IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/intell/v76y2019ic2.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Declines in vocabulary among American adults within levels of educational attainment, 1974–2016

Author

Listed:
  • Twenge, Jean M.
  • Campbell, W. Keith
  • Sherman, Ryne A.

Abstract

We examined trends over time in vocabulary, a key component of verbal intelligence, in the nationally representative General Social Survey of U.S. adults (n = 29,912). Participants answered multiple-choice questions about the definitions of 10 specific words. When controlled for educational attainment, the vocabulary of the average U.S. adult declined between the mid-1970s and the 2010s. Vocabulary declined across all levels of educational attainment (less than high school, high school or 2-year college graduate, bachelor's or graduate degree), with the largest declines among those with a bachelor's or graduate degree. Hierarchical linear modeling analyses separating the effects of age, time period, and cohort suggest that the decline is primarily a time period effect. Increasing educational attainment has apparently not improved verbal ability among Americans. Instead, as educational attainment has increased, those at each educational level are less verbally skilled even though the vocabulary skills of the whole population are unchanged.

Suggested Citation

  • Twenge, Jean M. & Campbell, W. Keith & Sherman, Ryne A., 2019. "Declines in vocabulary among American adults within levels of educational attainment, 1974–2016," Intelligence, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 1-1.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:intell:v:76:y:2019:i:c:2
    DOI: 10.1016/j.intell.2019.101377
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289618302198
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.intell.2019.101377?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Reither, Eric N. & Masters, Ryan K. & Yang, Yang Claire & Powers, Daniel A. & Zheng, Hui & Land, Kenneth C., 2015. "Should age-period-cohort studies return to the methodologies of the 1970s?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 356-365.
    2. Duane F. Alwin & Ryan J. McCammon, 2001. "Aging, Cohorts, and Verbal Ability," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 56(3), pages 151-161.
    3. Yang Yang & Kenneth C. Land, 2008. "Age–Period–Cohort Analysis of Repeated Cross-Section Surveys: Fixed or Random Effects?," Sociological Methods & Research, , vol. 36(3), pages 297-326, February.
    4. Campbell, W. Keith & Campbell, Stacy M. & Siedor, Lane E. & Twenge, Jean M., 2015. "Generational Differences Are Real and Useful," Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Cambridge University Press, vol. 8(3), pages 324-331, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Qi, Yaqiang & Xiong, Yajie, 2023. "Intercohort upsurge of cognitive ability among the general population in China: Evaluating a Flynn effect," Intelligence, Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    2. Dworak, Elizabeth M. & Revelle, William & Condon, David M., 2023. "Looking for Flynn effects in a recent online U.S. adult sample: Examining shifts within the SAPA Project," Intelligence, Elsevier, vol. 98(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mario Quaranta, 2016. "An Apathetic Generation? Cohorts’ Patterns of Political Participation in Italy," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 125(3), pages 793-812, February.
    2. Robert Bozick, 2021. "Age, period, and cohort effects contributing to the Great American Migration Slowdown," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 45(42), pages 1269-1296.
    3. Sarma, Sisira & Thind, Amardeep & Chu, Man-Kee, 2011. "Do new cohorts of family physicians work less compared to their older predecessors? The evidence from Canada," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 72(12), pages 2049-2058, June.
    4. Ryan Masters & Daniel Powers, 2020. "Clarifying assumptions in age-period-cohort analyses and validating results," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(10), pages 1-21, October.
    5. Jean M. Twenge & Ryne A. Sherman & Julie J. Exline & Joshua B. Grubbs, 2016. "Declines in American Adults’ Religious Participation and Beliefs, 1972-2014," SAGE Open, , vol. 6(1), pages 21582440166, March.
    6. Beck, Audrey N. & Finch, Brian K. & Lin, Shih-Fan & Hummer, Robert A. & Masters, Ryan K., 2014. "Racial disparities in self-rated health: Trends, explanatory factors, and the changing role of socio-demographics," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 163-177.
    7. Louis Chauvel & Martin Schr der, 2014. "Generational Inequalities and Welfare Regimes," LIS Working papers 606, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    8. Gustavo De Santis & Massimo Mucciardi, 2017. "From Euclidean distances to APC models," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 51(2), pages 829-846, March.
    9. Redding, Stuart & Nicodemo, Catia & Wittenberg, Raphael, 2021. "Analysis of trends in emergency and elective hospital admissions and hospital bed days 1997 to 2015," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 279(C).
    10. France Portrait & Rob Alessie & Dorly Deeg, 2010. "Do early life and contemporaneous macroconditions explain health at older ages?," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 23(2), pages 617-642, March.
    11. Marc Callens, 2017. "Long Term Trends in Life Satisfaction, 1973–2012: Flanders in Europe," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 130(1), pages 107-127, January.
    12. Pittau, Maria Grazia & Farcomeni, Alessio & Zelli, Roberto, 2016. "Has the attitude of US citizens towards redistribution changed over time?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 52(PB), pages 714-724.
    13. Jaspers, Esther, 2018. "Opening up on consumer materialism," Other publications TiSEM a21cb1c8-5af1-46cc-9ea0-a, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    14. Reither, Eric N. & Masters, Ryan K. & Yang, Yang Claire & Powers, Daniel A. & Zheng, Hui & Land, Kenneth C., 2015. "Should age-period-cohort studies return to the methodologies of the 1970s?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 356-365.
    15. Eyal Bar-Haim & Louis Chauvel & Anne Hartung, 2018. "More Necessary and Less Sufficient: An Age-Period-Cohort Approach to Overeducation in Comparative Perspective," LIS Working papers 734, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    16. Qi, Yaqiang & Xiong, Yajie, 2023. "Intercohort upsurge of cognitive ability among the general population in China: Evaluating a Flynn effect," Intelligence, Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    17. Arestoff, Florence & Djemai, Elodie, 2016. "Women’s Empowerment Across the Life Cycle and Generations: Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 70-87.
    18. Zhang, Ming & Li, Yang, 2022. "Generational travel patterns in the United States: New insights from eight national travel surveys," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 156(C), pages 1-13.
    19. Enrique Acosta & Alyson van Raalte, 2019. "APC curvature plots: Displaying nonlinear age-period-cohort patterns on Lexis plots," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 41(42), pages 1205-1234.
    20. Joly, Philippe, 2018. "Generations and protest in Eastern Germany: Between revolution and apathy," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Democracy and Democratization SP V 2018-101, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:intell:v:76:y:2019:i:c:2. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/intelligence .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.