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Thirty years of research on general and specific abilities: Still not much more than g

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  • Ree, Malcolm James
  • Carretta, Thomas R.

Abstract

Results of a 30-year research program indicate that specific cognitive abilities (s) provide little or no incremental validity beyond general cognitive ability (g). Definitions of g and s are provided and examples from training and job performance are presented. All samples are large adding to confidence in the results. On average, the increased validity for multiple regressions between using g versus g plus s was 0.02. The weight of the evidence suggests that the increment of 0.02 is an artifact of measurement error. An alternative ability model that fails to separate g and s is presented.

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  • Ree, Malcolm James & Carretta, Thomas R., 2022. "Thirty years of research on general and specific abilities: Still not much more than g," Intelligence, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:intell:v:91:y:2022:i:c:s016028962100101x
    DOI: 10.1016/j.intell.2021.101617
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. S. Wilks, 1938. "Weighting systems for linear functions of correlated variables when there is no dependent variable," Psychometrika, Springer;The Psychometric Society, vol. 3(1), pages 23-40, March.
    2. Ree, Malcolm James & Carretta, Thomas R. & Teachout, Mark S., 2015. "Pervasiveness of Dominant General Factors in Organizational Measurement," Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Cambridge University Press, vol. 8(3), pages 409-427, September.
    3. Joseph Levin, 1972. "The occurrence of an increase in correlation by restriction of range," Psychometrika, Springer;The Psychometric Society, vol. 37(1), pages 93-97, March.
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    Cited by:

    1. Lin, Chien-An & Bates, Timothy C., 2022. "Smart people know how the economy works: Cognitive ability, economic knowledge and financial literacy," Intelligence, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
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    3. Egeland, Jonathan, 2022. "The ups and downs of intelligence: The co-occurrence model and its associated research program," Intelligence, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    4. Coyle, Thomas R. & Greiff, Samuel, 2023. "Carbon is to life as g is to _____: A review of the contributions to the special issue on specific abilities in intelligence," Intelligence, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).

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