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CHAPTER 9
9.120 Goffin, R.D., and
N.D. Christiansen.
“Correcting
Personality Tests
for Faking: A
Review of Popular
Personality Tests
and an Initial Survey
of Researchers.”
International Journal
of Selection and
Assessment 11 (2003),
pp. 340–44.
9.121 Birkeland, S.A.; T.M.
Manson; J.L. Kisamore;
M.T. Brannick;
and M.A. Smith.
“A Meta-Analytic
Investigation of Job
Applicant Faking on
Personality Measures.”
International
Journal of Selection
and Assessment 14
(2006), pp. 317–35;
Viswesvaran, C., and
D.S. Ones. “MetaAnalysis of Fakability
Estimates: Implications
for Personality
Measurement.”
Educational and
Psychological
Measurement 59
(1999), pp. 197–210.
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9.122 Miner and Capps,
How Honesty Testing
Works; Cunningham,
M.R.; D.T. Wong;
and A.P. Barbee.
“Self-Presentation
Dynamics on Overt
Integrity Tests:
Experimental
Studies of the Reid
Report.” Journal of
Applied Psychology 79
(1994), pp. 643–58;
Ones, D.S., and C.
Viswesvaran. “The
Effects of Social
Desirability and
Faking on Personality
and Integrity
Assessment for
Personnel Selection.”
Human Performance
11 (1998), pp.
245–69.
9.123 Ones, D.S.; S.
Dilchert; C.
Viswesvaran; and
T.A. Judge. “In
Support of Personality
Assessment in
Organizational
Settings.” Personnel
Psychology 60 (2007),
pp. 995–1027;
Tett, R.P., and
Personality and Cultural Values
301
N.D. Christiansen.
“Personality Tests
at the Crossroads:
A Response to
Morgeson, Campion,
Dipboye, Hollenbeck,
Murphy, and Schmitt
(2007).” Personnel
Psychology 60 (2007),
pp. 967–93.
9.124 Cortina, J.M.; N.B.
Goldstein; S.C. Payne;
H.K. Davison; and
S.W. Gilliland. “The
Incremental Validity
of Interview Scores
over and above
Cognitive Ability and
Conscientiousness
Scores.” Personnel
Psychology 53 (2000),
pp. 325–51.
9.125 Schmidt, F.L., and
J.E. Hunter. “Select
on Intelligence.” In
Blackwell Handbook
of Principles of
Organizational
Behavior, ed. E.A.
Locke. Malden, MA:
Blackwell, 2000, pp.
3–14.
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10
Ability
ORGANIZATIONAL
MECHANISMS
Organizational
Culture
Organizational
Structure
INDIVIDUAL
MECHANISMS
GROUP
MECHANISMS
Job
Satisfaction
Leadership:
Styles &
Behaviors
Leadership:
Power &
Negotiation
Teams:
Processes &
Communication
Teams:
Characteristics &
Diversity
Stress
INDIVIDUAL
OUTCOMES
Job
Performance
Motivation
Trust, Justice,
& Ethics
Organizational
Commitment
Learning &
Decision Making
INDIVIDUAL
CHARACTERISTICS
Ability
Personality &
Cultural Values
LEARNING GOALS
After reading this chapter, you should be able to answer the following questions:
10.1 What is ability?
10.2 What are the various types of cognitive ability?
10.3 What are the various types of emotional ability?
10.4 What are the various types of physical ability?
10.5 How does cognitive ability affect job performance and organizational commitment?
10.6 What steps can organizations take to hire people with high levels of cognitive ability?
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U.S. MARINE CORPS
I
n 1775, during the Revolutionary War, two battalions of
Marines were formed to support the U.S. Continental Navy
for landing operations on shore. To help deal with increasing conflict at sea and to protect expanding U.S. interests
abroad, the Marine Corps was established as a permanent
military force in 1798. Since then, the Marine Corps has
been involved in every major U.S. naval operation and, in
most instances, was among the first to see action. Today,
the Marine Corps is organized into three active divisions,
each with its own vessels, aircraft, tanks and artillery, which
can deploy on short notice, anywhere on earth. The Marine
Corps also provides security forces for naval bases, installations, and diplomatic missions across the globe. There is
also a fourth Marine division that provides trained combat
and support personnel to augment the active divisions in
times of war or during national emergencies.
