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This page is not discussing g'
There is a fundamental difference between g (as Spearman, who had coined the term, had defined it), and a first principal component (PC1) of a positive correlation matrix. Spearman's g was defined as a latent (implied) 1-dimensional variable which accounts for all correlations among any intelligence tests. His tetrad difference equation states a necessary condition for such a g to exist.
The important proviso for Spearman's claim that such a g qualifies as an "objective definition" of "intelligence", is that all correlation matrices of "intelligence tests" must satisfies this necessary condition, not just one or two, because they are all samples of a universe of tests subject to the same g. It is now generally acknowledged (and easily verified empirically) (Guttman, 1992; Schonemann, 1997; Kempthorne, 1997; Garnett, 1919) that this condition is routinely violated by all correlation matrices of reasonable size. Hence, such a g does not exist any more than odd numbers divisible by 4 exist.
I recommend that somebody address this problem. I can not understand why this page is called “General Intelligence factor” if it does not discuss g'? There is not even one reference to Charles Spearman (the inventor) or factor analysis! I suspect this page was put together by somebody with no technical experience what-so-ever. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.68.179.142 ( talk • contribs)
The material on channel capacity seems distinctly out of place, or at least a disproportionate part of the article. It is not even technically g theory.
The article in general has little to recommend it. I propose the following structure to both point out shortcomings and recommend how they may be filled:
By necessity, much of this material will overlap with Intelligence (trait). My point of view is that g-specific material should be located here (definition of g loading; crystallized and fluid g; importance of g in explaining cognitive ability test results), while intelligence-related findings (not restricted to g, though perhaps best explained by g) should be located at Intelligence (trait).
Thoughts? -- DAD 00:52, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I've rewritten the article based on your suggested headings, plus one for the social correlates of g. I'll try to remember to add references and things next time I'm flipping through my Jensen books. I'm not entirely sure what the best way to go about handling the overlap between here, Intelligence (trait), and IQ is. I'll have to give it a little more thought. Oh, and welcome to Wikipedia. It's nice to see another person with an interest in psychometrics. -- Schaefer 03:42, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I really like what you've done. Thanks for the welcome. Looks like there's plenty for us to do. -- DAD 02:05, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)
The article talks about the "broad-sense" and "narrow-sense" heritability of g. But these terms are not defined, and heritability contains no explanation of what the difference is. Can anyone with a knowledge of psychometrics clear this one up? grendel| khan 21:35, 2005 Mar 4 (UTC)
Please comment on why this page has been renamed "general factor." I cannot find any scholarly references that introduce g as "the general factor". I'm holding a review from Scientific American called "The General Intelligence Factor" (Gottfredson 1998), and that seems to me a far better (clearer and more accurate) title. -- DAD 30 June 2005 16:42 (UTC)
The factor was:
Choice #1 implies that it's real, and somebody discovered it. Choice #2 leaves it as a theory. Uncle Ed July 5, 2005 23:56 (UTC)
Would someone please make the article distinguish between the real, observed " general factor" (g) and the "g Theory" I keep hearing so much about. I made a stub article for Jensen's hard-to-get book, The g Factor, but I still don't get it, and that's embarrassing for me. I'm way over to the right (not politically, I mean on the bell curve), so why is this so hard for me? Uncle Ed July 6, 2005 03:02 (UTC)
Added to the article:
I'm wondering, will the present article have enough info regarding these hypotheses, et al., to warrant a second article called g theory? If not, we can just add another section or two to g. Uncle Ed July 7, 2005 14:54 (UTC)
Spearman found, or discovered, or noted, or identified, the influence of a general factor. He then proposed his model. The continued insistence by some editors that Spearman simply hypothesized or proposed the existence of a factor alters history: while he may have hypothesized it, he also found that it was true, and that was his major contribution. The article must reflect this. -- DAD T 18:38, 14 July 2005 (UTC)
"g correlates less strongly, but significantly, with overall body size." That's an unfortunate choice of phrasing given the example earlier in the article about measurement of body size. Is the assertion that g correlates with height? With cubital length? With body mass (are the obese more intelligent?)? -- Nclean 25th of August 2006
I agree. Obese people often have larger heads, and probably larger brains- does this mean people who are more obese are more intelligent? I've never found that at all
Can someone please disambiguate "G factor" as it can also refer to the G-factor in physics. I don't know how to do disambiguation, sorry. See also Talk:G_factor. Thanks! Rotiro 10:48, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
In the lead, it is stated that the g-factor is "widely accepted but controversial". Honestly, I haven't read the rest of the article yet, but that seems to contradict itself.-- Niels Ø (noe) 11:06, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
"Brain size has long been known to be correlated with g (Jensen, 1998). Recently, an MRI study on twins (Thompson et al., 2001) showed that frontal gray matter volume was highly significantly correlated with g and highly heritable. A related study has reported that the correlation between brain size (reported to have a heritability of 0.85) and g is 0.4, and that correlation is mediated entirely by genetic factors (Posthuma et al., 2002). g has been observed in mice as well as humans (Matzel et al., 2003)."
The references to these studies should be listed, and I'd like to comment on them- did anyone ever notice how the Thompson study, which found grey matter to be so "heavily determined by genetic factors" examined TWINS RAISED TOGETHER?
I'm sorry, but that's a disgusting, profound amount of intellectual dishonesty and ignorance. To measure the heritability of a trait, you have to have the twins SEPERATED- NOT RAISED TOGETHER. Yet this study took twins that lived their entire lives together, exposed to the same environmental influences, causing thier intellect and personality to develop along the same patterns... yet, they just grabbed some random twins, saw "how similar they were", completely ignoring the dynamics of heritability studies, and, in some huge media blitz, where the study was spread and reported in countries across and the globe and even put on the cover of Nature- fucking disgusting. How could a study with such inane criteria EVER make it through peer-review?
Yet no single measurement of a human body is obviously preferred to measure its "size" (although obviously the volume is).
This statement uses "obviously" twice, contradicting itself. This is unfortunate because the entire analogy/paragraph only makes sense if the parenthetical is false. I would just delete the paragraph outright, but perhaps someone has a better solution (or a better analogy). I'll change it to "(excluding the volume, admittedly)" so it isn't quite so blatantly idiotic. Thehotelambush 06:31, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
This page fails to acknowledge that the Flynn effect is seen by many as causing significant damage to the value of "g", because it effects individual skills on IQ tests disproportionately. For example, there are huge IQ gains in Raven's and Similarities tests, but relatively small gains in learned skills such as Arithmetic. Someone please update the page to reflect that the Flynn effect serves to challenge the meaningfulness of "g." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 156.56.154.85 ( talk) 22:54, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
It might be useful to decide if you want to talk about the "General factor of psychometric intelligence," which has been exhaustively discussed in the technical literature, or a "General Intelligence factor" which I don't really know anything about. Most of this article is about the general factor of psychometric intelligence. The general factor is derived by performing hierarchical factor analyses on a correlation matrix of performance on mental ability tests. The process for determining it has been exhaustively described by Jensen (The g Factor). John B. Carroll (Structure of Cognitive Abilities) describes a complete algorithm for determining the common factor in such a matrix. Spearman called it g. By this, he meant that it was a general factor. He did not mean it was a factor of general intelligence. He used g, and contrasted it to s, which he described as a specific factor. This was his two factor theory. The modern understanding of g, typified by Jensen’s and Carroll’s description, is in terms of factor analysis. It is sometimes called the "g factor," or "Spearman's g" (in deference to Spearman). In other words, it is the "general factor" of cognitive ability - not a "General Intelligence Factor." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.60.239.250 ( talk) 01:34, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
I believe that something in the challenges section should be added concerning savants and people in the ASD, because savants only excel highly in one thing, and people on the Autistic Spectrum Disorder have a very uneven profile of abilities on an IQ test. Also, If one part of the brain gets damaged, then the other parts don't necessarily become defunct (neurological isolation).
superyuval10 ( talk) 21:24, 24 August 2008 (UTC)
Proper english states that each 'important' word in a title or phrase should be capitalized to represent it's value.
