Personality, Individual Differences and Intelligence

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Sternberg, R. J., Conway, B. E., Ketron, J. L., & Bernstein, M. (1981). People's conceptions of intelligence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 41(1), 37-55

Figure 9.8. Men outperform women on measures of spatial rotation, such as this task requires, but women are better at recognizing the emotions of others (Halpern, et al., 2007). Intelligence is defined by the culture in which it exists. Most people in Western cultures tend to agree with the idea that intelligence is an important personality variable that should be admired in those who have it, but people from Eastern cultures tend to place less emphasis on individual intelligence and are more likely to view intelligence as reflecting wisdom and the desire to improve the society as a whole rather than only themselves (Baral & Das, 2004; Sternberg, 2007). In some cultures, it is seen as unfair and prejudicial to argue, even at a scholarly conference, that men and women might have different abilities in domains such as math and science and that these differences may be caused by context, environment, culture, and genetics. In short, although psychological tests accurately measure intelligence, a culture interprets the meanings of those tests and determines how people with differing levels of intelligence are treated. Extremes of intelligence: Extremely low intelligence Research supports the efficacy of the trait EI concept. Bivariate behavioural genetic analyses have revealed that, for trait emotional intelligence, phenotypic correlations are attributable to common genetic and common non-shared environmental factors (Veselka et al., 2010). The concept shows some value in predicting a number of outcomes (e.g. life satisfaction, rumination, coping) after controlling for personality factors (Petrides et al., 2007) and has been shown to correlate positively with teacher-rated positive behaviour and negatively with negative behaviour (e.g. emotional symptoms, problems with conduct, peer problems, and hyperactivity) among schoolchildren (Mavroveli et al., 2008). Batty, G.D., Wennerstad, K.M., Davey Smith, G. et al. (2009). IQ in late adolescence/early adulthood and mortality by middle age. Epidemiology, 20, 100–109.

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Switzky, H. N., & Greenspan, S. (2006). What is mental retardation? Ideas for an evolving disability in the 21st century. Washington, DC: American Association on Mental Retardation.

Following a thoughtful pedagogical approach, the edition develops the subject from its foundation to more advanced topics, making it highly accessible to students. It also employs a range of updated and new features, encouraging individual reflection and group discussion for a deeper understanding of the topics introduced Well, studies show that these traits show heritabilities from 30% to 60%, with openness to experience and extraversion commonly being the most heritable. Openness to experience tends to correlate highest with intelligence and is associated with a wide class of intellectually oriented traits, such as curiosity, creativity, and willingness to explore new ideas. Occasionally, extraversion has been reported to correlate (positively and negatively) with intelligence, and this relation has been moderated by the nature of the test and the context. Correlations of intelligence with conscientiousness have been small and negative hypothesized that conscientiousness is a trait that less intelligent individuals can possess to compensate in a competitive environment. Conscientiousness, in contrast, has been positively associated with academic performance. Agreeable people tend to be pleasant and accommodating in social situations and this trait is rarely associated with intelligence. Conscientiousness has the strongest positive correlation with job and training performance. Extraversion is associated with success for managers and salespeople. Individuals with high levels of emotional stability tend to be relaxed, secure, unworried, and less likely to experience negative emotions under pressure. Those with low levels are prone to anxiety and tend to view the world negatively. Men and women have almost identical intelligence, but men have more variability in their IQ scores than women do. In education, standardised testing tends to go in and out of fashion. The high-water mark in Britain may have been the use of intelligence tests as part of the eleven-plus examination that was widely used from the 1940s to the 1960s to allocate children into the sector of secondary school education deemed appropriate for them. Recent interest in Terman’s study also found that many of these students went on to achieve high levels of education and entered prestigious professions, including medicine, law, and science. Of the sample, 7% earned doctoral degrees, 4% earned medical degrees, and 6% earned law degrees. These numbers are all considerably higher than what would have been expected from a more general population. Another study of young adolescents who had even higher IQs found that these students ended up attending graduate school at a rate more than 50 times higher than that in the general population (Lubinski & Benbow, 2006).

Personality, Individual Differences and Intelligence

Health is a new outcome of intelligence. It has been shown that intelligence at age 11 could predict mortality in men and women up to the age of 76 (Whalley & Deary, 2001), and it is now well established that intelligence in youth is as strong a predictor of mortality as any of the traditional medical risk factors (Deary et al., 2010). Much of the aforementioned group’s work has been in exploring the many possible causes of this association. Although intelligence tests may not be culturally biased, the situation in which one takes a test may be. One environmental factor that may affect how individuals perform and achieve is their expectations about their ability at a task. In some cases, these beliefs may be positive, and they have the effect of making us feel more confident and thus better able to perform tasks. For instance, research has found that because Asian students are aware of the cultural stereotype that “Asians are good at math,” reminding them of this fact before they take a difficult math test can improve their performance on the test (Walton & Cohen, 2003). One of the most controversial and divisive areas of research in psychology has been to look for evidence of racial differences in intelligence (e.g., Lynn & Vanhanen, 2002; 2006). As you might imagine, this endeavour is fraught with methodological and theoretical minefields. Firstly, the concept of race as a biological category is problematic. Things like skin colour and facial features might define social or cultural conceptions of race but are biologically not very meaningful (Chou, 2017; Yudell, 2014). Secondly, intelligence interacts with a host of factors such as socioeconomic status and health; factors that are also related to race. Thirdly, intelligence tests themselves may be worded or administered in ways that favour the experiences of some groups, thus maximizing their scores, while failing to represent the experiences of other groups, thus lowering their scores.

In describing some of the key developments in British differential psychology, we will dwell more on substantive scientific progress than on controversies. A longer piece than this might dwell further on the colourful characters the field attracted (see Buchanan, 2010). However, the counterpoint is that, especially at the applied end of the field, much important, systematic work was conducted soberly, without undue fanfare. We will emphasise especially how some of the broad ideas that shaped the British contribution have proven foundational to much of contemporary psychology. Aronson, J., Lustina, M. J., Good, C., Keough, K., & Steele, C. M. (1999). When white men can’t do math: Necessary and sufficient factors in stereotype threat. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 35, 29–46. Costa PT, McCrae RR. Four ways five factors are basic.Personality and Individual Differences.1992a;13:653–66 Due to too many recruits lining up for the beta test, a lot got tested with the alpha test, which meant their scores were very low.Chamorro-Premuzic, T., Harlaar, N., Greven, C.U. & Plomin, R. (2010). More than just IQ. Intelligence, 38, 385–392.