Spearman’s Hypothesis Tested Comparing Young Libyan with European Children on the Items of the Standard Progressive Matrices

Spearman’s hypothesis tested at the level of items states that differences between ethnic groups on the items of an IQ test are a function of the g loadings of these items, such that there are small differences between groups on items with low g loadings and large differences between groups on items with high g loadings, and it has been confirmed in a limited number of studies. In this paper we test Spearman’s hypothesis, comparing a group of young Libyan children (N = 900) with other groups of young children from Denmark, Cyprus, and Croatia (total N = 1, 847). The analyses were carried out on four comparisons between the Libyan children and the other children. Spearman’s hypothesis was strongly confirmed with a mean weighted r of .67.