When asked to think about the job of a U.S. Marine, and
what type of abilities it takes to be successful, physical
strength and stamina might come to mind first. Even if you’re
not a U.S. history or military buff, you might have watched
one of the many movies that depict Marines carrying heavy
loads over long distances or engaged in combat in the most
Getty Images
grueling of circumstances. You can probably envision how
traversing uneven ground littered with obstacles requires
flexibility and coordination. Finally, it’s easy to understand
how shooting a firearm with accuracy requires good corrected vision and depth perception, quick reaction time, and
the capability to keep one’s hands steady.
Of course, the axiom “every Marine is a rifleman” isn’t
quite true anymore. Although Marines receive training in
the use of firearms and combat, there are many different
occupational fields and jobs in the Marines Corps beyond
those that directly involve physical warfare, and effectiveness in these jobs depends on a variety of other abilities.
As an example, Marines involved in intelligence jobs may
depend on their reasoning ability and the ability to make
sense of information and patterns to draw conclusions. As
another example, success in engineering jobs may require
quantitative ability—specifically, the capability to select and
apply appropriate formulas and methods to solve mathematical problems. Finally, the effectiveness of Marines
in police and corrections jobs may hinge on the ability to
read other people’s emotions and to hold one’s emotions
in check.
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ABIL ITY
10.1
What is ability?
Few people have the physical abilities necessary to
compete with professional
golfers such as Annika
Sorenstam, who is widely
considered to be the top
female golfer of all time.
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The topic of ability is probably already familiar to you. This is because “ability” is an everyday
word in our language, and we’ve all developed a pretty good understanding of our own abilities.
All of us have experience doing things that require different abilities, and we received feedback, in
one form or another, as to how well we did. So knowing that you’re already familiar with the topic
of ability, why would we write an entire chapter on it for this textbook?
Well for one thing, there are many different abilities, some of which are important but might
not be as familiar to you. Another reason we’ve included a chapter on ability is, although it might
seem obvious that abilities are highly related to effectiveness in jobs, this relationship is truer in
some circumstances than in others. Finally, it may be useful to understand how organizations use
information about abilities to make good managerial decisions. Our chapter is organized around
these three issues.
Ability refers to the relatively stable capabilities people have to perform a particular range of
different but related activities.1 In contrast to skills, which can be improved over time with training and experience, ability is relatively stable. Although abilities can change slowly over time with
instruction, repeated practice, and repetition, the level of a given ability generally limits how much
a person can improve, even with the best training in the world. One reason for this stability relates
to the “nature vs. nurture” question, an issue that has been much debated in OB (see Chapter 9 on
personality and cultural values for more discussion of such issues). So, are abilities a function of
our genes, or are they something we develop as a function of our experiences and surroundings?
As it turns out, abilities are a function of both genes and the environment, and the amount
attributable to each source depends somewhat on the nature of the ability. Consider for a moment
abilities that are physical in nature. Although training that involves weightlifting, dancing, and
swimming can improve a person’s strength, equilibrium, and endurance, there are limits to how
much improvement is possible. As an example, there are millions of people who take golf lessons
and practice their swing for countless hours on a driving range, yet the vast majority of these
people could never compete in a professional golf tournament because they just can’t manage
to consistently hit that little white ball straight or far enough. As an example of abilities that are
cognitive in nature, you likely know people who, even if they went to the best schools on earth,
would have great difficulty doing well in jobs such as theoretical astrophysics that require a lot of
brainpower.
For abilities that are more cognitive in nature, such as those we mentioned in the chapter opening, it appears that genes and the environment play roughly equal roles.2 However, differences in
cognitive abilities due to the environment become less apparent as people
get older, and this may be especially
true for the effect of the family environment.3 As an example, though
neglect, abuse, and deprivation may
have a negative impact on how children fare on standardized intelligence
tests, that negative impact does not
tend to carry over into adulthood.
Beyond the family situation, there
are some other factors in the environment that affect cognitive ability.4 For
instance, the quantity of schooling
may be important because it provides
opportunities for people to develop
knowledge and critical thinking
skills.5 There’s also evidence that our
choice of occupations may influence
JOHN GRESS, JOHN GRESS/Associated Press
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our cognitive abilities. Complex work develops and exercises our minds, which promotes higher
performance on intelligence tests.6 Finally, certain biological factors are known to affect cognitive
abilities negatively during childhood. Examples include malnutrition, exposure to toxins such as
lead, and prenatal exposure to alcohol. In fact, over the last century average scores on standardized intelligence tests have risen significantly in industrialized countries as the quality and availability of education and health factors have improved, and the complexity of life has increased.7
For an example of abilities that are more emotional in nature, and how these might be influenced
by the environment, see our OB at the Bookstore feature.
