Why g matters: The complexity of everyday life
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors provide evidence that intelligence has pervasive utility in work settings because it is essentially the ability to deal with cognitive complexity, in particular, with complex information processing, and the more complex a work task, the greater the advantages that higher g confers in performing it well.
About: This article is published in Intelligence.The article was published on 1997-01-01 and is currently open access. It has received 1300 citations till now. The article focuses on the topics: Everyday life & Cognitive complexity.
Summary (1 min read)
Jump to: [Why g Matters: The Complexity of Everyday Life] – [WHAT DOES “IMPORTANT” MEAN?] – [INFLUENCE OF INTELLIGENCE ON OVERALL LIFE OUTCOMES] and [THE FUTURE]
Why g Matters: The Complexity of Everyday Life
- This article provides evidence that g has pervasive utility in work settings because it is essentially the ability to deal with cognitive complexity, in particular, with complex information processing.
- Few claims in the social sciences are backed by such massive evidence but remain so hotly contested in public discourse.
- Besides demonstrating that g is important in practical affairs, I seek to demonstrate why intelligence has such surprisingly pervasive importance in the lives of individuals.
- I then use both the employment and literacy data to sketch a portrait of life’s challenges and opportunities at different levels of intelligence.
WHAT DOES “IMPORTANT” MEAN?
- The nature of the job and its context seem to determine whether g has any direct effect on task proficiency, net of job knowlege.
- As is well known in psychometrics (see also Gordon, 1997), the fact that an individual passes or fails any single test item says little about that person’s general intelligence level.
INFLUENCE OF INTELLIGENCE ON OVERALL LIFE OUTCOMES
- The effects of intelligence-like other psychological traits-are probabilistic, not deterministic.
- White adults in this range marry, work, and have children (Hermstein & Murray, 1994), but, as Table 10 shows, they are nonetheless at great risk of living in poverty (30%), bearing children out of wedlock (32%), and becoming chronic welfare dependents (31%).
- At this IQ level, fewer than half the high school graduates and none of the dropouts meet the military’s minimum AFQT enlistment standards.
- Most occupations are within reach cognitively, because these individuals learn complex material fairly easily and independently.
- Such as divorce, illness, and occasional unemployment, they rarely become trapped in poverty or social pathology.
THE FUTURE
- Complexity enriches social and cultural life, but it also risks leaving some individuals behind.
- Society has become more complex-and g loaded-as the authors have entered the information age and postindustrial economy.
- Accordingly, organizations are “flatter” (have fewer hierarchical levels), and increasing numbers of jobs require high-level cognitive and interpersonal skills (Camevale, 1991; Cascio, 1995; Hunt, 1995; Secretary’s Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills, 1991).
- There is evidence that increasing proportions of individuals with below-average IQs are having trouble adapting to their increasingly complex modern life (Granat & Granat, 1978) and that social inequality along IQ lines is increasing (Herrnstein & Murray, 1994).
- As the military experience also illustrates, however, what is good pedagogy for the low-aptitude learner may be inappropriate for the high-aptitude person.
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TL;DR: Oberauer et al. as mentioned in this paper argue that there are at least two types of relational integration and that forming new relational structures by integrating relevant prior knowledge with new information is the fundamental relational integration process that underlies skill at performing many complex cognitive tasks.
13 citations
Cites background from "Why g matters: The complexity of ev..."
...Because g has been an excellent predictor of important realworld outcomes such as academic and job success (Deary, 2001a; Gottfredson, 1997; Higgins, Peterson, Pihl, & Lee, 2007; Schmidt & Hunter, 1998), contemporary cognitive researchers have continued in Spearman's quest to understand the nature…...
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Dissertation•
01 Aug 2018
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present a review of the literature review and empirical study of cognitive and emotional intelligence in a cognitive-social learning paradigm, with a focus on the cognitive social learning paradigm.
Abstract: SUMMARY ...................................................................................................... iii CONTENTS ......................................................................................................................... ix LIST OF FIGURES ............................................................................................................ xxi LIST OF TABLES ............................................................................................................. xxii LIST OF APPENDICES .................................................................................................... xxv CHAPTER 1: SCIENTIFIC OVERVIEW OF THE RESEARCH ............................................. 1 1.1 BACKGROUND AND MOTIVATION FOR THE RESEARCH ................................... 1 1.2 PROBLEM STATEMENT ........................................................................................ 10 1.3 RESEARCH QUESTIONS ............................................................................................ 13 1.3.1 General research questions .................................................................................... 13 1.3.2 Research questions about the literature review .................................................... 13 1.3.3 Research questions about the empirical study ..................................................... 14 1.4 RESEARCH AIMS ........................................................................................................ 15 1.4.1 General aim of the research .................................................................................... 15 1.4.2 Specific aims of the research .................................................................................. 15 1.4.2.1 Literature review. ..................................................................................................... 15 1.4.2.2 Empirical study. ....................................................................................................... 16 1.5 STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE ................................................................................ 17 1.5.1 Theoretical significance ........................................................................................ 17 1.5.2 Empirical significance ........................................................................................... 18 1.5.3 Practical significance ............................................................................................ 19 1.6 THE RESEARCH MODEL ............................................................................................ 21 1.7 PARADIGM PERSPECTIVE OF THE RESEARCH ................................................. 21 1.7.1 Paradigm perspective for the literature review ................................................... 21 1.7.1.1 The cognitive-social learning paradigm: cognitive and emotional intelligence .................................................................................................................. 21 1.7.1.2 The cognitive social learning paradigm: personality ..................................... 24
13 citations
Cites background from "Why g matters: The complexity of ev..."
