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: It is found that individuals with highIQ show high environmental influence on IQ into adolescence (resembling younger children), whereas individuals with low IQ show high heritability of IQ in adolescence ( resembling adults), a pattern consistent with an extended sensitive period for intellectual development in more-intelligent individuals.
Abstract: IQ predicts many measures of life success, as well as trajectories of brain development. Prolonged cortical thickening observed in individuals with high IQ might reflect an extended period of synaptogenesis and high environmental sensitivity or plasticity. We tested this hypothesis by examining the timing of changes in the magnitude of genetic and environmental influences on IQ as a function of IQ score. We found that individuals with high IQ show high environmental influence on IQ into adolescence (resembling younger children), whereas individuals with low IQ show high heritability of IQ in adolescence (resembling adults), a pattern consistent with an extended sensitive period for intellectual development in more-intelligent individuals. The pattern held across a cross-sectional sample of almost 11,000 twin pairs and a longitudinal sample of twins, biological siblings, and adoptive siblings.
29 citations
Cites background from "Why g matters: The complexity of ev..."
...Adult IQ is a measure of cognitive ability that is predictive of social and occupational status, educational and job performance, adult health, and longevity (Gottfredson, 1997; Neisser et al., 1996; Whalley & Deary, 2001)....
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01 Oct 2006
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors apply probability theory to problems in sociology and psychology, from physics to perception, when systems evolve over time, and define rationality - personal and group decision making.
Abstract: 1. Introduction 2. Applying probability theory to problems in sociology and psychology 3. From physics to perception 4. When systems evolve over time 5. Non-Linear and chaotic systems 6. Defining rationality - personal and group decision making 7. How to evaluate evidence 8. Multidimensional scaling surveying the geography of the mind 9. The mathematical models behind psychological testing 10. How to know you asked a good question 11. The construction of complexity: how simple rules make the complex organizations 12. Connectionism: computation connects mind and brain 13. L'Envoi References Index.
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TL;DR: It is proposed that EEG microstates can provide valuable information about neural activity patterns with a dynamic and complex temporal structure during fluid reasoning, suggesting cognitive ability‐specific interplays between multiple brain networks.
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Cites background from "Why g matters: The complexity of ev..."
...…large variety of cognitive, developmental, aging, educational and health effects (Alexander et al., 1997; Batty et al., 2007; Calvin et al., 2011, 2017; Deary et al., 2005; Gottfredson, 1997; Gray and Thompson, 2004; Hunt, 2011; Matsuda and Saito, 1998; Whalley et al., 2004; Buckley et al., 2018)....
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TL;DR: A popular conception of the intelligence, or g, thought to be measured by IQ tests, is that of a cognitive "strength" variable that facilitates complex cognition such as reasoning and problem solvers.
Abstract: A popular conception of the “intelligence,” or g, thought to be measured by IQ tests, is that of a cognitive “strength” variable that facilitates complex cognition such as reasoning and problem sol...
29 citations
Cites background from "Why g matters: The complexity of ev..."
...In humans, all ordinary social life demands highly complex cognition because “other individuals are among the most complex, novel, changing, active, demanding, and unpredictable objects in our environments” (Gottfredson, 1997, p. 107)....
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...Note that, like others, Gottfredson (1997) appeals a lot to correlations between IQ (type) test performances and “job complexity” (e.g., manual, clerical, professional) on the grounds that jobs vary in “the complexity of their information processing demands” (Gottfredson, 2002, p. 30)....
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...Gottfredson (1997) suggests that being able to say why a pair of words like “fly – tree” are alike tests the learning of more abstract knowledge than the pair “orange – banana,” and that such learning has required a greater ability for complex cognition....
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...Gottfredson (1997), however, argues that there is more than meets the eye in such simple-looking test items....
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...Note that, like others, Gottfredson (1997) appeals a lot to correlations between IQ (type) test performances and “job complexity” (e....
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01 Jan 2001
TL;DR: Two powerful icons have dominated descriptions of historical trends in income inequality in the United States and other industrial societies: the Kuznets curve and the Great U-Turn as mentioned in this paper, i.e.,
Abstract: Two powerful icons have dominated descriptions of historical trends in income inequality in the United States and other industrial societies: the Kuznets curve and the Great U-Turn.
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References
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