Hence, 'General intelligence factor' should be 'General Intelligence Factor".
Consider Revision.
Thanks.
74.184.100.154 ( talk) 14:58, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
74.184.100.154 ( talk) 22:10, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
I'm fairly certain that the current title is wrong anyway. The g factor is a measurement of "general mental ability" as formulated by Galton and as used by its most notable proponents such as Jensen. Numerous citations could be provided to support this, but really are entirely unnecessary. If it is unclear why it's "general mental ability" and not "general intelligence", you only need to read Jensen to find out. Do we have to go through some huge drama to get this changed? -- Aryaman (talk) 18:46, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
"In addition, there is recent evidence that the tendency for intelligence scores to rise has ended in some first world countries."
There are three citations for this. Two of them are dead. The last links to an article that doesn't mention it. Does anyone have a cite? -- Deleet ( talk) 23:49, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
I see that this article discussion page has been quiet for a while. You may find it helpful while reading or editing articles to look at a bibliography of Intelligence Citations, posted for the use of all Wikipedians who have occasion to edit articles on human intelligence and related issues. I happen to have circulating access to a huge academic research library at a university with an active research program in these issues (and to another library that is one of the ten largest public library systems in the United States) and have been researching these issues since 1989. You are welcome to use these citations for your own research. You can help other Wikipedians by suggesting new sources through comments on that page. It will be extremely helpful for articles on human intelligence to edit them according to the Wikipedia standards for reliable sources for medicine-related articles, as it is important to get these issues as well verified as possible. -- WeijiBaikeBianji ( talk) 17:33, 30 June 2010 (UTC)
I particularly like the new edit to article text referring to "g" as a "statistic," which is a correct use of the word "statistic" and a good picture of what g is in current psychometrics. I see from the edit summaries on the recent edits that there is still a call for more reliable secondary sourcing of this article. I hope to further update the Intelligence Citations source list linked to from this talk page over the weekend, and I welcome other editors who are familiar with the literature to suggest new sources for the source list, which you, other editors, and I can use for further updates of article text. -- WeijiBaikeBianji ( talk) 17:18, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
There are many statistical terms used in this article without definition or reference. It appears that there are multiple models used to define g, yet none of them are discussed in the article. Terms like g-loading are vague and imprecise, and there appears to be no discussion of secondary or tertiary factors and how they relate to intelligence. Without a discussion of how factor analysis is applied to intelligence test (like WAIS), this article makes g sound like touchy feely woo, instead of what it really is an application of a statistical method. aprock ( talk) 17:41, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
General intelligence factor is not the most common synonym of g. A Google Scholar search suggests that General mental ability and General cognitive ability are much more common. I think we should use one of those names. Just General intelligence would be better as well.-- Victor Chmara ( talk) 14:19, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
As far as I know, there would be no problem naming the article something like ''g-factor'' (intelligence). aprock ( talk) 14:33, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
I'm thinking of renaming this article to g factor (intelligence). I would think this would be an uncontroversial move, as g factor is a more common term than general intelligence factor so there would be no need to do this more formally. Or is someone opposed to this move?-- Victor Chmara ( talk) 14:00, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
Okay, as everybody seemed to agree, I renamed the article.-- Victor Chmara ( talk) 06:43, 28 October 2010 (UTC)
The lead section says that g is "a controversial statistic". But is that really true, or rather is it not POV-pushing to make such a claim in the lead? To denote something as "controversial" suggests that it is a fringe view or at least not a mainstream one. However, my reading suggests that just about no one thinks that g does not exist. In fact, I don't see how they could think that it does not exist, when its existence is an empirical question, and innumerable studies have replicated it.
The lead talks about g as a statistic, i.e. something that results from statistical analysis. It is an empirical fact that if we give a battery of mental tests to a (reasonably big and cognitively diverse) sample of people and then plug their intercorrelations into a matrix, all correlations will be positive, and one can extract g from the matrix using various methods. To say that this is not possible is a fringe view, and I don't see why we should privilege it by claiming that g is "controversial". If g is controversial, then just about everything in psychology is, and we would have to change all sorts of articles accordingly. If the lead was about some specific aspects of what may be called "g theory" (e.g. that g is "mental energy" or "mental speed", as Spearman and Jensen, respectively, have suggested) we could say that it's controversial, but it isn't about such.
So, I suggest we remove the claim that g is controversial. There's a separate section for Challenges to g.-- Victor Chmara ( talk) 22:36, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
I removed 'controversial' from the first sentence of the article, but at the end of the lead, it stills says that "significant controversy attends g and its alternatives", and there's a link from the word controversy to a discussion about multiple intelligences. I don't think Gardner's scheme is the most serious alternative to g, so this could be worded in some other way, with references to other criticisms of g.-- Victor Chmara ( talk) 07:13, 28 October 2010 (UTC)
analyses of the WISC-R and K-ABC, and a critique of the method of correlated vectors. In: Frank Columbus, Editor, Advances in Psychological Research vol. VI, pp. 31-60. Huntington, NY: Nova Science Publishers, Inc.
See also Dolan and Lubke's critique of Schonneman (Viewing Spearman's hypothesis from the perspective of multigroup PCA: A comment on Schoenemann's criticism. Intelligence 29 (2001): 231-245) where they still conclude that g is a "suboptimal test" of b-w intelligence difference. Timjim7 ( talk) 23:37, 31 July 2011 (UTC)
The first sentence of the article now reads: "The g factor, where g stands for general intelligence, is a statistic used in psychometrics to quantify the variation of intelligence test scores. citation needed" Who inserted the citation needed tag, and what is it that is suspect about the sentence?-- Victor Chmara ( talk) 23:08, 28 October 2010 (UTC)
Hi - just to avoid accusation of drive-by tagging (I got called away after adding the tag), I think we need the statement "IQ tests that measure a wide range of abilities do not predict much better than g" to be sourced because it's clearly a report of research findings. I've had a quick look on google scholar ("g factor" "broader measures"), but not come up with much either way. Could someone more familiar with the literature turn something up? VsevolodKrolikov ( talk) 06:52, 1 December 2010 (UTC)
{{
cite journal}}
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VsevolodKrolikov (
talk) 03:55, 9 December 2010 (UTC)"Stephen Jay Gould, who was not a psychologist, statistician, or psychometrician, voiced his objections..."
Why does it matter what Gould was not? He was not an infinite number of things, including an astronaut, soybean breeder, and a spotted pig. This statement may constitute a subtle case of POV, as it implies that Gould was not a position to comment on the topic or that his opinion was less informed. Not so. Without commenting on the content of Gould's argument at all, I maintain that he is a legitimate contributor to the discussion as a renowned biologist. You may not like what he says, but denigrating him is a POV and thus should be erased.