OB At the Bookstore
THE LAWS OF HUMAN NATURE
by Robert Greene (New York: Penguin Random House, 2018).
The truth is that we humans live on the surface, reacting emotionally
to what people say and do. We form opinions of others and ourselves
that are rather simplified. We settle for the easiest and most convenient story to tell ourselves.*
With those words, author Robert Greene sets-up the question that
his book tries to answer—what if we could learn to understand what
makes people tick? Greene writes that humans are programmed to
respond to events with fairly predictable emotions, which in turn,
drive fairly predictable behaviors. These behaviors, in turn, serve
as events to which others experience and respond with predictable
emotions and behaviors. The problem is that we don’t consider this
process when we’re dealing with other people. Rather, we tend to
explain away emotions and behavior in the simplest of terms and
react emotionally. Unfortunately, this approach often amplifies
©Roberts Publishing, Inc.
rather than mitigates problems. Greene proposes that if we can learn
about human emotions and how they function, we can learn to apply this knowledge and become
significantly more effective and happy. In a sense, Greene is suggesting that we can become more
successful in life by working to increase our emotional abilities.
The following example illustrates the basic idea. When we propose a new plan, we often meet
resistance from the other party. Because we’re inclined to attribute the resistance to inflexibility or
personal animosity, we become angry. The other party senses our anger and becomes more defensive and resistant. Our anger increases, and so on and so forth. According to Greene, this cycle
can be avoided. If we understood that the natural reaction to an influence attempt is resistance,
and that the core of resistance is a concern for self-interest, we could approach the situation as a
problem that can to be addressed strategically by expressing emotions that are more effective—for
example, by conveying a relaxed and positive demeanor and a genuine understanding and concern
for the other party’s interests. Doing so would not only avoid the anger and all the baggage and
drama that follows, but it would also increase the chance that we gain support for our plan
The book is long and dense, but the basic idea is simple: If we understand how emotions drive
behavior and relationships, we can become more relaxed and more purposeful in the use of emotions as a means of achieving our goals. Although this idea, and many of the specific suggestions
for applying it, may be useful in practice, it’s important to keep in mind that despite decades of
research on the link between emotions and behavior, there is still much more to learn.
*Source: By Robert Greene. New York: Penguin Random House, 2018.
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Ability
WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR AN
EMPLOYEE TO BE “ABLE”?
As the examples in the previous paragraphs imply, there are different types of ability. Whereas
the golf example refers to physical ability, the theoretical astrophysics example refers to cognitive
ability. In fact, there are many different facets of ability, and they can be grouped into subsets by
considering similarities in the nature of the activities involved. As we’ll talk about in the sections
to follow, abilities can be grouped into three general categories: cognitive, emotional, and physical. As our OB Internationally feature illustrates, there may be some abilities that do not fit neatly
into one of these three categories. Nevertheless, all abilities refer to what people can do. That’s
in contrast to personality (the subject of Chapter 9), which refers to what people are like or what
people will likely do. As with personality, organizational personnel and hiring systems focus on
finding applicants who possess abilities that match the requirements of a given job.
OB Internationally
What makes some people more or less effective in culturally diverse organizational contexts?
According to some, the answer to this question is cultural intelligence, or the ability to discern differences among people that are due to culture and to understand what these differences mean in
terms of the way people tend to think and behave in different situations. There are three sources
of cultural intelligence that correspond to the “head,” “body,” and “heart.” The source of cultural
intelligence that corresponds to the head is called cognitive cultural intelligence. This concept refers
to the ability to sense differences among people due to culture and to use this knowledge in planning how to interact with others in anticipation of a cross-cultural encounter. The source of cultural intelligence that corresponds to the body is called physical cultural intelligence, which refers
to the ability to adapt one’s behavior when a cultural encounter requires it. Finally, the source of
cultural intelligence that corresponds to the heart is called emotional cultural intelligence. This
concept refers to the level of effort and persistence an individual exerts when trying to understand
and adapt to new cultures.
