Behavior Genetics, Vol. 5, No. i, 1975
SHORT
COMMUNICATION
A Twin Study of Intelligence in Russia 1 S. L. Halperin, 2 D . C. Rao, 3 and N . E. Morton s Received 14 Nov. 1973
Twin data from prewar Russia show the same effect or family environment on intelligence as in contemporary America. KEY WORDS: twins; intelligence; heritability.
Russian school children just before World War II were reared in a society which deprecated its class structure, and therefore family environment might have had a less important effect on intelligence than in contemporary American society. The destruction of Russian genetics by Lysenko made a test of this hypothesis difficult (Huxley, 1949). One of the casualties was the famous Maxim Gorky Medico-Genetical Research Institute, which kept a roster of twins living in Moscow, their zygosity having been determined on the basis of detailed physical and dental examinations, anthropometrics, blood groups, and placentation history. By chance, some of the psychological data have survived to be analyzed by modern methods of behavior genetics. While a visiting investigator at the Institute in 1936, one of us (S.L.H.) tested 301 pairs of like-sexed twins, 146 of whom had been classified as monozygotic and 155 as dizygotic, comprising those twins who at the time where attending elementary school. He administered the arithmetic computation subtest (A) of the Stanford Achievement Test and the Knox Cube Test (C), the former a learned function and the latter a nonlanguage perPartly supported by Grant GM 17173 from the U.S. National Institutes of Health. ~This is PGL Paper No. 122. The opinions or assertions contained herein are the private views of the authors and are not to be construed as official or as reflecting the views of the Department of the Army or the Department of Defense. 2 Department of Psychiatry and Neurology, Tripler Army Medical Center, Honolulu, Hawaii. a Population Genetics Laboratory, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, Hawaii. 83
@ 1975 Plenum Publishing Corporation, 227 West 17th Street, New York, N.Y. 10011. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher.
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Halperin, Rao, and Morton
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~2
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SHORT
COMMUNICATION
A Twin Study of Intelligence in Russia 1 S. L. Halperin, 2 D . C. Rao, 3 and N . E. Morton s Received 14 Nov. 1973
Twin data from prewar Russia show the same effect or family environment on intelligence as in contemporary America. KEY WORDS: twins; intelligence; heritability.
Russian school children just before World War II were reared in a society which deprecated its class structure, and therefore family environment might have had a less important effect on intelligence than in contemporary American society. The destruction of Russian genetics by Lysenko made a test of this hypothesis difficult (Huxley, 1949). One of the casualties was the famous Maxim Gorky Medico-Genetical Research Institute, which kept a roster of twins living in Moscow, their zygosity having been determined on the basis of detailed physical and dental examinations, anthropometrics, blood groups, and placentation history. By chance, some of the psychological data have survived to be analyzed by modern methods of behavior genetics. While a visiting investigator at the Institute in 1936, one of us (S.L.H.) tested 301 pairs of like-sexed twins, 146 of whom had been classified as monozygotic and 155 as dizygotic, comprising those twins who at the time where attending elementary school. He administered the arithmetic computation subtest (A) of the Stanford Achievement Test and the Knox Cube Test (C), the former a learned function and the latter a nonlanguage perPartly supported by Grant GM 17173 from the U.S. National Institutes of Health. ~This is PGL Paper No. 122. The opinions or assertions contained herein are the private views of the authors and are not to be construed as official or as reflecting the views of the Department of the Army or the Department of Defense. 2 Department of Psychiatry and Neurology, Tripler Army Medical Center, Honolulu, Hawaii. a Population Genetics Laboratory, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, Hawaii. 83
@ 1975 Plenum Publishing Corporation, 227 West 17th Street, New York, N.Y. 10011. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher.
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