TippTopp ( talk) 01:49, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
The section "Biological and genetic correlates of g" is a mess. It relies heavily on a primary sources, unverifiable sources, and synthesis. I suggest that the section be rewritten to be a straightforward summary of the main article linked. aprock ( talk) 19:44, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
It seems that Spearman indeed used partial correlations in his 1904 paper. However, he used the tetrad method in his later work, and considered the method central to his research on g. Most accounts of his work specifically discuss the tetrad method, which makes it misleading to state in the lead section that he used partial correlations. However, I don't think there's any reason to mention the particular method in the lead section (the topic is not even discussed elsewhere in the article, although it should).-- Victor Chmara ( talk) 15:12, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
While discussion of the mathematical models used to compute g are good to have in the article, they need to either be properly defined, or expressed in lay terms. Repeatedly using "positive manifold" appears to be shorthand for positive correlation matrices, which is probably better shortened to positive correlation, as it is clearer and more correct. aprock ( talk) 02:20, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
This undo: [17] with the edit summary "no need to define factor analysis in general terms in this article; tautology (variability, variable); and factors aren't necessarily uncorrelated" is quite confusing. Why would we not define factor analysis? Likewise, the statement that factor analysis doesn't yield uncorrelated factors is incorrect. aprock ( talk) 19:07, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
Let me clarify here. There are a few distinct topics here. The factor analysis as a "family of mathematical techniques used to describe the variability of correlated variables in terms of a smaller number of uncorrelated variables". There is the factor analysis that Spearman did, which is a specific algorithm. And there is analysis of factors (also called factor analysis), where we talk about the general problem of coming up with models of factors which explain outcomes. They are all related, but distinct meanings of the phrase factor analysis. The problem is that the text of the article treats all these different concepts as the same thing. This is what I mean when I say that the presentation is incorrect and imprecise. Specifically, it muddles these three different aspects into a single concept without being clear about what is going on. I suspect that this is in no small part due to trying to treat mathematical topics colloquially. aprock ( talk) 22:54, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
The first sentence of the first paragraph clearly discusses the original conception from the 1904 paper of what the g-factor was hoped to measure. From the introduction of the paper:
Our particular topic will be that cardinal function which we can provisionally term "General Intelligence;" first, there will be an inquiry into its exact relation to the Sensory Discrimination of which we hear so much in laboratory work; and then -- by the aid of information thus coming to light -- it is hoped to determine this Intelligence in a definite objective manner, and to discover means of precisely measuring it. Should this ambitious programme be achieved even in small degree, Experimental Psychology would thereby appear to be supplied with the missing link in its theoretical justification, and at the same time to have produced a practical fruit of almost illimitable promise.
That factor analysis was used, and that one of the factors came to be known as G does not change the fact that Spearman was investigating his notion of "general intelligence". aprock ( talk) 20:22, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
I believe that the ongoing study called mathematically precocious youth suggests that the law of diminishing returns is not as likely to be true. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Study_of_Mathematically_Precocious_Youth ONoNotThisGuyAgain ( talk) 10:59, 16 June 2012 (UTC)
I decided to make an account since I may make some minor contributions. I made the topic about the law of diminishing returns as well. I think a good direction for this article would be to expand the citations to include more than just authors name and year of publication. This should make it much easier for users who would like to reference these articles. There are a few I am interested in and will adjust it accordingly. ONoNotThisGuyAgain ( talk) 10:07, 16 June 2012 (UTC)
The way the citations work in this article is that there are author name(s), year, and (for larger works) page numbers in the Notes section, while the full source information is available in the References section. That's a standard way to reference sources.-- Victor Chmara ( talk) 11:23, 17 June 2012 (UTC)
The editors show nothing in regards to the evidence of the poor correlation between IQ and real world outcomes. It takes the stance that IQ is the "single biggest predictor ...", but blatantly fails to acknowledge that the vague '.55' correlation between IQ and job performance, leaves a large percentage of the variation in job performance, unexplained. Meaning that while IQ may be the 'single best predictor', it is not, by any means, a good predictor of real world performance. Of course, there is sources to cite which support this view, but none of the editors have taken effort to include any reasonable objections against IQ. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.16.113.3 ( talk) 16:54, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
General intelligence is the best single predictor of job performance. This is simply a fact reported in many reliable sources. No one claims that it explains all the variation in job performance. 0.55 is a numerical value, so I don't see how it can characterized as vague if you understand what a correlation is. 0.55 is a medium-to-large effect size according to various guidelines, so it's not correct to say that g is not a good predictor.-- Victor Chmara ( talk) 17:02, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
Journal of Intelligence — Open Access Journal is a new, open-access, "peer-reviewed scientific journal that publishes original empirical and theoretical articles, state-of-the-art articles and critical reviews, case studies, original short notes, commentaries" intended to be "an open access journal that moves forward the study of human intelligence: the basis and development of intelligence, its nature in terms of structure and processes, and its correlates and consequences, also including the measurement and modeling of intelligence." The content of the first issue is posted, and includes interesting review articles, one by Earl Hunt and Susanne M. Jaeggi and one by Wendy Johnson. The editorial board [21] of this new journal should be able to draw in a steady stream of good article submissions. It looks like the journal aims to continue to publish review articles of the kind that would meet Wikipedia guidelines for articles on medical topics, an appropriate source guideline to apply to Wikipedia articles about intelligence. -- WeijiBaikeBianji ( talk, how I edit) 21:11, 5 December 2013 (UTC)
This page has big problems. Proponents of the G theory have clearly locked down on its edits. Terminology is strongly skewed towards supporting the validity of G, and criticism are muted. For instance, in other theory pages (such as Multiple intelligence) there is a "criticism" section, here it is "challenges". Proponents are more likely to have definitive wording in their accomplishments, ie, Jensen "proved", while critics have less definiteive wording, ie, Sternberg "argued". I've noticed this trend on most of the human intelligence wiki articles, I highly recommend real editors come in and clean up the formatting and language to make it less patently biased.-- 162.226.6.148
It's been three years since Fractionating Human Intelligence [22] [23] and this page still reads like a wiki hoax.-- TDJankins ( talk) 21:59, 26 June 2015 (UTC)
Those odd commentaries were quickly refuted and Ashton and colleagues relented in most of their claims. See [26] and [27]. Further, while those people may disagree with or not like the results of FHI, without evidence, it's just opinion. FHI physically disproved the theory that the g-factor represents general intelligence. Further, FHI proved that human intelligence can be reduced to no fewer than three factors (reasoning, short term memory, and verbal agility). Conversely, there isn't a single study that proved the theory that the g-factor represents general intelligence. FHI represents the current science, so should this page.-- TDJankins ( talk) 22:30, 28 June 2015 (UTC)
You're free to believe whatever you want to. Meanwhile, the rest of the world is proceeding with FHI. See [29]. Nobody cares about the whining of those who Neuron didn't think were experts and whose research has been deemed irrelevant.-- TDJankins ( talk) 00:35, 2 July 2015 (UTC)
The article's opening states: "The g factor typically accounts for 40 to 50 percent of the between-individual variance in IQ test performance, and IQ scores are frequently regarded as estimates of individuals' standing on the g factor". Explained variance is usually used synonymously with R^2. However, later in the article, correlations seem to be much higher, such as "the correlations between g factor scores and full-scale IQ scores from David Wechsler's tests have been found to be greater than .95." and "Raven's Progressive Matrices is among the tests with the highest g loadings, around .80."
How are these numbers consistent with one another?
