Introduction to Psychology

Is Intelligence a predictor of job and life success?

Over the years, intelligence has been defined in many different ways and called many different things. There are the abbreviations: “IQ” (intelligence quotient), “g” (general intelligence), “GCA” (general cognitive ability) and “GMA” (general mental ability). Whatever we call it, the way we measure it has not really changed in many years. On how intelligence helps performance, most people will suggest that it is by improving things like problem solving and decision-making. Some research has shown that intelligence levels are more important than experience for the ability to think strategically. The most important impact of intelligence seems to be on the acquisition of job knowledge. IQ scores are used as predictors of educational achievement, job performance and income. People higher in intelligence acquire more job knowledge and acquire it faster. An example of the importance of this comes from a series of studies run by the US military in the 1980s. They found that recruits with below average intelligence required more than three years to reach the same levels of performance that recruits with higher intelligence began with. Even with on-the-job experience, enlistees with lower intelligence continue to lag behind those with higher intelligence.

A summary of over 400 studies found that the validity of intelligence in predicting employees’ performance was 0.38 for low-complexity jobs. But for medium-complexity roles the validity was 0.51 and for high-complexity jobs it was as high as 0.57. This would mean that for high-complexity jobs it can account for over 32 percent of the causes of success. Later research has supported these findings and extended them to show that intelligence tests appear able to predict performance in almost all jobs in all cultures.

1. Explain the related psychological phenomenon or theory in general.
Nature vs. Nurture Debate in regard to Intelligence. The nature vs. nurture debate has shifted from, whether our genetics or the environment influences our psychological processes, to how much both, biology or the environment have an impact. Both nature and nurture have been researched with evidence to support both sides. The nature side or the genetic side argues that intelligence is inherited in the way that a person is born with their maximum mental ability. On the other hand the nurture side or environmental side argues that the environment plays a significant role in a person’s mental ability. The nature theory takes it to say that traits such as intelligence, personality are also in our genetics. This can be tested thanks to the birth of monozygotic or identical twins born from the same cell. Most data suggests that the genetic effect is more powerful.
The nature versus nurture debate concerns the relative importance of an individual's innate qualities ("nature," i.e. nativism, or innatism) versus personal experiences ("nurture," i.e. empiricism or behaviorism) in determining or causing individual differences in physical and behavioral traits.

Nature
Nurture
What is it?:
In the "nature vs nurture" debate, nature refers to an individual's innate qualities (nativism).
In the "nature vs nurture" debate, nurture refers to personal experiences (i.e. empiricism or behaviorism).
Example:
Nature is your genes. The physical and personality traits determined by your genes stay the same irrespective of where you were born and raised.
Nurture refers to your childhood, or how you were brought up. Someone could be born with genes to give them a normal height, but be malnourished in childhood, resulting in stunted growth and a failure to develop as expected.
Factors:
Biological and family factors
Social and environmental factors
This debate within psychology is concerned with the extent to which particular aspects of behavior are a product of either inherited (i.e. genetic) or acquired (i.e. learned) characteristics.
Nature is that which is inherited / genetic. Nurture which refers to all environmental influences after conception, i.e. experience.

1. Relate the event to the psychological concept as clearly as you can.

There have been articles which present and interpret evidence of IQ differences between groups. A major publication was from Herrnstein and Murray's (1994) "The Bell Curve". This book provided information in the direction of 'nature', generating debate and controversy in psychology, sociology, education, and politics.
"The work's main thesis is that an individual's intelligence - no less than 40% and no more than 80% of which is inherited genetically from his or her parents - has more effect than socioeconomic background on future life experiences." Manolakes (1997), p.235
Nature
Physiological/Biological. Psychologists taking this approach believe that behavior can be explained via innate influences such as hormones and genetic influences
Psychoanalysis - Psychologists taking this approach believe that behavior is controlled by the innate aggression and sex drives. They do recognize that society restricts these drives and that these drives are controlled via the ego and the superego.
Nurture
Behaviorism - Behaviorists believe that human behavior is learnt
Humanism - This area of psychology explores the impact of a wide range of social and environmental influences on human behavior.

