review of his new book "Taking Religion Seriously." Yesterday, the review came out in "Touchstone" magazine at the link below. Unfortunately, it's paywalled, but I'll send you a copy if you ask in the comments on this post.

Taking Religion Seriously by Charles Murray

04/23/2026

🚨New article!🚨

During the Vietnam War, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara launched "Project 100,000," an initiative to adjust medical and mental test standards to make more men eligible for military service.

Over 300,000 men enlisted or were drafted under this program, most with IQs between 80 and 92. The slang at the time called them "McNamara's morons," and the unfavorable views of Project 100,000 and these men have lingered for over 50 years. Project 100,000 has been portrayed as an example of bad military planning, a way to expand the Army without upsetting middle-class voters, and even a "genocide" of poor Black men. In my book "In the Know," I called it "a spectacular failure."

In 2024, I stumbled upon a treasure trove of scientific research on service members in Project 100,000. Most of of this research has been ignored since the Vietnam era. What I read surprised me:

➡️Project 100,000 was not unusual for the military. Before and since, the U.S. military had inducted more people in the 80-92 IQ range than during Project 100,000.
➡️Most men in Project 100,000 did NOT serve in combat. They were not "canon fodder." In fact, I could not verify that their death rate was any higher than the general population of the military at the time.
➡️Inducting hundreds of thousands of men with below-average IQs did NOT cause a major drop in average IQ in the military (see 2nd image), nor was there a deterioration in military performance.
➡️However, men in Project 100,000 failed basic and job training at higher rates, and they performed their jobs less competently (on average) than their smarter peers. Still, the vast majority met the standards set for them. As I say in the article, "Often 'good enough' is good enough."
➡️The idea (called the "training hypothesis") that sufficient training can nullify the impact of IQ differences is thoroughly disproven by Project 100,000 (see 3rd image).

Project 100,000 met some goals and fell short in others. Declaring it an overall success or failure is hard. Reality is messy, and Project 100,000 doesn't fit in cleanly with the typical narratives of the Vietnam War or IQ.

Read the article in the Armed Forces & Society here:
https://doi.org/10.1177/0095327X261440131

Free preprint version here:
https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/rtazj