@ Victor Chmara You reverted my edits to the article lead [30]. I have not reverted, and want to resolve your concerns in a civil way and to resolve the issue here on the talk page. I completely disagree with your revert. Please explain further why you did it? Thank you. Charlotte135 ( talk) 21:24, 30 January 2016 (UTC)
Like I said in my edit summary, the term g factor refers to a population-level variable and it is typically represented in terms of factor loadings. You can't say that "Peter's g factor is 120." In contrast, terms like IQ, intelligence, etc. usually refer to test scores of individuals ("Peter's IQ is 120"), not to a population-level variable. Furthermore, 'g factor' can be regarded as a theoretically neutral term (=the largest factor in a factor analysis of cognitive data, regardless of what sort of interpretation one gives to it), whereas terms like general mental ability are clearly wedded to a particular theoretical position, namely the Spearman-Jensen one.-- Victor Chmara ( talk) 23:45, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
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Can we do that on this article ? Walidou47 ( talk) 14:43, 29 December 2019 (UTC)
Apart from the first sentence, this subsection doesn't even mention g factor. And neither that sentence nor the paragraph it belongs to refers to the ostensible subject of the subsection: "Social exchange and sexual selection". Seems like a big muddle to me. Perhaps some of this material belongs in our article Evolution of human intelligence? I'm going to reserve judgment on that. But, apart from that first paragraph, it does not appear to be at all germane here. And if we are to keep that first paragraph I'd suggest we need to find a more apt name for the subsection. Generalrelative ( talk) 18:10, 29 December 2020 (UTC)
A recent change was introduced to the article which misinterprets the claims made in the source paper. Consider the very first paragraph on the section about practical validity:
The practical validity of g as a predictor of educational, economic, and social outcomes is the subject of ongoing debate. [1]
However, the cited journal states:
For as long as psychometric tests have been used to chart the basic structure of intelligence and predict criteria outside the laboratory (e.g., grades, job performance), there has been tension between emphasizing general and specific abilities [19,20,21]. Insofar as the basic structure of individual differences in cognitive abilities, these tensions have largely been resolved by integrating specific and general abilities into hierarchical models.
Alternatives to models of intelligence rooted in Spearman’s original theory have existed almost since the inception of that theory (e.g., [64,65,66,67,68]), but have arisen with seemingly increasing regularity in the last 15 years (e.g., [69,70,71,72,73,74]). Unlike some other alternatives (e.g., [75,76,77,78,79]), most of these models do not cast doubt on the very existence of a general psychometric factor, but they do differ in its interpretation. These theories intrinsically offer differing outlooks on how g relates to specific abilities and, by extension, how to model relationships among g, specific abilities and practical outcomes. We illustrate this point by briefly outlining how the two hierarchical factor-analytic models most widely used for studying abilities at different strata [73] demand different analytic strategies to appropriately examine how those abilities relate to external criteria.
(Relevant parts in bold by me)
As you can see, there is not any controversy or a "debate" going on about the g-factor, just different interpretations about the observed effect. For a comparison a similar situation exists in quantum mechanics currently as well, there are at least five different mutually exclusive interpretations of quantum mechanics, yet nobody calls it a debate. Doing so is sensationalist fear, uncertainty & doubt-style propaganda aimed at discrediting the underlying observations by stressing out differing views instead of reinforcing the agreed upon facts.
Also, when you read the whole section from the beginning to the end, it's gives out a wacky feel because the first paragraph tries to paint a controversial picture, yet then the rest of the section gives a half-dozen proofs how it is not actually controversial at all. That's why the first paragraph should be left as it was before the (obviously ideologically motivated) edit. 83.102.62.84 ( talk) 22:13, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
The relative value of specific versus general cognitive abilities for the prediction of practical outcomes has been debated since the inception of modern intelligence theorizing and testing. This editorial introduces a special issue dedicated to exploring this ongoing “great debate”.While
most of these models do not cast doubt on the very existence of a general psychometric factor, the article goes on to state that
In the applied realm, however, debate remains.Seems pretty straightforward to me that this source supports the statement that there is
ongoing debate.
Others have argued that tests of specific abilities outperform g factor in analyses fitted to real-world situations.Specifically [31], [32] and [33].
obviously ideologically motivated, especially after being warned about WP:NPA on your user talk page, is highly inappropriate. In this case both MrOllie and Megaman en m, two highly experienced editors, have also reverted you. Generalrelative ( talk) 22:35, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
In the applied realm, however, debate remains.
There's no proof for a claim that such debate exists, apart from this one article which claims that.
g is one of the best predictors of school and work performance (for a review, see [7], pp. 270–305; see also, [8,9]). Moreover, a test’s g loading (i.e., its correlation with g) is directly related to its predictive power. In general, tests with strong g loadings correlate strongly with school and work criteria, whereas tests with weak g loadings correlate weakly with such criteria.
Consistent with these findings, Thorndike [10] found that g explained most of the predictable variance in academic achievement (80–90%), whereas non-g factors (obtained after removing g from tests) explained a much smaller portion of variance (10–20%). Similar results have been found for job training and productivity, which are robustly related to g but negligibly related to non-g factors of tests (e.g., rnon-g < 0.10, [7], pp. 283–285; see also, [9,11]).
As you can see, the article does not claim there's a debate, it repeats the consensus fact that predictive power of g is 80-90%, the rest 10-20% attributing to other factors. So unlike you claim, other factors do not outperform g.
Here, as in many other fields [9,10,11,12,13], general mental ability or the g-factor has often been singled out as the best predictor of scholastic performance [14,15,16] with specific abilities purportedly adding little or no explained variance [17]. However, this focus on the so-called general factor seems to not take full advantage of the structure of intelligence [18,19], which postulates a hierarchical structure with a multitude of specific abilities located at lower levels beneath a g-factor.
Table 2 contains the results for the linear regressions using the g-factor score as independent variable. It can be seen that the models yield moderate (German and English) to strong relations (math) with the exception of sports. Accordingly, the regression weights were significant with the exception of sports.Moreover, it can be seen that, while the model with linear terms only fit best whenever the g-factor score was used as a predictor, the models with specific ability test scores as predictor yielded the best results when assuming curvilinear relations.
Again, strong correlation between g and theoretical subjects found. Not surprisingly g does not correlate with sports, something which was never claimed by anyone, further giving validity for g as in a real, existing variable instead of some made up concept. Then the paper fits g by linear factor and arrives to the exact same conclusion as every other article: g's predictive power cannot be matched.
Then the paper goes on modeling specific abilities as curvilinear relations, which unsurprisingly fits better to their assumptions because of the mathematical nature of said relation. But it has nothing to do with g itself, they present a whole different model, which should have a wiki-article of its own.
The article is actually an aggregate of three different studies.
The first study concludes:
g explained 19 percent of the variance in job performance, with the Primary Mental Abilities accounting for only an additional 4.4
The second study was made by the US army and found that g is the most predictive in leadership among other factors.
Third is again by military, studying verbal abilities. Hardly anything new in these studies, if you actually read them.
Editors are allowed to have personal political POV, as long as it does not negatively affect their editing and discussions.
Based on which I am claiming that looking at your edit history, you clearly are way too biased to write about this subject objectively.
Continuing to claim that my editing is
obviously ideologically motivated
Because it is, why do you even try to deny it when it's plainly visible for everyone to see? Why cannot you admit just it? Very intellectually dishonest of you -just as every edit in your edit history.
two highly experienced editors
Argumentum_ab_auctoritate 83.102.62.84 ( talk) 23:34, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
ongoing debatewhen it is the lead article in a recent special issue about this debate from a respected peer-reviewed journal. The other three references under discussion here could also have been cited, but this was unnecessary.
disruptiveshould signal to you that it's time to take a step back and examine your conduct. Generalrelative ( talk) 01:46, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
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This page is not discussing g'
There is a fundamental difference between g (as Spearman, who had coined the term, had defined it), and a first principal component (PC1) of a positive correlation matrix. Spearman's g was defined as a latent (implied) 1-dimensional variable which accounts for all correlations among any intelligence tests. His tetrad difference equation states a necessary condition for such a g to exist.