...According to Gottfredson (1997), people with high general mental ability are also likely to have a better ability to engage in positive interpersonal interactions, pointing perhaps to the link between cognitive and emotional intelligence....
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...It appears that the arguments about cognitive intelligence point to the view that the definition is complex and depends on people and times (Gottfredson, 1997). Earlier, Gottfredson (1997) conceptualised intelligence as a general capability involving planning, reasoning and solving problems, thinking in abstract terms, comprehending ideas of a complex nature, and quickly learning from experience....
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...Gottfredson (1998) points out that general intelligence can be measured through tests utilising verbal, spatial/pattern recognition, and mathematical problems....
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...While Gottfredson (1997) and Rindermann (2007) seem to have perhaps captured what cognitive intelligence may be, the major questions among researchers and early theorists has been whether cognitive intelligence should be viewed as a single, unitary construct or whether it consists of different and specific abilities (Willis, Dumont, & Kaufman, 2011)....
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...Lam and Kirby (2002) point out that general mental ability (general intelligence) is the ability to solve novel problems, while Gottfredson (1998) points out that general intelligence is inborn. Moscoso and Iglesias (2009) argue that hundreds of studies conducted over the past 80 years have confirmed the assertion that cognitive intelligence is the greatest single predictor of job performance than most, if not all, of the constructs....
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Dissertation•
01 Jan 2010
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors identify personal characteristics, attributes and features that impact upon on career progression and success in the hospitality industry and explain the impact of these phenomena by a constructivist model.
Abstract: Developing a cohort of competent managers and leaders is a perennial problem in the hospitality industry. This thesis seeks to address this problem by identifying the personal characteristics, attributes and features that impact upon on career progression and success. The impact of these phenomena will be explained by a constructivist model.
The model will incorporate a range of phenomena such as:
behaviours (for example, career management and development practices); skills and competencies (for example, emotional intelligence, cognitive intelligence); and socioeconomic variables (for example, family background, size, and structure, current domestic arrangements, education, employment history, amongst others).
13 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the correlation between tests of psychometric g and tests of attentional and perceptual-motor abilities was studied and it was shown that there is substantial overlap between these three taxonomies.
13 citations
TL;DR: The authors empirically tested whether the relationship holds at the national level using national IQ measures and data on per capita alcohol consumption, and found that higher-IQ countries on average also have higher levels of per capita beer and wine consumption.
13 citations
References
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TL;DR: The ten-year edition of the 10th anniversary edition as mentioned in this paper is devoted to the theory of multiple intelligences and its application in the socialization of human intelligence through Symbols Implications And Applications.
Abstract: * Introduction to the Tenth Anniversary Edition Background * The Idea of Multiple Intelligences * Intelligence: Earlier Views * Biological Foundations of Intelligence * What Is an Intelligence? The Theory * Linguistic Intelligence * Musical Intelligence * Logical-Mathematical Intelligence * Spatial Intelligence * Bodily-Kinesthetic Intelligence * The Personal Intelligences * A Critique of the Theory of Multiple Intelligences * The Socialization of Human Intelligences through Symbols Implications And Applications * The Education of Intelligences * The Application of Intelligences
11,512 citations
Book•
01 Jan 1983
TL;DR: The Tenth Anniversary Edition of Intelligence explains the development of intelligence in the 21st Century through the applications of language, linguistics, mathematics, and more.
Abstract: * Introduction to the Tenth Anniversary Edition Background * The Idea of Multiple Intelligences * Intelligence: Earlier Views * Biological Foundations of Intelligence * What Is an Intelligence? The Theory * Linguistic Intelligence * Musical Intelligence * Logical-Mathematical Intelligence * Spatial Intelligence * Bodily-Kinesthetic Intelligence * The Personal Intelligences * A Critique of the Theory of Multiple Intelligences * The Socialization of Human Intelligences through Symbols Implications And Applications * The Education of Intelligences * The Application of Intelligences
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