scispace - formally typeset
Search or ask a question
Journal ArticleDOI

Why g matters: The complexity of everyday life

01 Jan 1997-Intelligence (JAI)-Vol. 24, Iss: 1, pp 79-132
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)

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.

Did you find this useful? Give us your feedback

Citations
More filters
Posted ContentDOI
04 May 2022-bioRxiv
TL;DR: The authors used tract-based spatial statistics to examine associations between g factor scores and white matter microstructure and found that individual differences in general intelligence are robustly associated with white matter organization in specific fiber bundles.
Abstract: Early research on the neural correlates of human intelligence was almost exclusively focused on gray matter properties. The advent of diffusion-weighted imaging led to an exponential growth of white matter brain imaging studies. However, this line of research has yielded mixed observations, especially about the relations between general intelligence and white matter microstructure. We used a multi-center approach to identify white matter regions that show replicable structure-function associations, employing data from four independent samples comprising over 2000 healthy participants. We used tract-based spatial statistics to examine associations between g factor scores and white matter microstructure and identified 188 voxels which exhibited positive associations between g factor scores and fractional anisotropy in all four data sets. Replicable voxels formed three clusters: one located around the forceps minor, crossing with extensions of the anterior thalamic radiation, the cingulum-cingulate gyrus, and the inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus in the left hemisphere, one located around the left-hemispheric superior longitudinal fasciculus, and one located around the left-hemispheric cingulum-cingulate gyrus, crossing with extensions of the anterior thalamic radiation and the inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus. Our results indicate that individual differences in general intelligence are robustly associated with white matter organization in specific fiber bundles.
Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper , the authors investigated the relationship between fluid intelligence as a core element of intelligence and divergent thinking as an important indicator of creativity in two large samples of secondary school students in Germany.
Abstract: The threshold hypothesis and the necessary-but-not-sufficient hypothesis represent popular views on the relationship between intelligence and creativity. However, most studies investigating these hypotheses used suboptimal or even inappropriate statistical methods, calling into question the robustness of the available evidence. The ability differentiation hypothesis presents a third theoretical view on the relationship, but ability differentiation studies including creativity measures are scarce. In this study, the relationship between fluid intelligence as a core element of intelligence and divergent thinking as an important indicator of creativity was investigated in two large samples of secondary school students in Germany (N = 1,328, Mage = 14.47; N = 524, Mage = 13.77). Four different statistical approaches were applied (i.e., test for heteroscedasticity, segmented regression analysis, local structural equation modeling, and necessary-but-not-sufficient condition analysis). The results did not support the threshold hypothesis or a nonlinear relationship as predicted by ability differentiation hypothesis and only partially supported the necessary-but-not-sufficient hypothesis.
Journal ArticleDOI
09 Sep 2022
TL;DR: In this article , the authors investigated the impact of grit in a B2B sales setting, with adult salespeople, and on both dimensions of grit: perseverance and consistency of interests.
Abstract: Purpose The increasing interest of grit research in sales represents an opportunity as sales-dependent organizations stand to benefit significantly from an enhanced understanding of how grit arises and how it affects sales performance. The nature of sales, with high levels of stress and rejection, presents conditions in which individuals possessing high levels of grit should find greater success than their less gritty peers. However, three predominant issues limit the findings of previous research on grit in a sales and marketing context: scholars have elected to measure grit (1) with adolescents before personality traits are fully established, (2) in non-sales contexts, or (3) using only one of the two dimensions of grit, generally assessing perseverance but not consistency. Thus, due to differing opinions among researchers regarding the usefulness of grit’s proposed subdimensions, perseverance and consistency of interests, the scant research in that has examined grit within organizational contexts presents a muddled picture of grit’s potential utility for the field of sales. Therefore, this study addresses all three concerns by investigating grit in a B2B sales setting, with adult salespeople, and on both dimensions of grit.Methodology Survey data were collected from 473 B2B salespeople (i.e. employed full-time in business-to-business sales as a salesperson) representing a cross-section of industries, including advertising, auto parts, business solutions, computer and technology-related sales, insurance, promotional products, telecommunications, and transportation and logistics. The model design allowed for exploration of two antecedents to grit, growth mind-set and self-efficacy, and two outcomes of interest, salesperson performance and organizational commitment. Further, we incorporate the contingent role managers can have on the relationships between growth mind-set and self-efficacy with perseverance of effort and consistency of interest by expanding a salesperson’s locus of control. All of these relationships were tested with Mplus v8, using a maximum likelihood estimator with robust standard errors.Findings Our findings build upon previous sales research examining the effects of grit on sales outcomes by demonstrating that each of grit’s dimensions has a positive relationship with performance and determining that the positive effects of grit extend to salesperson commitment to the organization. Moreover, we determine that a growth mind-set and self-efficacy are predictive of salesperson grit and that locus of control plays a moderating role in these relationships. However, we demonstrate that grit’s perseverance and consistency dimensions are not impacted uniformly by a growth mind-set and locus of control, indicating that additional insights may be gleaned from assessing and analyzing the grit construct using both dimensions. In particular, the results show that a salesperson’s growth mind-set is positively associated with perseverance of effort and negatively associated with consistency of interest. Thus, salespeople with a growth mind-set are likely to persevere through long sales cycles but may find their interests gravitate toward new opportunities over time (e.g. sales role with another company, management opportunity). However, the negative relationship between a growth mind-set and consistency of interest is attenuated when the salesperson has a higher perceived locus of control.Implications Salespeople with a growth mind-set need to work in environments that continually provide them with new opportunities, or decreases in consistency of interest may negatively impact their performance and commitment to the organization. Thus, the candidate with the growth mind-set may be an ideal fit for select opportunities within the sales organization that would allow them to progress more quickly, such as accelerated training programs, programs offering relatively rapid progression from junior standing to full-standing, or programs that would place them on a management track. Further, taking into consideration the contingent role of locus of control, sales managers can monitor and develop a salesperson’s locus of control to mitigate a decline in consistency of interest by permitting flexibility and autonomy, providing tools and feedback, and empowering the salesperson with the capabilities and opportunities they need to execute the sales process successfully.Originality This research strengthens the recent trend in grit-based research by exploring both dimensions of grit in a B2B sales setting with adult salespeople. This study also introduces research on growth and fixed mind-sets in a sales setting. Further, even with grit being increasingly studied in the sales domain, very little research had examined how grit affects sales outcomes to date. Therefore, this research delivers some of the first findings on both dimensions of grit and growth mind-sets to the sales and marketing literature by highlighting factors that can enhance salesperson performance and organizational commitment.
References
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI
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

