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Affluence boosted intelligence? How the interaction between cognition and environment may have produced an eighteenth-century Flynn effect during the Industrial Revolution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2019

Max van der Linden  and
Denny Borsboom
Max van der Linden
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of Amsterdam, 1018 WT Amsterdam, The Netherlands. [email protected]@gmail.comhttp://www.uva.nl/en/profile/l/i/m.a.vanderlinden/m.a.vanderlinden.html https://dennyborsboom.com/
Denny Borsboom
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of Amsterdam, 1018 WT Amsterdam, The Netherlands. [email protected]@gmail.comhttp://www.uva.nl/en/profile/l/i/m.a.vanderlinden/m.a.vanderlinden.html https://dennyborsboom.com/
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Abstract

Cognition played a pivotal role in the acceleration of technological innovation during the Industrial Revolution. Growing affluence may have provided favourable environmental conditions for a boost in cognition, enabling individuals to tackle more complex (industrial) problems. Dynamical systems thinking may provide useful tools to describe sudden transitions like the Industrial Revolution, by modelling the recursive feedback between psychology and environment.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 42 , 2019 , e211
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019 

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