Intelligence
Volume 34, Issue 5, 2006, Pages 437-447
Spearman's "Law of Diminishing Returns" in samples of Dutch and immigrant children and adults (Article)
te Nijenhuis J.* ,
Hartmann P.
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a
Department of Psychology, Open University, PO Box 2960, 6401 DL Heerlen, Netherlands
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b
IDRU, Department of Psychology, University of Aarhus, Århus, Denmark
Abstract
Spearman's "Law of Diminishing Returns" states that the g saturation of a test is greater for individuals with lower, rather than higher, test scores, and that it decreases with age. A common methodological problem in testing Spearman's "Law of Diminishing Returns" with respect to ability differentiation is how to create the high and low ability groups. This study used data from five samples of Dutch and of immigrants who where administrated traditional cognitive ability tests and cognitively loaded safety suitability tests. Their large average test score difference in cognitive ability produced the two ability level groups required. Analysis of each group yielded highly comparable variance, reliability, and factor structure. The effect sizes were in the direction predicted by Spearman's Law, but of modest size, lying between - 0.012 and 0.097, with an average of 0.02 across 1-1.5 SD ability difference. The results for our five samples are quite consistent with over 75 years of research establishing the reality of Spearman's Law. © 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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Link
https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-33747761919&doi=10.1016%2fj.intell.2006.02.002&partnerID=40&md5=ab994c7c68b4fa4c421d096541879de1
DOI: 10.1016/j.intell.2006.02.002
ISSN: 01602896
Cited by: 21
Original Language: English