The important proviso for Spearman's claim that such a g qualifies as an "objective definition" of "intelligence", is that all correlation matrices of "intelligence tests" must satisfies this necessary condition, not just one or two, because they are all samples of a universe of tests subject to the same g. It is now generally acknowledged (and easily verified empirically) (Guttman, 1992; Schonemann, 1997; Kempthorne, 1997; Garnett, 1919) that this condition is routinely violated by all correlation matrices of reasonable size. Hence, such a g does not exist any more than odd numbers divisible by 4 exist.
I recommend that somebody address this problem. I can not understand why this page is called “General Intelligence factor” if it does not discuss g'? There is not even one reference to Charles Spearman (the inventor) or factor analysis! I suspect this page was put together by somebody with no technical experience what-so-ever. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.68.179.142 ( talk • contribs)
The material on channel capacity seems distinctly out of place, or at least a disproportionate part of the article. It is not even technically g theory.
The article in general has little to recommend it. I propose the following structure to both point out shortcomings and recommend how they may be filled:
By necessity, much of this material will overlap with Intelligence (trait). My point of view is that g-specific material should be located here (definition of g loading; crystallized and fluid g; importance of g in explaining cognitive ability test results), while intelligence-related findings (not restricted to g, though perhaps best explained by g) should be located at Intelligence (trait).
Thoughts? -- DAD 00:52, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I've rewritten the article based on your suggested headings, plus one for the social correlates of g. I'll try to remember to add references and things next time I'm flipping through my Jensen books. I'm not entirely sure what the best way to go about handling the overlap between here, Intelligence (trait), and IQ is. I'll have to give it a little more thought. Oh, and welcome to Wikipedia. It's nice to see another person with an interest in psychometrics. -- Schaefer 03:42, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I really like what you've done. Thanks for the welcome. Looks like there's plenty for us to do. -- DAD 02:05, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)
The article talks about the "broad-sense" and "narrow-sense" heritability of g. But these terms are not defined, and heritability contains no explanation of what the difference is. Can anyone with a knowledge of psychometrics clear this one up? grendel| khan 21:35, 2005 Mar 4 (UTC)
Please comment on why this page has been renamed "general factor." I cannot find any scholarly references that introduce g as "the general factor". I'm holding a review from Scientific American called "The General Intelligence Factor" (Gottfredson 1998), and that seems to me a far better (clearer and more accurate) title. -- DAD 30 June 2005 16:42 (UTC)
The factor was:
Choice #1 implies that it's real, and somebody discovered it. Choice #2 leaves it as a theory. Uncle Ed July 5, 2005 23:56 (UTC)
Would someone please make the article distinguish between the real, observed " general factor" (g) and the "g Theory" I keep hearing so much about. I made a stub article for Jensen's hard-to-get book, The g Factor, but I still don't get it, and that's embarrassing for me. I'm way over to the right (not politically, I mean on the bell curve), so why is this so hard for me? Uncle Ed July 6, 2005 03:02 (UTC)
Added to the article:
I'm wondering, will the present article have enough info regarding these hypotheses, et al., to warrant a second article called g theory? If not, we can just add another section or two to g. Uncle Ed July 7, 2005 14:54 (UTC)
Spearman found, or discovered, or noted, or identified, the influence of a general factor. He then proposed his model. The continued insistence by some editors that Spearman simply hypothesized or proposed the existence of a factor alters history: while he may have hypothesized it, he also found that it was true, and that was his major contribution. The article must reflect this. -- DAD T 18:38, 14 July 2005 (UTC)
"g correlates less strongly, but significantly, with overall body size." That's an unfortunate choice of phrasing given the example earlier in the article about measurement of body size. Is the assertion that g correlates with height? With cubital length? With body mass (are the obese more intelligent?)? -- Nclean 25th of August 2006
I agree. Obese people often have larger heads, and probably larger brains- does this mean people who are more obese are more intelligent? I've never found that at all
Can someone please disambiguate "G factor" as it can also refer to the G-factor in physics. I don't know how to do disambiguation, sorry. See also Talk:G_factor. Thanks! Rotiro 10:48, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
In the lead, it is stated that the g-factor is "widely accepted but controversial". Honestly, I haven't read the rest of the article yet, but that seems to contradict itself.-- Niels Ø (noe) 11:06, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
"Brain size has long been known to be correlated with g (Jensen, 1998). Recently, an MRI study on twins (Thompson et al., 2001) showed that frontal gray matter volume was highly significantly correlated with g and highly heritable. A related study has reported that the correlation between brain size (reported to have a heritability of 0.85) and g is 0.4, and that correlation is mediated entirely by genetic factors (Posthuma et al., 2002). g has been observed in mice as well as humans (Matzel et al., 2003)."
The references to these studies should be listed, and I'd like to comment on them- did anyone ever notice how the Thompson study, which found grey matter to be so "heavily determined by genetic factors" examined TWINS RAISED TOGETHER?
I'm sorry, but that's a disgusting, profound amount of intellectual dishonesty and ignorance. To measure the heritability of a trait, you have to have the twins SEPERATED- NOT RAISED TOGETHER. Yet this study took twins that lived their entire lives together, exposed to the same environmental influences, causing thier intellect and personality to develop along the same patterns... yet, they just grabbed some random twins, saw "how similar they were", completely ignoring the dynamics of heritability studies, and, in some huge media blitz, where the study was spread and reported in countries across and the globe and even put on the cover of Nature- fucking disgusting. How could a study with such inane criteria EVER make it through peer-review?
Yet no single measurement of a human body is obviously preferred to measure its "size" (although obviously the volume is).
This statement uses "obviously" twice, contradicting itself. This is unfortunate because the entire analogy/paragraph only makes sense if the parenthetical is false. I would just delete the paragraph outright, but perhaps someone has a better solution (or a better analogy). I'll change it to "(excluding the volume, admittedly)" so it isn't quite so blatantly idiotic. Thehotelambush 06:31, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
This page fails to acknowledge that the Flynn effect is seen by many as causing significant damage to the value of "g", because it effects individual skills on IQ tests disproportionately. For example, there are huge IQ gains in Raven's and Similarities tests, but relatively small gains in learned skills such as Arithmetic. Someone please update the page to reflect that the Flynn effect serves to challenge the meaningfulness of "g." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 156.56.154.85 ( talk) 22:54, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
It might be useful to decide if you want to talk about the "General factor of psychometric intelligence," which has been exhaustively discussed in the technical literature, or a "General Intelligence factor" which I don't really know anything about. Most of this article is about the general factor of psychometric intelligence. The general factor is derived by performing hierarchical factor analyses on a correlation matrix of performance on mental ability tests. The process for determining it has been exhaustively described by Jensen (The g Factor). John B. Carroll (Structure of Cognitive Abilities) describes a complete algorithm for determining the common factor in such a matrix. Spearman called it g. By this, he meant that it was a general factor. He did not mean it was a factor of general intelligence. He used g, and contrasted it to s, which he described as a specific factor. This was his two factor theory. The modern understanding of g, typified by Jensen’s and Carroll’s description, is in terms of factor analysis. It is sometimes called the "g factor," or "Spearman's g" (in deference to Spearman). In other words, it is the "general factor" of cognitive ability - not a "General Intelligence Factor." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.60.239.250 ( talk) 01:34, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
I believe that something in the challenges section should be added concerning savants and people in the ASD, because savants only excel highly in one thing, and people on the Autistic Spectrum Disorder have a very uneven profile of abilities on an IQ test. Also, If one part of the brain gets damaged, then the other parts don't necessarily become defunct (neurological isolation).
superyuval10 ( talk) 21:24, 24 August 2008 (UTC)
Proper english states that each 'important' word in a title or phrase should be capitalized to represent it's value.
