The idea is that general intelligence influences performance on all cognitive tasks.
So, general intelligence can be defined as a construct that is made up of different cognitive abilities.
These abilities allow people to acquire knowledge and solve problems.
Verywell / Emily Roberts
In 1904, Spearman suggested that this g factor was responsible for overall performance on mental ability tests.
General intelligence can be compared to athleticism.
Crystalized intelligence is intelligence that we acquire through our culture.
Such tests propose thatintelligencecan be measured and expressed by a single number, such as an IQ score.
The Stanford-Binet, which is one of the most popularintelligence tests, aims to measure the g factor.
What Do IQ Test Scores Mean?
Job Success
IQ scores have long been thought to correlate to career success.
This is why psychological testing has become so prevalent for pre-employment screening and career placement.
Many have questioned, however, whether a general mental ability was really more important than specific mental abilities.
The importance of the g factor for job success becomes greater as the complexity of the work increases.
For occupations with a high degree of complexity, having a higher general intelligence becomes a greater asset.
Health and Longevity
The field of cognitive epidemiology looks at associations between general intelligence and health.
While the g factor has a number of effects, other variables are also important.
IQ and intelligence testing have remained topics of debate ever since.
While influential, the g factor is just one way of thinking about intelligence.
Thurstone’s Primary Mental Abilities
Some psychologists, including L.L.
Thurstone, challenged the concept of a g-factor.
People could be low in some areas and high in others.
Gardner instead proposed thatmultiple intelligencesexist.
Each intelligence represents abilities in a certain domain such as visual-spatial intelligence,verbal-linguistic intelligence, and logical-mathematical intelligence.
Research today points to an underlying mental ability that contributes to performance on many cognitive tasks.
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