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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01 Jan 2013
TL;DR: This paper found that KAI scores were significantly and negatively related to neuroticism, agreeableness, and conscientiousness, whereas they were positively related to extraversion and openness, and they did not predict variance in transformational and transactional leadership beyond that predicted by personality.
Abstract: Kirton’s Adaption-Innovation Inventory (KAI) is a widely-used measure of “cognitive style.” Surprisingly, there is very little research investigating the discriminant and incremental validity of the KAI, particularly with respect to current personality measures. Using a sample of 213 participants, we examined (a) the extent to which we could predict KAI scores with the NEO-PI “big five” personality dimensions and (b) whether the KAI predicted variance in leadership and academic achievement, beyond the variance accounted for by personality and ability. Accounting for measurement error with an errors-in-variables regression model, we found that KAI scores were almost wholly predicted by personality and gender; the multiple R was .80. As we hypothesized, KAI scores were significantly and negatively related to neuroticism, agreeableness, and conscientiousness, whereas they were significantly and positively related to extraversion and openness. As expected, KAI scores were unrelated to measures of academic achievement and ability. Finally, KAI scores did not predict variance in transformational and transactional leadership beyond that predicted by personality. Our results question the uniqueness and utility of the KAI construct.
3 citations
Cites background from "Why g matters: The complexity of ev..."
...General intelligence According to Gottfredson (1997), intelligence is the ability to deal with cognitive complexity, which, among other things, is linked to the process of sense-making (i.e., the identification, acquisition, organization, combination or comparison, and updating of information)…...
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01 Jan 2017
TL;DR: This paper explored the relationship between pre-service teachers' intelligence beliefs and their expectations for students' future success, inferences about student ability, and election of pedagogical practices in mathematics.
Abstract: This replication study explored the relationships between pre-service teachers’ intelligence beliefs and their expectations for students’ future success, inferences about student ability, and election of pedagogical practices in mathematics. After learning of one failing test score, participants self-reported how they might respond to a struggling male student. The quantitative study used a series of four individual surveys obtained during the participants’ (N = 45) final semester of student teaching. Linear regression analyses were conducted to determine the relationship between theory of intelligence and teacher expectations, perceptions, and instructional elections. Results from this study indicate that pre-service teachers’ entity beliefs are related to their pedagogical decisions. The findings of this study may support teacher education programs when making curricula decisions as addressing intelligence beliefs in conjunction with methods and philosophies of education may increase student motivation and continued engagement in the STEM fields.
3 citations
Cites background from "Why g matters: The complexity of ev..."
...Intelligence is a complex construct and, thus far, theorists have been unable to agree upon a definition (Furnham, 2001; Gottfredson, 1997; Neisser et al., 1996)....
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...Intelligence is a complex construct and, thus far, theorists have been unable to agree upon a definition (Furnham, 2001; Gottfredson, 1997; Neisser et al., 1996)....
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TL;DR: In this article, it has been shown that tests as intentionally hindered and difficult learning tasks increase long-term learning compared to easier tasks and that higher intelligence might serve as a prerequisite for such beneficial effects of tests.
Abstract: It has often been shown that tests as intentionally hindered and difficult learning tasks increase long-term learning compared to easier tasks. Previous work additionally indicated that higher intelligence might serve as a prerequisite for such beneficial effects of tests. Nevertheless, despite their long-term learning effects, tests were also found to be evaluated as more negative and to lead to more stress and anxiety compared to easier control tasks. Stress and anxiety, in turn, often yield detrimental effects on learning outcomes. Hence, we hypothesized that tests increase later learning outcomes but simultaneously also lead to more stress perceptions. Such increased stress was, in turn, hypothesized to reduce later learning outcomes (thus, stress might serve as a mediator of the beneficial effects of tests on learning). All these assumed effects should further be moderated by intelligence, insofar as that higher intelligence should increase beneficial effects of tests on learning, should decrease stress perceptions caused by tests, and should reduce detrimental effects of stress on learning outcomes. Higher intelligence was also assumed to be generally associated with higher learning. We conducted a laboratory study (N=89) to test these hypotheses: Participants underwent an intelligence screening, then worked on either a test or a re-reading control task, and reported their immediate stress perceptions. Later learning outcomes were assessed after 1week. The results supported all assumed main effects but none of the assumed interactions. Thus, participants using tests had higher long-term learning outcomes compared to participants using re-reading tasks. However, participants using tests also perceived more immediate stress compared to participants that only re-read the materials. These stress perceptions in turn diminished the beneficial effects of tests. Stress was also generally related to lower learning, whereas higher intelligence was linked to higher learning and also to lower stress. Hence, our findings again support the often assumed benefits of tests-even when simultaneously considering learners' intelligence and and when considering the by tests caused stress perceptions. Notably, controlling for stress further increases these long-term learning benefits. We then discuss some limitations and boundaries of our work as well as ideas for future studies.
