Having Kids Lowers Your IQ

Indiana University study: having children significantly lowers parents’ IQs [hoosiergazette.com]: "People who before were intelligent and open-minded turn into raving lunatics who want to blame a teacher or coach every time their mediocre child fails"

As if it wasn't bad enough that I feel I am half as smart as I was in high school and college, now comes word that being a parent lowers one's IQ even further. The article has a kind of The Onion-essay parody flavor to it, so it's hard to know whether to take the Hoosier Gazette seriously. I'll have to look on i's site to see if there's a press release on the research findings.

It would be interesting to see if it is merely the loss of objectivity that is the basis for the reduction in IQ, or if there is a psychological effect that lowers IQ across the board.

But a loss in objectivity in one particular area does not necessarily have to point to a lower IQ. I once listened to a lecture from Nobel Laureate Daniel Chinaman, a cognitive psychologist who observed that most people over estimate their abilities. This was borne out by a question he posed to the audience: "All those who think they are better than average drivers, raise their hands." About half the audience did. Then he asked, "All those who think they are below average, raise their hands." Not one hand went up.

The obvious lesson is: since empirically there must be an equal number of above and below average drivers, this simple experiment proves that people overestimate themselves, or at the very least their driving abilities.

Does this loss of objectivity necessarily have to manifest itself as a lowering of IQ? Does the fact that I think my kid is the best ever have some bearing on my abstract and visual reasoning capabilities? Like I said, it seems very suspect.

UPDATE: According to the Kinsey Institute site [indiana.edu], the article is a hoax. Also, just a little digging by me would have shown that the Hoosier Gazette "was created by a couple of guys who thought it would be fun to create a website that uses both real and fictional news stories to provide a humorous look at life and culture in the state of Indiana." So my "The Onion-esque initial characterization was right on. I still feel dumber than I did 20 years ago, though. :)