Different Cultural Views of Concepts of “Common Knowledge” and “Intelligence”

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Migrants and people from other cultures generally tend to score lower on intelligence tests. Although some may think of it as evidence that people from cultures other than American and European are probably less smart, they are deeply wrong. The whole concept of ‘intelligence’ in various countries and cultures includes different things. Due to the clash of visions, a fully developed intelligent individual might miss some of the facts that are considered common knowledge in other cultures.

For instance, the Original Australian test of intelligence includes some questions considering basic knowledge inside the country. Some of the questions leave the respondents completely clueless if they are not familiar with the culture. For example, question number nine asks the respondent which one of the three preys is more suited to feed your family in terms of starvation. While shooting a large kangaroo is out of the question simply because one bullet could not be enough, the choice between a young emu and a small female wallaby is not obvious at all. One could even choose the emu – their eggs are popular enough on the market, so the meat is probably safe for eating.

However, it turns out that the correct answer is the female wallaby, simply because the meat of emu is not suitable for a family with young children. While the wallabies, kangaroos, and emu are just regular exemplars of Australian fauna, the point of this question being stated in a common knowledge test proves that the cultural impact in such tests is unfathomable.

A perfect demonstration of the cultural bias in the common intelligence test is represented in the Chitling intelligence test. The test is deeply infused with black pop culture influence that seemingly has no connection to common knowledge. While some of the questions still ask the respondent to describe different terms and words, the pop culture reference questions about gospel groups and famous guitar players are unfair to the respondents from other cultures.

The question of whether constructing an intelligence test that would be fair to all cultures is possible is open to this day. Although general intelligence could be acknowledged through tests that include questions from the fields equally accessible for everyone as natural sciences, math, and physics, the common knowledge determination would still be biased (Bradway, 2020). The previous attempt of creating such an intelligence test that deserves recognition is John C. Raven’s matrices.

The Principle used in Raven’s matrices is close to the IQ tests that we take nowadays. The main task in the test is to determine a missing element in a pattern presented in the form of a matrix. Since the test is non-verbal, it only connects to the logical thinking aspect of the respondent; furthermore, the test gets more difficult. However, some researches have shown that even these non-verbal tests are not fully free of cultural bias.

Considering the major factors of environment, socioeconomic status, biology, and family, I believe that the greatest influence on intelligence in various contexts comes from early philosophical beliefs and partly religion. As Bolton (2008) thoroughly explained it, different cultures through the ages developed and adapted different ways of thinking from philosophical ideas and religious beliefs. The different ways of thinking may even affect the understanding of the concept of time (Gevrey, 2012). Those differences lay the foundation for the major differences in the term of intelligence.

My personal view on intelligence connects to the American idea of intelligence based on mental attributions, such as problem-solving. However, I do recognize that in some terms, intelligence based on pure knowledge, such as math and physics, could be the answer. The people capable of speaking the language of numbers could easily connect to each other’s learning without having issues of translating, like the immigrants arriving at Ellis Island in New York. In my opinion, evaluating the overall intelligence of an individual is far more important than testing him with questions that only make sense to the local audience, like the Original Australian test.