Russell T. Warne, PhD - Psychologist, author, and educator

Home
United States
Orem, UT
Russell T. Warne, PhD - Psychologist, author, and educator

Dr. Russell T. Warne is a research psychologist & Assistant Professor of Psychology at Texas A&M University-Texarkana.

He publishes research on human intelligence, testing, and related topics. He also created the Reasoning and Intelligence Online Test.

08/12/2026

In a new study from Nature, researchers used AI models to predict the outcomes of social science studies. As illustrated in the 2nd image, the researchers examined 70 survey studies and almost 120,000 participants. They found that ChatGPT-4's predicted results and the observed results were highly correlated (r = .85). This means that ChatGPT was good at identifying the strongest effects, weakest, etc. (see 3nd image). However, it systematically overestimated the magnitude of effects, predicting that effects would be twice as strong as they really were. To be fair, humans overestimated effects by about the same amount.

This means that AI models are good at simulating human responses to surveys. They are less capable of predicting humans' responses to experimental studies that expose people to different interventions (r = .39), such as studies designed to change attitudes. AI models also overestimated the magnitude of the effects in these types of studies. But that's also a problem with human judgments of intervention studies, too.

This study has important implications for how science will be conducted in the future. AI can be used to run or augment pilot studies, which reduces cost and can help full studies reach fruition earlier. AI can also be used to identify studies that are likely to replicate (or not), which will help scientists know where to concentrate their resources.

Link to the full study in the comments.

08/11/2026

The heritability of general intelligence is well established at ~50%. But what about more specific abilities? A meta-analysis of nearly 750,000 twins reveals fascinating results:

➡️Specific cognitive abilities average 56% heritability, which is about the same as for general intelligence. But there was substantial variability, ranging from 39% for auditory processing to 64% for quantitative knowledge (see 2nd image).
➡️Unlike intelligence, specific cognitive abilities don't have an apparent developmental trajectory in heritability. Instead of increasing with age, specific cognitive abilities seem to maintain the same level of heritability at different age spans.
➡️The heritability of specific cognitive abilities seems to be independent of the genetic influence of general intelligence.
➡️Specific abilities within the same category sometimes differ in their heritability. Reaction time heritability was 42%, but processing speed heritability was 64%, even though both are classified as "mental speed."
➡️Substantial heritability does not rule out important environmental effects. Shared environmental influence was as high as 26% for knowledge scores and 20% for fluid intelligence.

This meta-analysis isn't just useful as a research summary. It also reveals the potential for future research. The authors point out that some abilities have little or no research on their heritability, others don't have enough information at some age ranges to draw conclusions about developmental trajectories. This is meta-analysis is definitely not the last word on this topic.

Read the full study (with no paywall) at the link in the comments.

08/10/2026

IQ is one of the strongest areas of psychology research, but it's also one of the most misunderstood. In my book "In the Know: Debunking 35 Myths About Human Intelligence," I address common misconceptions about intelligence and discuss what the research on the topic actually says. Among other topics, the book covers:

✅IQ tests and bias
✅Increases in IQ scores over time
✅Measuring intelligence at Ellis Island
✅"Every child is gifted".. and more!

I had a lot of fun writing this book, and my readers seem to enjoy it a lot. Check it out at the links in the comments.

08/09/2026

Raise a glass to the newest study in Intelligence & Cognitive Abilities, which reports that smarter people know more about wine. 🍷

In a sample of 525 respondents, IQ and wine knowledge were positively correlated (r = .31; 2nd image), and this relationship did NOT diminish after controlling for exposure to the wine industry or drinking habits.

If you're not a sommelier, this correlation doesn't matter much in real life. But the study has a lot of theoretical importance. Wine knowledge is complex, sophisticated, not taught in schools, and has little practical application for most people. This undermines the theory that smarter people know more facts because they have economic incentives to learn more or because they attend school longer.

The people who knew the most about wine were those who had both (1) high IQ and (2) exposure to the wine industry. This likely means that when exposure to a knowledge domain occurs that smarter people benefit more from that environment than less intelligent people.

Cheers to the authors! 🥂 Read the full study (with no paywall) at the link in the comments.

08/09/2026

Jason Arday resigned from Cambridge University, but there is still some fallout from the scandal:

1️⃣Cambridge University has announced an investigation into the hiring and tenure of Jason Arday. This is in response to internal and external calls for such an investigation.
2️⃣Arday's memoir is still being released on Tuesday. (BTW, why did a Cambridge professor need a co-author on a memoir???) "The Atlantic" released a book review, saying that the book ". . . provides a vivid portrait of a man who was always manifestly ill-equipped for academia yet found a way to reach its upper levels." The Atlantic also compared the final book to the book proposal. Arday claimed in the proposal that he had been hit by a car and spent months in a coma and a year relearning how to walk and talk. That's missing completely from the book. There are a lot of other discrepanices between the two regarding dates, details, and even the type of cancer he faced.
3️⃣The Metropolitan police have apologized to reporter Jack Grove for investigating him for emailing Arday with questions about his dissertation and academic work. The head of the police now says that Arday's complaint should have been screened out in the initial phase and never investigated.
4️⃣In response to inquiries from the Daily Mail, Arday asked that the reporter attribute his replies to "a source close" to him instead of him. This raises the question of whether Arday regularly asks people to lie on his behalf.
5️⃣A man claiming to be a childhood classmate put a video on TikTok claiming that Arday spoke normally at school and at activities and was even a "chatty patty." This completely contradicts Arday's claim that he didn't speak until age 11.
6️⃣Queen's University Belfast is investigating plagiarism in one of Arday's articles. QUB is the affiliation of one of Arday's coauthors on the article, which gives them jurisdiction. Of course, the paper is about "whiteness as an instrument of power and privilege." 🙄

Links for more details in the comments.

