Female Flynn effects: No sex differences in generational IQ gains

Generational changes of intelligence test performance in the general population (the Flynn effect) have been observed all over the world since the early 1940s. These changes are known to be country- and intelligence test domain-specific. To investigate whether such IQ gains are observable in three distinct domains of intelligence (verbal reasoning, spatial ability, mathematical reasoning) in German-speaking individuals, we examined a mixed-sex sample of 449 university students in a cross-sectional design. We assessed students’ IQs on three original (standardized in 1970) and revised subscales (standardized in 2000) of a widely used German intelligence test battery, thus allowing investigation of test score changes over a time span of 30 years. Participants scored significantly higher on all subscales of the original test. Additionally, we observed higher performance of men than of women on all subscales, but only little evidence for sex differences regarding test score gains. In all, the Flynn effect appears to be progressive, robust, largely sex-independent, and intelligence domain-specific in respect to the magnitude of gains in German-speaking individuals.