g: Highly General and Highly Practical

Abstract

The general mental ability factor, g, is real. Its existence is no longer a serious question among experts on intelligence (Carroll, 1993). Whatever its underlying nature, psychometric g is a reliably measured, replicable phenomenon across all age, race, gender, and cultural groups studied so far (Jensen, 1998). Consequently, among intelligence researchers, it has become the most common working definition of “intelligence.” A more important question today is: How generally useful are higher levels of g outside the realm of paper-and-pencil tests and tasks? The term intelligence connotes a very general and broadly useful capacity. Is that the label warranted for g? Even if it is, might not the label be warranted for other abilities too, leaving g as only one among various intelligences?

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