Hence, 'General intelligence factor' should be 'General Intelligence Factor".
Consider Revision.
Thanks.
74.184.100.154 ( talk) 14:58, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
74.184.100.154 ( talk) 22:10, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
I'm fairly certain that the current title is wrong anyway. The g factor is a measurement of "general mental ability" as formulated by Galton and as used by its most notable proponents such as Jensen. Numerous citations could be provided to support this, but really are entirely unnecessary. If it is unclear why it's "general mental ability" and not "general intelligence", you only need to read Jensen to find out. Do we have to go through some huge drama to get this changed? -- Aryaman (talk) 18:46, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
"In addition, there is recent evidence that the tendency for intelligence scores to rise has ended in some first world countries."
There are three citations for this. Two of them are dead. The last links to an article that doesn't mention it. Does anyone have a cite? -- Deleet ( talk) 23:49, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
I see that this article discussion page has been quiet for a while. You may find it helpful while reading or editing articles to look at a bibliography of Intelligence Citations, posted for the use of all Wikipedians who have occasion to edit articles on human intelligence and related issues. I happen to have circulating access to a huge academic research library at a university with an active research program in these issues (and to another library that is one of the ten largest public library systems in the United States) and have been researching these issues since 1989. You are welcome to use these citations for your own research. You can help other Wikipedians by suggesting new sources through comments on that page. It will be extremely helpful for articles on human intelligence to edit them according to the Wikipedia standards for reliable sources for medicine-related articles, as it is important to get these issues as well verified as possible. -- WeijiBaikeBianji ( talk) 17:33, 30 June 2010 (UTC)
I particularly like the new edit to article text referring to "g" as a "statistic," which is a correct use of the word "statistic" and a good picture of what g is in current psychometrics. I see from the edit summaries on the recent edits that there is still a call for more reliable secondary sourcing of this article. I hope to further update the Intelligence Citations source list linked to from this talk page over the weekend, and I welcome other editors who are familiar with the literature to suggest new sources for the source list, which you, other editors, and I can use for further updates of article text. -- WeijiBaikeBianji ( talk) 17:18, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
There are many statistical terms used in this article without definition or reference. It appears that there are multiple models used to define g, yet none of them are discussed in the article. Terms like g-loading are vague and imprecise, and there appears to be no discussion of secondary or tertiary factors and how they relate to intelligence. Without a discussion of how factor analysis is applied to intelligence test (like WAIS), this article makes g sound like touchy feely woo, instead of what it really is an application of a statistical method. aprock ( talk) 17:41, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
General intelligence factor is not the most common synonym of g. A Google Scholar search suggests that General mental ability and General cognitive ability are much more common. I think we should use one of those names. Just General intelligence would be better as well.-- Victor Chmara ( talk) 14:19, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
As far as I know, there would be no problem naming the article something like ''g-factor'' (intelligence). aprock ( talk) 14:33, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
I'm thinking of renaming this article to g factor (intelligence). I would think this would be an uncontroversial move, as g factor is a more common term than general intelligence factor so there would be no need to do this more formally. Or is someone opposed to this move?-- Victor Chmara ( talk) 14:00, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
Okay, as everybody seemed to agree, I renamed the article.-- Victor Chmara ( talk) 06:43, 28 October 2010 (UTC)
The lead section says that g is "a controversial statistic". But is that really true, or rather is it not POV-pushing to make such a claim in the lead? To denote something as "controversial" suggests that it is a fringe view or at least not a mainstream one. However, my reading suggests that just about no one thinks that g does not exist. In fact, I don't see how they could think that it does not exist, when its existence is an empirical question, and innumerable studies have replicated it.
The lead talks about g as a statistic, i.e. something that results from statistical analysis. It is an empirical fact that if we give a battery of mental tests to a (reasonably big and cognitively diverse) sample of people and then plug their intercorrelations into a matrix, all correlations will be positive, and one can extract g from the matrix using various methods. To say that this is not possible is a fringe view, and I don't see why we should privilege it by claiming that g is "controversial". If g is controversial, then just about everything in psychology is, and we would have to change all sorts of articles accordingly. If the lead was about some specific aspects of what may be called "g theory" (e.g. that g is "mental energy" or "mental speed", as Spearman and Jensen, respectively, have suggested) we could say that it's controversial, but it isn't about such.
So, I suggest we remove the claim that g is controversial. There's a separate section for Challenges to g.-- Victor Chmara ( talk) 22:36, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
I removed 'controversial' from the first sentence of the article, but at the end of the lead, it stills says that "significant controversy attends g and its alternatives", and there's a link from the word controversy to a discussion about multiple intelligences. I don't think Gardner's scheme is the most serious alternative to g, so this could be worded in some other way, with references to other criticisms of g.-- Victor Chmara ( talk) 07:13, 28 October 2010 (UTC)
analyses of the WISC-R and K-ABC, and a critique of the method of correlated vectors. In: Frank Columbus, Editor, Advances in Psychological Research vol. VI, pp. 31-60. Huntington, NY: Nova Science Publishers, Inc.
See also Dolan and Lubke's critique of Schonneman (Viewing Spearman's hypothesis from the perspective of multigroup PCA: A comment on Schoenemann's criticism. Intelligence 29 (2001): 231-245) where they still conclude that g is a "suboptimal test" of b-w intelligence difference. Timjim7 ( talk) 23:37, 31 July 2011 (UTC)
The first sentence of the article now reads: "The g factor, where g stands for general intelligence, is a statistic used in psychometrics to quantify the variation of intelligence test scores. citation needed" Who inserted the citation needed tag, and what is it that is suspect about the sentence?-- Victor Chmara ( talk) 23:08, 28 October 2010 (UTC)
Hi - just to avoid accusation of drive-by tagging (I got called away after adding the tag), I think we need the statement "IQ tests that measure a wide range of abilities do not predict much better than g" to be sourced because it's clearly a report of research findings. I've had a quick look on google scholar ("g factor" "broader measures"), but not come up with much either way. Could someone more familiar with the literature turn something up? VsevolodKrolikov ( talk) 06:52, 1 December 2010 (UTC)
{{
cite journal}}
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VsevolodKrolikov (
talk) 03:55, 9 December 2010 (UTC)"Stephen Jay Gould, who was not a psychologist, statistician, or psychometrician, voiced his objections..."
Why does it matter what Gould was not? He was not an infinite number of things, including an astronaut, soybean breeder, and a spotted pig. This statement may constitute a subtle case of POV, as it implies that Gould was not a position to comment on the topic or that his opinion was less informed. Not so. Without commenting on the content of Gould's argument at all, I maintain that he is a legitimate contributor to the discussion as a renowned biologist. You may not like what he says, but denigrating him is a POV and thus should be erased.