Understanding cultural intelligence may be useful because it’s an ability that can be improved
through training. A training program could begin with an assessment to identify sources of cultural intelligence that may be weak. Consider, for example, an individual who is very knowledgeable about the customs and norms of another culture and is very willing to learn more, but who
just can’t alter her body language and eye contact so that it’s appropriate for the other culture. In
this particular case, the aim of the training would be to improve physical cultural intelligence. The
individual might be asked to study video that contrasts correct and incorrect body language and
eye contact. The individual might also be asked to engage in role-playing exercises to model the
appropriate behavior and receive feedback from an expert. Finally, the individual might be asked
to take acting classes. Although an organization may rely on improvements in employee cultural
intelligence that result from exposure to new cultures and cross-cultural experiences, the costs of
poor performance in cross-cultural contexts can be significant for both the employee and the organization, and therefore, training on cultural intelligence may have great utility.
Sources: P.C. Earley and S. Ang, Cultural Intelligence: Individual Interactions across Cultures (Stanford, CA: Stanford
University Press, 2003); P.C. Earley and E. Mosakowski, “Cultural Intelligence,” Harvard Business Review 82 (2004),
pp. 139–46; L. Imai and M.J. Gelfand, “The Culturally Intelligent Negotiator: The Impact of Cultural Intelligence (CQ)
on Negotiation Sequences and Outcomes,” Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 112 (2010), pp. 83–98;
M.M. Chao, R. Takeuchi, and J.L. Farh, “Enhancing Cultural Intelligence: The Roles of Implicit Culture Beliefs and
Adjustment,” Personnel Psychology 70 (2017), pp. 257–92.
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CHAPTER 10
COGNITIVE ABILITY
Cognitive ability refers to capabilities related to the acquisition and application of knowledge in
problem solving.8 Cognitive abilities are very relevant in the jobs most of you will be involved
with—that is, work involving the use of information to make decisions and solve problems.
Chances are good that your cognitive abilities have been tested several times throughout your life.
In fact, each year millions of children in the United States take standardized tests of intelligence
at some point during elementary school, middle school, or high school.9 Although you might not
remember taking one of these, you probably remember taking the Scholastic Assessment Test
(SAT). And though you probably thought about the SAT as a test that would have a major impact
only on where you could and could not go to college, the SAT is actually a test of cognitive ability.
You might also remember that the SAT included a variety of different questions; some tested
your ability to do math problems, whereas other questions assessed your ability to complete sentences and make analogies. In fact, the different types of questions reflect specific types of cognitive ability that contribute to effectiveness on intellectual tasks. Table 10-1 lists many of these
TABLE 10-1
Ability
307
10.2
What are the various types of
cognitive ability?
Types and Facets of Cognitive Ability
TYPE
MORE SPECIFIC FACET
JOBS WHERE RELEVANT
Verbal
Oral and Written Comprehension:
Understanding written and spoken words
and sentences
Oral and Written Expression:
Communicating ideas by speaking or writing
so that others can understand
Business executives;
police, fire, and ambulance dispatchers; clinical
psychologists
Quantitative
Number Facility: Performing basic math
operations quickly and correctly
Mathematical Reasoning: Selecting the right
method or formula to solve a problem
Treasurers; financial managers; mathematical technicians; statisticians
Reasoning
Problem Sensitivity: Understanding when
there is a problem or when something may
go wrong
Deductive Reasoning: Applying general
rules to specific problems
Inductive Reasoning: Combining specific
information to form general conclusions
Originality: Developing new ideas
Anesthesiologists; surgeons; business executives; fire inspectors;
judges; police detectives;
forensic scientists; cartoonists; designers
Spatial
Spatial Orientation: Knowing where one is
relative to objects in the environment
Visualization: Imagining how something will
look after it has been rearranged
Pilots; drivers; boat captains; photographers; set
designers; sketch artists
Perceptual
Speed and Flexibility of Closure: Making
sense of information and finding patterns
Perceptual Speed: Comparing information
or objects with remembered information or
objects
Musicians; firefighters;
police officers; pilots; mail
clerks; inspectors
Sources: Adapted from Fleishman, E. A., D. P. Costanza, and J. Marshall-Mies. “Abilities.” In An Occupational Information
System for the 21st Century: The Development of O*NET, edited by N. G. Peterson, M. D. Mumford, W. C. Borman, P. R.
Jeanneret and E. A. Fleishman, pp. 175–95. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 1999; and O*NET
Website, The O*NET Content Model: Detailed Outline With Descriptions. Accessed May 20, 2009. http://www.onetcenter.org/content.html/1.a?d=1#cm_1.a.