9,611 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigated the relation of the Big Five personality dimensions (extraversion, emotional stability, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Openness to Experience) to three job performance criteria (job proficiency, training proficiency, and personnel data) for five occupational groups (professionals, police, managers, sales, and skilled/semi-skilled).
Abstract: This study investigated the relation of the “Big Five” personality dimensions (Extraversion, Emotional Stability, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Openness to Experience) to three job performance criteria (job proficiency, training proficiency, and personnel data) for five occupational groups (professionals, police, managers, sales, and skilled/semi-skilled). Results indicated that one dimension of personality, Conscientiousness, showed consistent relations with all job performance criteria for all occupational groups. For the remaining personality dimensions, the estimated true score correlations varied by occupational group and criterion type. Extraversion was a valid predictor for two occupations involving social interaction, managers and sales (across criterion types). Also, both Openness to Experience and Extraversion were valid predictors of the training proficiency criterion (across occupations). Other personality dimensions were also found to be valid predictors for some occupations and some criterion types, but the magnitude of the estimated true score correlations was small (ρ < .10). Overall, the results illustrate the benefits of using the 5-factor model of personality to accumulate and communicate empirical findings. The findings have numerous implications for research and practice in personnel psychology, especially in the subfields of personnel selection, training and development, and performance appraisal.

8,018 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: An up-to-date handbook on conceptual and methodological issues relevant to the study of industrial and organizational behavior is presented in this paper, which covers substantive issues at both the individual and organizational level in both theoretical and practical terms.
Abstract: An up-to-date handbook on conceptual and methodological issues relevant to the study of industrial and organizational behavior. Chapters contributed by leading experts from the academic and business communities cover substantive issues at both the individual and organizational level, in both theoretical and practical terms.

7,809 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Because of the extraordinary clarity and importance of the Commission's Report, the editors of the Communica t ions decided to reprint the Report's main section in its entirety and present it to you here.
Abstract: released a remarkab le report, A Nation at Risk. This Report has s t imulated in the media considerable discussion about the problems in our schools, speculation about the causes, and ass ignment of blame. Astonishingly, f e w of the media reports have focused on the specific f indings and recommendat ions of the Commission. A lmos t none of the med ia reports tells that the Commission i tsel f re frained f rom speculation on causes and f rom assignment of blame. Because of the extraordinary clarity and importance of the Commission's Report, the editors of the Communica t ions decided to reprint the Report's main section in its entirety. We are p leased to present it to you here.

5,832 citations