Evidence suggests that family environmental factors may have an effect upon childhood IQ, accounting for up to a quarter of the variance. Adoption studies indicate that, by adulthood, adoptive siblings are no more similar in IQ than strangers (IQ correlation near zero), while full siblings show an IQ correlation of 0.6. Twin studies reinforce this pattern: monozygotic (identical) twins raised separately are highly similar in IQ (0.74), more so than dizygotic (fraternal) twins raised together (0.6) and much more than adoptive siblings (~0.0). Recent adoption studies also found that supportive parents can have a positive effect on the development of their children.
Individuals with "intelligent" (high IQ) family members tend to be intelligent themselves; this brings the question of whether intelligence is inherited or learned (nature vs. nurture), or a combination of both. The role of genes and environment (nature and nurture) in determining IQ is reviewed in Plomin et al. (2001, 2003). Until recently heritability, a measure of how much variability in a trait is due to genes, was mostly studied in children. Various studies find the heritability of IQ between 0.4 and 0.8 in the United States, which is, depending on the study, a little less than half to substantially more than half of the variation in IQ among the children studied was due to variation in their genes. The remainder was thus due to environmental variation and measurement error. A heritability in the range of 0.4 to 0.8 implies that IQ is "substantially" heritable. The American Psychological Association's 1995 task force on "Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns" concluded that within the white population the heritability of IQ is "around .75."
Environmental factors also play a role in determining IQ. Proper childhood nutrition appears critical for cognitive development; malnutrition can lower IQ. Other research indicates environmental factors such as prenatal exposure to toxins, duration of breastfeeding, and micronutrient deficiency can affect IQ. It is well known that it is possible to increase one's IQ score by training, for example by regularly playing puzzle games or strategy games, like chess. Musical training in childhood also increases IQ. Recent studies have shown that training in using one's working memory may increase.
The nature versus nurture debate has been a classic controversy among experts for centuries. Throughout the history of the debate, there has been no clear conclusion to the dispute; yet, there are many hypotheses. Both sides/opinions of this controversy, ‘nature’ and ‘nurture’, have been explored thoroughly among researchers, and much evidence has been found in the favor of both hypotheses. The ‘nature’ side of the debate argues for a hereditarianism view of the phenomenon of intelligence: that a person maintains his mental ability solely based on what he is born with genetically. Defending this side of the debate exclusively would be establishing that a person’s environment plays no role in determining his mental aptitude. On the other side, the nurture camp argues that a person’s environment plays a large role in his mental aptitude. Nature gives us inborn abilities and traits; where nurture takes these genetic abilities and shapes them as we learn and mature. In addition to the premise that measured intelligence (IQ) is largely genetically inherited, another important premise was that IQ is correlated positively with a variety of measures of socioeconomic success in society, such as a prestigious job, high annual income, and high educational attainment; and is inversely correlated with criminality and other measures of social failure.
On average, people with higher IQs also have higher incomes. This is not to say that IQ leads to income. It could well be the other way around: that income leads to IQ. On average, people with higher IQs also have more education. And once again, it's probably the education that leads to the IQ, rather than the other way around.
"Research shows that general intelligence plays an important role in many valued life outcomes. In addition to academic success, IQ correlates to some degree with job performance, socioeconomic advancement (e.g., level of education, occupation, and income), and "social pathology" (e.g., adult criminality, poverty, unemployment, dependence on welfare, children outside of marriage).
Both sides of this controversy, ‘nature’ and ‘nurture’, have been explored thoroughly by researchers, and overwhelming evidence has been found in the favor of both hypotheses independently from where it comes, intelligence is a more accurate predictor of future career and life success.

1. Draw any conclusions or recommendations you can from your analysis.

The nature or nurture debate is complex and not easy to address. It’ not just one factor, if either genetics or environment, determines a person’s intelligence and mental aptitude. We can conclude that these two factors contribute to a person’s mental abilities. This perspective argues that the interaction between genetic material and environmental factors provides better explanation of intelligence than does either a nature or nurture perspective.
Instead of trying to pick a side, either nature or nurture, and defending it, we should start to believe in the interrelation between genetics and environment in order to understand the phenomenon of intelligence. The correct response isn’t “nature” or “nurture,” but some combination of the two. IIt is that heredity determines one’s potential, but environment determines how far one will reach that potential during his lifetime. In other words, every individual has a mental potential, but how much of that potential the individual will be able to gain depends on the environment that the individual grows in.
The measurement of intelligence has its limits and needs to evolve. It is a predictor of talent available today for most types of jobs, especially more complex ones, but it must be remembered that it can only account for around 30 percent of the reasons behind performance. It may often be necessary for success, but on its own is not usually sufficient.

Intelligence does not seem to be equally good at predicting performance in all jobs. There is some debate about the type of performance that intelligence can predict. Some researchers have found that it is better at predicting quantity and speed of work than quality of outputs. Others have found that intelligence tends to predict best possible performance rather than typical, day-to-day performance levels.
One limitation with intelligence tests is that there is more to intelligence than is currently measured by many of the tests. For example, most people would agree that thinking styles and how we use our intelligence are important for success.
In the 1980s the psychologist Howard Gardner suggested that there were nine different types of intelligence. Things like linguistic, musical and interpersonal intelligence, practical intelligence.
There are as well measures of complexity of thought: the degree to which people are able to engage in strategic thinking. So the measurement of intelligence has its limits and needs to evolve. It is the best predictor of talent available today for most types of jobs, especially more complex ones, but at best estimates, it can only account for around 30 percent of the reasons behind performance. It may often be necessary for success, but on its own is not usually sufficient.
"Research shows that general intelligence plays an important role in many valued life outcomes. In addition to academic success, IQ correlates to some degree with job performance, socioeconomic advancement (e.g., level of education, occupation, and income), and "social pathology" (e.g., adult criminality, poverty, unemployment, dependence on welfare, children outside of marriage).
Both sides of this controversy, ‘nature’ and ‘nurture’, have been explored thoroughly by researchers, and overwhelming evidence has been found in the favor of both hypotheses independently from where it comes, intelligence is a more accurate predictor of future career and life success.

Reference List
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