TippTopp ( talk) 01:49, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
The section "Biological and genetic correlates of g" is a mess. It relies heavily on a primary sources, unverifiable sources, and synthesis. I suggest that the section be rewritten to be a straightforward summary of the main article linked. aprock ( talk) 19:44, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
It seems that Spearman indeed used partial correlations in his 1904 paper. However, he used the tetrad method in his later work, and considered the method central to his research on g. Most accounts of his work specifically discuss the tetrad method, which makes it misleading to state in the lead section that he used partial correlations. However, I don't think there's any reason to mention the particular method in the lead section (the topic is not even discussed elsewhere in the article, although it should).-- Victor Chmara ( talk) 15:12, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
While discussion of the mathematical models used to compute g are good to have in the article, they need to either be properly defined, or expressed in lay terms. Repeatedly using "positive manifold" appears to be shorthand for positive correlation matrices, which is probably better shortened to positive correlation, as it is clearer and more correct. aprock ( talk) 02:20, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
This undo: [17] with the edit summary "no need to define factor analysis in general terms in this article; tautology (variability, variable); and factors aren't necessarily uncorrelated" is quite confusing. Why would we not define factor analysis? Likewise, the statement that factor analysis doesn't yield uncorrelated factors is incorrect. aprock ( talk) 19:07, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
Let me clarify here. There are a few distinct topics here. The factor analysis as a "family of mathematical techniques used to describe the variability of correlated variables in terms of a smaller number of uncorrelated variables". There is the factor analysis that Spearman did, which is a specific algorithm. And there is analysis of factors (also called factor analysis), where we talk about the general problem of coming up with models of factors which explain outcomes. They are all related, but distinct meanings of the phrase factor analysis. The problem is that the text of the article treats all these different concepts as the same thing. This is what I mean when I say that the presentation is incorrect and imprecise. Specifically, it muddles these three different aspects into a single concept without being clear about what is going on. I suspect that this is in no small part due to trying to treat mathematical topics colloquially. aprock ( talk) 22:54, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
The first sentence of the first paragraph clearly discusses the original conception from the 1904 paper of what the g-factor was hoped to measure. From the introduction of the paper:
Our particular topic will be that cardinal function which we can provisionally term "General Intelligence;" first, there will be an inquiry into its exact relation to the Sensory Discrimination of which we hear so much in laboratory work; and then -- by the aid of information thus coming to light -- it is hoped to determine this Intelligence in a definite objective manner, and to discover means of precisely measuring it. Should this ambitious programme be achieved even in small degree, Experimental Psychology would thereby appear to be supplied with the missing link in its theoretical justification, and at the same time to have produced a practical fruit of almost illimitable promise.
That factor analysis was used, and that one of the factors came to be known as G does not change the fact that Spearman was investigating his notion of "general intelligence". aprock ( talk) 20:22, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
I believe that the ongoing study called mathematically precocious youth suggests that the law of diminishing returns is not as likely to be true. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Study_of_Mathematically_Precocious_Youth ONoNotThisGuyAgain ( talk) 10:59, 16 June 2012 (UTC)
I decided to make an account since I may make some minor contributions. I made the topic about the law of diminishing returns as well. I think a good direction for this article would be to expand the citations to include more than just authors name and year of publication. This should make it much easier for users who would like to reference these articles. There are a few I am interested in and will adjust it accordingly. ONoNotThisGuyAgain ( talk) 10:07, 16 June 2012 (UTC)
The way the citations work in this article is that there are author name(s), year, and (for larger works) page numbers in the Notes section, while the full source information is available in the References section. That's a standard way to reference sources.-- Victor Chmara ( talk) 11:23, 17 June 2012 (UTC)
The editors show nothing in regards to the evidence of the poor correlation between IQ and real world outcomes. It takes the stance that IQ is the "single biggest predictor ...", but blatantly fails to acknowledge that the vague '.55' correlation between IQ and job performance, leaves a large percentage of the variation in job performance, unexplained. Meaning that while IQ may be the 'single best predictor', it is not, by any means, a good predictor of real world performance. Of course, there is sources to cite which support this view, but none of the editors have taken effort to include any reasonable objections against IQ. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.16.113.3 ( talk) 16:54, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
General intelligence is the best single predictor of job performance. This is simply a fact reported in many reliable sources. No one claims that it explains all the variation in job performance. 0.55 is a numerical value, so I don't see how it can characterized as vague if you understand what a correlation is. 0.55 is a medium-to-large effect size according to various guidelines, so it's not correct to say that g is not a good predictor.-- Victor Chmara ( talk) 17:02, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
Journal of Intelligence — Open Access Journal is a new, open-access, "peer-reviewed scientific journal that publishes original empirical and theoretical articles, state-of-the-art articles and critical reviews, case studies, original short notes, commentaries" intended to be "an open access journal that moves forward the study of human intelligence: the basis and development of intelligence, its nature in terms of structure and processes, and its correlates and consequences, also including the measurement and modeling of intelligence." The content of the first issue is posted, and includes interesting review articles, one by Earl Hunt and Susanne M. Jaeggi and one by Wendy Johnson. The editorial board [21] of this new journal should be able to draw in a steady stream of good article submissions. It looks like the journal aims to continue to publish review articles of the kind that would meet Wikipedia guidelines for articles on medical topics, an appropriate source guideline to apply to Wikipedia articles about intelligence. -- WeijiBaikeBianji ( talk, how I edit) 21:11, 5 December 2013 (UTC)
This page has big problems. Proponents of the G theory have clearly locked down on its edits. Terminology is strongly skewed towards supporting the validity of G, and criticism are muted. For instance, in other theory pages (such as Multiple intelligence) there is a "criticism" section, here it is "challenges". Proponents are more likely to have definitive wording in their accomplishments, ie, Jensen "proved", while critics have less definiteive wording, ie, Sternberg "argued". I've noticed this trend on most of the human intelligence wiki articles, I highly recommend real editors come in and clean up the formatting and language to make it less patently biased.-- 162.226.6.148
It's been three years since Fractionating Human Intelligence [22] [23] and this page still reads like a wiki hoax.-- TDJankins ( talk) 21:59, 26 June 2015 (UTC)
Those odd commentaries were quickly refuted and Ashton and colleagues relented in most of their claims. See [26] and [27]. Further, while those people may disagree with or not like the results of FHI, without evidence, it's just opinion. FHI physically disproved the theory that the g-factor represents general intelligence. Further, FHI proved that human intelligence can be reduced to no fewer than three factors (reasoning, short term memory, and verbal agility). Conversely, there isn't a single study that proved the theory that the g-factor represents general intelligence. FHI represents the current science, so should this page.-- TDJankins ( talk) 22:30, 28 June 2015 (UTC)
You're free to believe whatever you want to. Meanwhile, the rest of the world is proceeding with FHI. See [29]. Nobody cares about the whining of those who Neuron didn't think were experts and whose research has been deemed irrelevant.-- TDJankins ( talk) 00:35, 2 July 2015 (UTC)
The article's opening states: "The g factor typically accounts for 40 to 50 percent of the between-individual variance in IQ test performance, and IQ scores are frequently regarded as estimates of individuals' standing on the g factor". Explained variance is usually used synonymously with R^2. However, later in the article, correlations seem to be much higher, such as "the correlations between g factor scores and full-scale IQ scores from David Wechsler's tests have been found to be greater than .95." and "Raven's Progressive Matrices is among the tests with the highest g loadings, around .80."
How are these numbers consistent with one another?