08/08/2026

Every comedian knows that men and women are different, and there's a new book reviewing the scientific literature of s*x differences that supports that. Sociologist Lee Ellis and his colleagues reviewed 40,000 studies on s*x differences in behavior and cognition. They found 15 differences that are almost certainly universal, and showed up as having a consistent s*x difference in >95% of 100 or more studies. These s*x differences include:

➡Criminal behavior (higher in men)
➡Performing household chores (more frequent for women)
➡Income and occupational prestige (higher for men)
➡Risk-taking (more frequent in men)

The full list of 15 s*x differences is in the 3rd through 5th images.

There are two theories that attempt to explain these s*x differences: the social role theory and the evolutionary neuroandrogenic theory (ENA). Social role theory posits that most s*x differences are due to cultural influences and gender roles, though it does acknowledge that fundamental differences in biology (e.g., men being taller and stronger on average, women being able to give birth) could also create some s*x differences. The ENA theory argues that these s*x differences are due to evolution selecting for different traits in males and females and hormonal exposure (especially through testosterone).

So, which theory stacks up better? The ENA theory has a plausible explanation for all 15 universal s*x differences and at least some empirical evidence for all of them. Social role theory only has evidence regarding four s*x differences, and it is completely unable to explain some (e.g., higher male prevalence of ADHD, greater female time investment into household chores). See the full tally in the final image.

It's a cool study that is pretty easy to read. Link to the book in the comments.

08/07/2026

As the Jason Arday saga comes to an end, we should remember that there are honest scientists working at universities and who care about truth and doing the right thing. Two of them were honored this week with the inaugural "Ctrl Z award." This award goes to scientists who discover major errors in their work and who take steps to correct it fully, publicly, and at risk to their careers.

Kate Laskowski (right in image) noticed odd characteristics in her data that coauthor Jonathan Pruitt had supplied her about spider behavior. After Laskowski kept asking questions and trying to reconcile irregularities, she moved to have multiple article retracted. This led Pruitt's other coauthors to question their work with Pruitt; the problems they discovered led to Pruitt being outed as a fraudster, ended his career, and many articles being retratcted.

Alyssa Smith found a small coding error that had major consequences for her study's conclusions. Even though her study was supposed to help her get a job, she retracted the paper, got new data, and performed the correct analysis to publish a new study.

Read about these two science heroines in Science magazine at the link in the comments.

08/05/2026

🚨🚨UPDATE on the Jason Arday fraud scandal!🚨🚨

Hours after Cambridge University announced an investigation into his qualifications, Jason Arday has resigned from his professorship at Cambridge University.

Details:
➡Cambridge stated that the investigation is into his "academic qualifications and honorary appointments."
➡The university says that "there remains a number of ongoing complaints regarding academic misconduct." 👀
➡Arday's resignation is "with immediate effect."
➡The resignation letter makes no admission of misconduct or deceit.
➡According to Pangram, the resignation letter was written by A.I. 🤖

Links to more info in the comments. I'm adding info to this post as it becomes available.

08/05/2026

🚨🚨More news about Cambridge University fraudster Jason Arday! 🚨🚨

1️⃣When a journalist emailed him questions about his biography and scholarly work, Arday reported the journalist to the police! Claiming that the questions were damaging his mental health. The police investigated this complaint for four months!
2️⃣Arday claims he is a visiting professor at Ohio State University in its Office of Diversity and Inclusion. OSU says Arday has never worked for him, and they closed the office last year.
3️⃣Arday also he is a visiting professor at the University of Glasgow. The university denies he ever had a visiting professorship.

Nothing official or confirmed yet, but some academics on social media are suggesting that some of Arday's scholarly work may be fabricated. (And if so, would that surprise you? The man lied so many times about his background and accomplishments. It seems unlikely that he is scrupulously honest about his research.)

Links in the comments.

08/04/2026

If you have a co-worker who uses jargon unnecessarily, it may be because he's insecure. An article in "Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes" contains evidence that low-status individuals often adopt jargon to signal their membership in their group and to increase their own status.

The article reports 9(!) studies, but the most convincing data show that students at lower-status universities use more jargon and abbreviations in dissertation titles than students at high-status univerisities. Other follow-up data show that undergraduate business students use more jargon when they are communicating to higher-status individuals (e.g., MBA students or successful entrepeneurs) than lower-status individuals (e.g., new freshman business students).

Read more at the link in the comments.

Address

Orem, UT

Telephone

+18018635380

Website

http://www.russellwarne.com/, https://riotiq.com/

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Russell T. Warne, PhD - Psychologist, author, and educator posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Want your practice to be the top-listed Clinic in Orem?