Why g matters: The complexity of everyday life
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.
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Citations
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Cites background from "Why g matters: The complexity of ev..."
...Some researchers argue that measures of social effectiveness and other variables relating to interpersonal communication are simply a subset of GMA (e.g., Gottfredson, 1997)....
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Cites background from "Why g matters: The complexity of ev..."
...It is also highly predictive of professional and educational success (Gottfredson, 1997) and has, therefore, been a prime target of intervention....
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...Moreover, Gf is closely related to professional and educational success (3–6), especially in complex and demanding environments (7)....
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...If true, the implications for academic, professional, and personal success are considerable (Gottfredson, 1997)....
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Cites background from "Why g matters: The complexity of ev..."
...Daily activities common in our modern society, such as negotiating complicated public transportation systems, completing income tax forms, comparison shopping, managing money, helping children with homework, and navigating the Internet are more demanding for individuals with lower IQs (36)....
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...The IQs determined at the three ages were averaged and standardized....
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...Individuals with lower childhood IQs are less equipped to cope with stressful life events, making them potentially more vulnerable to developing disorders after such events....
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...Figure 1 presents the mean childhood IQs and 95% CIs for the healthy comparison subjects, participants with specific psychiatric disorders, and those with disorders in two or more diagnostic families....
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...Individuals with lower IQs also tend to obtain low-status, low-skilled jobs (37), which involve working conditions that have been shown to increase the risk of depression and anxiety in the Dunedin cohort (38)....
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