General mental ability and specific abilities: Their relative importance for extrinsic career success
Lang, JWB; Kell, HJ
Date: 19 December 2019
Journal
Journal of Applied Psychology
Publisher
American Psychological Association
Publisher DOI
Abstract
Recent research on the role of general mental ability (GMA) and specific abilities in
work-related outcomes has shown that the results differ depending on the theoretical and
conceptual approach that researchers use. While earlier research has typically assumed that
GMA causes the specific abilities and has thus used incremental ...
Recent research on the role of general mental ability (GMA) and specific abilities in
work-related outcomes has shown that the results differ depending on the theoretical and
conceptual approach that researchers use. While earlier research has typically assumed that
GMA causes the specific abilities and has thus used incremental validity analysis, more recent
research has explored the implications of treating GMA and specific abilities as equals (differing
only in breadth and not subordination) and has used relative importance analysis. In this paper,
we extend this work to the prediction of extrinsic career success operationalized as pay, income,
and the attainment of jobs with high prestige. Results, based on a large national sample, revealed
that GMA and specific abilities measured in school were good predictors of job prestige
measured after 11 years, pay measured after 11 years, and income 51 years later toward the end
of the participants’ work lives. With one exception, GMA was a dominant predictor in
incremental validity analyses. However, in relative importance analyses, the majority of the
explained variance was explained by specific abilities, and GMA was not more important than
single specific abilities in relative importance analyses. Visuospatial, verbal, and mathematical
abilities all had substantial variance shares and were also more important than GMA in some of
the analyses. Implications for the interpretation of cognitive ability data and facilitating people’s
success in their careers are discussed.
Management
Faculty of Environment, Science and Economy
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