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cognitive ability types, along with their specific facets and some jobs in which they’re thought to
be important. The definitions and information in this table, as well as that discussed in the following sections, comes from research that produced a public database called O*NET, which outlines
requirements of employees in different types of jobs and occupations.10
VERBAL ABILITY Verbal ability refers to various capabilities associated with understanding and
expressing oral and written communication. Oral comprehension is the ability to understand spoken words and sentences, and written comprehension is the ability to understand written words and
sentences. Although these two aspects of verbal ability would seem highly related—that is, people
who have high oral comprehension would tend to have high written comprehension, and vice
versa—it’s not difficult to think of people who might be high on one ability but low on the other.
As an example, it’s been reported that as a result of his dyslexia, actor Tom Cruise has poor written comprehension and can learn his lines only after listening to them on tape.11
Two other verbal abilities are oral expression, which refers to the ability to communicate ideas
by speaking, and written expression, which refers to the ability to communicate ideas in writing.
Again, though it might seem that these abilities should be highly related, this is not necessarily so.
You may have taken a class with a professor who had authored several well-regarded books and
articles, but at the same time, had a very difficult time expressing concepts and theories to students. Although there could be many reasons this might happen, one explanation is that the professor had high ability in terms of written expression but low ability in terms of oral expression.
Generally speaking, verbal abilities are most important in jobs in which effectiveness depends
on understanding and communicating ideas and information to others. As an example, the effectiveness of business executives depends on their ability to consider information from reports and
other executives and staff, as well as their ability to articulate a vision and strategy that promotes
employee understanding. As another example, consider how important the verbal abilities of a
9-1-1 dispatcher might be if a loved one suddenly became ill and stopped breathing.
Tom Cruise has dyslexia,
and he struggles with
written comprehension.
He learns the lines for his
movies by listening to them
on tape.
QUANTITATIVE ABILITY Quantitative ability refers to two types of mathematical capabilities.
The first is number facility, which is the capability to do simple math operations (adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing). The second is mathematical reasoning, which refers to the ability to
choose and apply formulas to solve problems that involve numbers. If you think back to the SAT, you
can probably remember problems such as the following: “There were two trains 800 miles apart, and
they were traveling toward each other on the same track. The first train began traveling at noon and
averaged 45 miles per hour. The second train started off two hours later. What speed did the second
train average if the two trains smashed into each other at 10:00 p.m. of the same day?”
Although number facility may be necessary to solve this problem, mathematical reasoning is
crucial because the test taker needs to know which formulas to apply. Although most of us wish
that problems like this would be limited to test-taking contexts (especially this particular problem), there are countless situations in which quantitative abilities are important. For example,
consider the importance of quantitative ability in jobs involving statistics, accounting, and engineering. Quantitative abilities may be
important in less complex, lower-level
jobs as well. Have you ever been at a
fast-food restaurant or convenience
store when the cash register wasn’t
working and the clerk couldn’t manage to count out change correctly or
quickly? If you have, you witnessed
a very good example of low quantitative ability, and perhaps some very
annoyed customers as well.
Moviestore collection Ltd/Alamy
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REASONING ABILITY Reasoning
ability is actually a diverse set of abilities associated with sensing and solving problems using insight, rules, and
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logic. The first reasoning ability, problem sensitivity, is the ability to sense that there’s a problem
right now or likely to be one in the near future. In essence, problem sensitivity is the ability to
sense that things just aren’t right, or are not tracking correctly or as expected. Anesthesiology is a
great example of a job for which problem sensitivity is crucial. Before surgeries, anesthesiologists
give drugs to patients so that surgical procedures can take place without the patients experiencing
pain. However, during the surgery, patients can have negative reactions to the drugs that might
result in the loss of life. So the ability of the anesthesiologist to sense when something is wrong
even before the problem is fully apparent can be a life-or-death matter.
A second type of reasoning ability is called deductive reasoning. This ability refers to the use
of general rules or hypotheses as a starting point to solve a problem. Individuals who possess
high deductive reasoning ability are able reach effective conclusions by comparing how available
information fits with an existing rule or hypothesis. When information is consistent with the rule
or hypothesis, the solution follows accordingly. When information is not consistent with a rule or
hypothesis, then the information is considered in light of a different rule or hypothesis, and the
process begins anew. Judges need to have strong deductive reasoning abilities because their job
involves the consideration of facts in light of existing rules of law to reach verdicts.