@ Victor Chmara You reverted my edits to the article lead [30]. I have not reverted, and want to resolve your concerns in a civil way and to resolve the issue here on the talk page. I completely disagree with your revert. Please explain further why you did it? Thank you. Charlotte135 ( talk) 21:24, 30 January 2016 (UTC)
Like I said in my edit summary, the term g factor refers to a population-level variable and it is typically represented in terms of factor loadings. You can't say that "Peter's g factor is 120." In contrast, terms like IQ, intelligence, etc. usually refer to test scores of individuals ("Peter's IQ is 120"), not to a population-level variable. Furthermore, 'g factor' can be regarded as a theoretically neutral term (=the largest factor in a factor analysis of cognitive data, regardless of what sort of interpretation one gives to it), whereas terms like general mental ability are clearly wedded to a particular theoretical position, namely the Spearman-Jensen one.-- Victor Chmara ( talk) 23:45, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
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Can we do that on this article ? Walidou47 ( talk) 14:43, 29 December 2019 (UTC)
Apart from the first sentence, this subsection doesn't even mention g factor. And neither that sentence nor the paragraph it belongs to refers to the ostensible subject of the subsection: "Social exchange and sexual selection". Seems like a big muddle to me. Perhaps some of this material belongs in our article Evolution of human intelligence? I'm going to reserve judgment on that. But, apart from that first paragraph, it does not appear to be at all germane here. And if we are to keep that first paragraph I'd suggest we need to find a more apt name for the subsection. Generalrelative ( talk) 18:10, 29 December 2020 (UTC)
A recent change was introduced to the article which misinterprets the claims made in the source paper. Consider the very first paragraph on the section about practical validity:
The practical validity of g as a predictor of educational, economic, and social outcomes is the subject of ongoing debate. [1]
However, the cited journal states:
For as long as psychometric tests have been used to chart the basic structure of intelligence and predict criteria outside the laboratory (e.g., grades, job performance), there has been tension between emphasizing general and specific abilities [19,20,21]. Insofar as the basic structure of individual differences in cognitive abilities, these tensions have largely been resolved by integrating specific and general abilities into hierarchical models.
Alternatives to models of intelligence rooted in Spearman’s original theory have existed almost since the inception of that theory (e.g., [64,65,66,67,68]), but have arisen with seemingly increasing regularity in the last 15 years (e.g., [69,70,71,72,73,74]). Unlike some other alternatives (e.g., [75,76,77,78,79]), most of these models do not cast doubt on the very existence of a general psychometric factor, but they do differ in its interpretation. These theories intrinsically offer differing outlooks on how g relates to specific abilities and, by extension, how to model relationships among g, specific abilities and practical outcomes. We illustrate this point by briefly outlining how the two hierarchical factor-analytic models most widely used for studying abilities at different strata [73] demand different analytic strategies to appropriately examine how those abilities relate to external criteria.
(Relevant parts in bold by me)
As you can see, there is not any controversy or a "debate" going on about the g-factor, just different interpretations about the observed effect. For a comparison a similar situation exists in quantum mechanics currently as well, there are at least five different mutually exclusive interpretations of quantum mechanics, yet nobody calls it a debate. Doing so is sensationalist fear, uncertainty & doubt-style propaganda aimed at discrediting the underlying observations by stressing out differing views instead of reinforcing the agreed upon facts.
Also, when you read the whole section from the beginning to the end, it's gives out a wacky feel because the first paragraph tries to paint a controversial picture, yet then the rest of the section gives a half-dozen proofs how it is not actually controversial at all. That's why the first paragraph should be left as it was before the (obviously ideologically motivated) edit. 83.102.62.84 ( talk) 22:13, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
The relative value of specific versus general cognitive abilities for the prediction of practical outcomes has been debated since the inception of modern intelligence theorizing and testing. This editorial introduces a special issue dedicated to exploring this ongoing “great debate”.While
most of these models do not cast doubt on the very existence of a general psychometric factor, the article goes on to state that
In the applied realm, however, debate remains.Seems pretty straightforward to me that this source supports the statement that there is
ongoing debate.
Others have argued that tests of specific abilities outperform g factor in analyses fitted to real-world situations.Specifically [31], [32] and [33].
obviously ideologically motivated, especially after being warned about WP:NPA on your user talk page, is highly inappropriate. In this case both MrOllie and Megaman en m, two highly experienced editors, have also reverted you. Generalrelative ( talk) 22:35, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
In the applied realm, however, debate remains.
There's no proof for a claim that such debate exists, apart from this one article which claims that.
g is one of the best predictors of school and work performance (for a review, see [7], pp. 270–305; see also, [8,9]). Moreover, a test’s g loading (i.e., its correlation with g) is directly related to its predictive power. In general, tests with strong g loadings correlate strongly with school and work criteria, whereas tests with weak g loadings correlate weakly with such criteria.
Consistent with these findings, Thorndike [10] found that g explained most of the predictable variance in academic achievement (80–90%), whereas non-g factors (obtained after removing g from tests) explained a much smaller portion of variance (10–20%). Similar results have been found for job training and productivity, which are robustly related to g but negligibly related to non-g factors of tests (e.g., rnon-g < 0.10, [7], pp. 283–285; see also, [9,11]).
As you can see, the article does not claim there's a debate, it repeats the consensus fact that predictive power of g is 80-90%, the rest 10-20% attributing to other factors. So unlike you claim, other factors do not outperform g.
Here, as in many other fields [9,10,11,12,13], general mental ability or the g-factor has often been singled out as the best predictor of scholastic performance [14,15,16] with specific abilities purportedly adding little or no explained variance [17]. However, this focus on the so-called general factor seems to not take full advantage of the structure of intelligence [18,19], which postulates a hierarchical structure with a multitude of specific abilities located at lower levels beneath a g-factor.
Table 2 contains the results for the linear regressions using the g-factor score as independent variable. It can be seen that the models yield moderate (German and English) to strong relations (math) with the exception of sports. Accordingly, the regression weights were significant with the exception of sports.Moreover, it can be seen that, while the model with linear terms only fit best whenever the g-factor score was used as a predictor, the models with specific ability test scores as predictor yielded the best results when assuming curvilinear relations.
Again, strong correlation between g and theoretical subjects found. Not surprisingly g does not correlate with sports, something which was never claimed by anyone, further giving validity for g as in a real, existing variable instead of some made up concept. Then the paper fits g by linear factor and arrives to the exact same conclusion as every other article: g's predictive power cannot be matched.
Then the paper goes on modeling specific abilities as curvilinear relations, which unsurprisingly fits better to their assumptions because of the mathematical nature of said relation. But it has nothing to do with g itself, they present a whole different model, which should have a wiki-article of its own.
The article is actually an aggregate of three different studies.
The first study concludes:
g explained 19 percent of the variance in job performance, with the Primary Mental Abilities accounting for only an additional 4.4
The second study was made by the US army and found that g is the most predictive in leadership among other factors.
Third is again by military, studying verbal abilities. Hardly anything new in these studies, if you actually read them.
Editors are allowed to have personal political POV, as long as it does not negatively affect their editing and discussions.
Based on which I am claiming that looking at your edit history, you clearly are way too biased to write about this subject objectively.
Continuing to claim that my editing is
obviously ideologically motivated
Because it is, why do you even try to deny it when it's plainly visible for everyone to see? Why cannot you admit just it? Very intellectually dishonest of you -just as every edit in your edit history.
two highly experienced editors
Argumentum_ab_auctoritate 83.102.62.84 ( talk) 23:34, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
ongoing debatewhen it is the lead article in a recent special issue about this debate from a respected peer-reviewed journal. The other three references under discussion here could also have been cited, but this was unnecessary.
disruptiveshould signal to you that it's time to take a step back and examine your conduct. Generalrelative ( talk) 01:46, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
References