Huh? Fluid-Crystallized Intelligence

As I scoured academe for stuff to blog about, I came across this study. Here's the abstract. Bold face emphases are mine.

Using the theory of fluid-crystallized intelligence, we argue that with growing age, political discussion becomes less important as a complement to news exposure in political knowledge building. We applied moderated mediation analyses to the survey data of N = 69,125 German respondents. The data supported the hypothesis that news exposure influences political discussion, which in turn leverages political knowledge. As expected, we showed that news exposure is more strongly associated with political discussion for younger age groups. The results are discussed with regard to how to integrate a psychological lifespan perspective into further research on knowledge acquisition.

Theory of fluid-crystallized intelligence? Wow. I used to think of myself as moderately well read in the political knowledge literature, but this one kinda frightens me. Sadly, I don't have access to the full manuscript, just the abstract, even with my office computer and IP#. Essentially this seems to be saying age matters. The older you get, the less important talking to people matters in political knowledge. It's based on a huge survey of 69,125 Germans. I wish I had access to the full study so I could peek at it further, but it may be some form of the Eurobarometer, but that seems less likely now that I think of it, as it's a survey of all of western Europe, not just Germany.

I did dig something up on this theory. Here's an older piece that says as you get older, you get less intelligent. Has to do with the plasticity of the brain, best I can tell.

The Role of Parents

A new study suggests parents play a pivotal role in what kids know. While that's kinda obvious, it is important nonetheless to establish this through systematic research and not gut feeling.

What boosts political knowledge for kids? Here are a few:

• Participation in youth activities
• Discussing politics with parents
• Grades in school (higher grades = more knowledge)
• Education level of parents
• Civics courses (this makes such good sense)
• Being a boy versus a girl (see an earlier blog on sex differences)
• Internal political efficacy (basically, the feeling you are capable of keeping up with politics)

I drew these from the multiple regression table in the study in which various factors statistically control for one another. Most make perfectly good sense. Smart parents who talk about politics, that's likely to rub off on kids, especially if they're also smart. Civics classes ... a word, please. My kids have had disappointing civics classes, an N of 2, but I think they are vital and yet the No Child Left Untested has hurt such classes in an attempt to boost math and other scores. That's too bad, but you can hardly blame schools for attacking a class this way.

The ultimate finding here? Parents matter. Talk about politics in front of your kids. Answer their questions. Explain the basics so they understand the context of your discussion. Engage them.

It also helps if parents know what the hell they're talking about. Read the news!