In contrast, inductive reasoning refers to the ability to consider several specific pieces of information to generate a hypothesis and a plausible solution. Individuals with high inductive reasoning
ability are able to produce solutions to problems by synthesizing available data and information.
Inductive reasoning is required of police detectives and crime scene investigators who must consider things like tire tracks, blood spatter, fibers, and fingerprints to reach conclusions about likely
perpetrators of crimes and causes of death.
Finally, originality refers to the ability to develop clever and novel ways to solve problems. Larry
Page and Sergey Brin, the two founders of Google, provide good examples of originality. They not
only developed the Internet search software that gave Google a competitive advantage, and created the first completely new advertising medium in nearly half a century, but they also refuse
to follow conventional wisdom when it comes to managerial practices and business decisions.12
Clearly, originality is important in a wide variety of occupations, but in some jobs, originality is
the most critical ability. For example, a cartoonist, designer, writer, or advertising executive without originality would find it difficult to be successful.
SPATIAL ABILITY There are two main types of spatial ability, or capabilities associated with
visual and mental representation and manipulation of objects in space. The first is called spatial
orientation, which refers to a good understanding of where one is relative to other things in the
environment. A tourist with high spatial organization would have no trouble finding her way back
to her hotel on foot after a long day of sightseeing, even without a map or help from anyone on the
street. The second spatial ability is called visualization, which is the ability to imagine how separate things will look if they were put together in a particular way. If you’re good at imagining how
a room would look if it were rearranged, or if your friends are impressed that you can buy things
that go together well, chances are that you would score high on visualization.
PERCEPTUAL ABILITY Perceptual ability refers to being able to perceive, understand, and recall
patterns of information. More specifically, speed and flexibility of closure refers to being able to pick
out a pattern of information quickly in the presence of distracting information, even without all the
information present. People who work for the Central Intelligence Agency likely need speed and
flexibility of closure to break secret codes. Related to this ability is perceptual speed, which refers
to being able to examine and compare numbers, letters, and objects quickly. If you can go into the
produce section of a supermarket and choose the best tomatoes faster than the people around you,
chances are you have high perceptual speed. Effectiveness in jobs in which people need to proofread documents, sort things, or categorize objects depends a lot on perceptual speed.
GENERAL COGNITIVE ABILITY If you’ve read the preceding sections carefully, you probably
thought about where you stand on the different types of cognitive abilities. In doing so, you may
have also reached the conclusion that you’re higher on some of these abilities and lower on others.
Maybe you think of yourself as being smart in verbal abilities but not as smart in quantitative abilities. In fact, most people score more similarly across their cognitive abilities than they realize. People
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CHAPTER 10
Pilots flying in conditions
where there’s poor visibility
have to rely on various
instruments and their
spatial ability to visualize
their absolute position
and, just as important, their
position relative to other
objects, some of which are
also moving.
FIGURE 10-1
Ability
who are higher than average on verbal
abilities also tend to be higher than average on reasoning, quantitative, spatial,
and perceptual abilities, and people who
are lower than average on verbal abilities tend to be lower than average on
the other abilities. Although this consistency might not apply to everyone,
it applies often enough that researchers
have been trying to understand why this
occurs for well over 100 years.13
The most popular explanation for
the consistency in the levels of different cognitive abilities within people is
that there’s a general cognitive ability—
sometimes called the g-factor or simply
g—that underlies or causes all of the
more specific cognitive abilities we’ve
discussed so far.14 To understand what
Firefly Productions/Corbis/Getty Images
this means more clearly, consider the
Steve Bloom/Getty Images
diagram in Figure 10-1 that depicts
general cognitive ability as the area
in common across the more specific cognitive abilities that we’ve discussed. This overlap exists
because each of the specific abilities depends somewhat on the brain’s ability to process information effectively. So, because some brains are capable of processing information more effectively
than others, some people tend to score higher across the specific abilities, whereas others tend to
score lower.
You’re probably familiar with the intelligence quotient, which is known as IQ. Well, IQ was
something originally used in educational contexts to diagnose learning disabilities, and accordingly, tests to measure IQ were developed using questions with which students with learning disabilities might struggle. IQ tests were then scaled as a percentage that indicated a person’s mental
age relative to his or her chronological age. IQ scores lower than 100 were interpreted as indicating
The “g-factor”
Verbal
Quantitative
Spatial
g
Perceptual
Reasoning
S
