Intelligence: success and fitness.
This chapter presents the consensus among psychometricians regarding the construct of general intelligence ('g') and its measurement. More than any other construct, g illustrates the scientific power of construct validation research. To date, g is carried by more assessment vehicles and saturates more aspects of life than any other dimension of human variation uncovered by psychological science. Phenomena most vital to the core of g's nomological network are reviewed (e.g. abstract learning, information processing, and dealing with novelty). This is followed by coverage of relevant but more peripheral phenomena (e.g. crime, health risk behaviour, and income). Because g constitutes such a ubiquitous aspect of the human condition, its omission in social science research often results in underdetermined causal modelling. Frequently, this constitutes a longstanding error in inductive logic, namely, the Fallacy of the Neglected Aspect. Attending to Carnap's Total Evidence Rule can help to forestall neglected aspects in scientific reasoning.
Department of Psychology and Human Development, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37203, USA.
D
D
Lubinski
D002648:Child; D004522:Educational Status; D006801:Humans; D007360:Intelligence; D007361:Intelligence Tests; D008128:Logic; D008960:Models, Psychological; D010551:Personality; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors