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: Neubert, J. C., Mainert, J., Kretzschmar, A., and Greiff, S. as mentioned in this paper assessed 21st century skills in industrial and organizational psychology: complex and collaborative problem solving.
Abstract: Commentary on Neubert, J. C., Mainert, J., Kretzschmar, A., & Greiff, S. (in press). The assessment of 21st century skills in industrial and organizational psychology: complex and collaborative problem solving. Industrial and Organizational Psychology: Perspectives on Science and Practice.
Cites background from "Why g matters: The complexity of ev..."
...First, Gottfredson (1997) defined intelligence as “the ability to reason, plan, solve problems [emphasis added], think abstractly, and acquire knowledge” (p. 93)....
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23 Jun 2021
TL;DR: In this article, the cognitivist notion of intelligence has been examined in the context of logic and its application to human rationality, and it has been shown that it is possible to improve our understanding of cognitive styles from the elements of the philosophy of logic exposed in section four.
Abstract: In what follows I seek to answer the question on whether it is possible to integrate two different lines of research on human rationality: on the one hand, some philosophical lines of research of a cognitivist nature (Stanovich, 2002, 2009, 2016), and, on the other, lines of research on the logical reasoning of human agents and normative criteria (Harman, 1984; Morado, 2003; Aliseda, 2004). My answer to such questioning will be affirmative. To defend my point, I shall proceed as follows: first, in sec. 2 I offer the antecedents and characteristics of the cognitivist notion of “intelligence” that has greater acceptance today, the general theory of intelligence, also known as the g factor. Throughout sec. 3 I present the elements thanks to which it has been considered that although g factor manages to satisfactorily evaluate the phenomenon of intelligence, it ignores relevant characteristics from the perspective of what rationality has been considered to be (Sternberg, 1985; Stanovich, 2009). Then, in sec. 4, I present some notions of rationality available in literature on the philosophy of logic (Harman, 1984; Morado, 2003; Aliseda, 2004), and I evaluate what are the distinctive elements of each of these characterizations. In sec. 5, I defend that it is possible to improve our understanding of cognitive styles from the elements of the philosophy of logic exposed in section four.
TL;DR: This paper used tract-based spatial statistics (TBSS) to identify white matter regions that show replicable structure-function associations, employing data from 4 independent samples comprising over 2000 healthy participants.
Abstract: Few tract-based spatial statistics (TBSS) studies have investigated the relations between intelligence and white matter microstructure in healthy (young) adults, and those have yielded mixed observations, yet white matter is fundamental for efficient and accurate information transfer throughout the human brain. We used a multicenter approach to identify white matter regions that show replicable structure-function associations, employing data from 4 independent samples comprising over 2000 healthy participants. TBSS indicated 188 voxels exhibited significant positive associations between g factor scores and fractional anisotropy (FA) in all 4 data sets. Replicable voxels formed 3 clusters, located around the left-hemispheric forceps minor, superior longitudinal fasciculus, and cingulum-cingulate gyrus with extensions into their surrounding areas (anterior thalamic radiation, inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus). Our results suggested that individual differences in general intelligence are robustly associated with white matter FA in specific fiber bundles distributed across the brain, consistent with the Parieto-Frontal Integration Theory of intelligence. Three possible reasons higher FA values might create links with higher g are faster information processing due to greater myelination, more direct information processing due to parallel, homogenous fiber orientation distributions, or more parallel information processing due to greater axon density.
01 Jan 2023
01 Jan 2014
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that employers who establish policies that increase cognitive ability and conscientiousness of the average employee can improve their safety record, and they document this contention with data from a firm that experienced marked improvements in safety after it required all its new entry level hires to possess either a high school diploma or a GED certificate.
Abstract: The authors argue that employers who establish policies that increase the cognitive ability and conscientiousness of the average employee can improve their safety record. They document this contention with data from a firm that experienced marked improvements in safety after it required all its new entry level hires to possess either a high school diploma or a GED certificate. The paper begins with a description of the dangerous work environment for inland mariners, then reviews the research on the relationship of cognitive ability and the personality attributes of conscientiousness and emotional stability to job performance. It also reviews the evidence that shows workers with high school degrees are smarter and more conscientious than dropouts. The authors then present the improvements in safety experienced by a firm after it installed the requirement that all new hires possess a high school diploma or GED. The conclusion contains implications for hiring policies at both the entry level and higher, one of which is the desirability of recruiting veterans of military service at the entry level in the inland waterways industry.
Cites background from "Why g matters: The complexity of ev..."
...In fact, those with higher scores are likely to perform better than those with lower scores even when all pass a threshold score (3)....
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...Most people in managerial positions appear to have IQs above average, that is, above 110 (3)....
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...This research consistently finds that those with higher scores on tests of cognitive ability perform better in their jobs (3)....
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...Gottfredson (3) reports that those with IQ scores greater than 116 are able to gather and synthesize information easily; and can infer information and reach appropriate conclusions from the job situation....
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References
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