3 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, structural equation analysis was employed to verify a model representing the direct effects of psychological variables on individual adaptation to an adverse environment, and they have been able to confirm, during basic military diving courses, the structural relationships among these variables and their ability to predict a third of the variance of a criterion that has been studied very little to date.
Abstract: The underwater environment is an extreme environment that requires a process of human adaptation with specific psychophysiological demands to ensure survival and productive activity. From the standpoint of existing models of intelligence, personality and performance, in this explanatory study we have analyzed the contribution of individual differences in explaining the adaptation of military personnel in a stressful environment. Structural equation analysis was employed to verify a model representing the direct effects of psychological variables on individual adaptation to an adverse environment, and we have been able to confirm, during basic military diving courses, the structural relationships among these variables and their ability to predict a third of the variance of a criterion that has been studied very little to date. In this way, we have confirmed in a sample of professionals (N = 575) the direct relationship of emotional adjustment, conscientiousness and general mental ability with underwater adaptation, as well as the inverse relationship of emotional reactivity. These constructs are the psychological basis for working under water, contributing to an improved adaptation to this environment and promoting risk prevention and safety in diving activities.
3 citations
Cites background from "Why g matters: The complexity of ev..."
...studies where intelligence, the most general human mental ability, is conceived as a learning ability and problem-solving skill which promotes adaptation to new situations and environmental conditions (Gottfredson, 1997; Neisser et al., 1996); and, on the other hand, they are similar to the quantitative reviews where intelligence is considered to be the most important theoretical construct for personnel selection, especially in complex functions, and the best predictor of training in the civilian and military workplace (Hunter & Hunter, 1984; McHenry, Hough, Toquam, Hanson, & Ashworth, 1990; Ree & Earles, 1992; Ree, Earles, & Teachout, 1992; Salgado et al....
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...…ability, is conceived as a learning ability and problem-solving skill which promotes adaptation to new situations and environmental conditions (Gottfredson, 1997; Neisser et al., 1996); and, on the other hand, they are similar to the quantitative reviews where intelligence is considered to be…...
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...The capacity for learning and problem solving, making the right decision, the accurate judgment of situations and the ability to adapt to new environments and situations are important facets in diving which represent the prevailing concept of general intelligence (Gottfredson, 1997, 2002)....
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TL;DR: The authors found that conditional wealth has an effect of increasing the cognitive capacity of 15-year-old children, manifested in all three methods of measurement: by vocabulary points, math scores and reading comprehension scores in Vietnamese.
Abstract: Drawing on the Young Lives data obtained from three cycles of surveys from 2006 to 2016, our study examines factors affecting children’s cognitive ability in Vietnam. Controlling for the conditional wealth, which is the residual of the regression equation of the household wealth index in 2006 and 2013, our study provides evidence that conditional wealth has an effect of increasing the cognitive capacity of 15-year-old children, manifested in all three methods of measurement: by vocabulary points, math scores and reading comprehension scores in Vietnamese. This finding once again confirms that late intervention after the first 1,000 days has a positive impact on children's cognitive ability. Notably, our finding suggests that using the conditional wealth enables to capture the impact of economic shocks, which in turn have a significant effect on the cognitive ability of children in Vietnam.
3 citations
Cites background from "Why g matters: The complexity of ev..."
...According to Gottfredson (1997), cognitive ability is a general mental capacity, including reasoning, planning, abstract thinking, the ability to grasp general ideas, problemsolving and learning from experience....
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References
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