General Mental Ability Research Articles

An examination of model fit and measurement invariance of general mental ability and personality measures used in the multilingual context of the Swiss Armed Forces: A Bayesian structural equation modeling approach

ABSTRACT Measurement invariance of psychological test batteries is an essential quality criterion when the test batteries are administered in different cultural and language contexts. The purpose of this study was to examine to what extent measurement model fit and measurement invariance across the two largest language groups in Switzerland (i.e., German and French speakers) can be assumed for selected general mental ability and personality tests used in the Swiss Armed Forces’ cadre selection process. For the model fit and invariance testing, we used Bayesian structural equation modeling (BSEM). Because the sizes of the language group samples were unbalanced, we reran the invariance testing with the subsampling procedure as a robustness check. The results showed that at least partial approximate scalar invariance can be assumed for the constructs. However, comparisons in the full sample and subsamples also showed that certain test items function differently across the language groups. The results are discussed regarding the three following issues: First, we critically discuss the applied criterion and alternative effect size measures for assessing the practical importance of non-invariances. Second, we highlight potential remedies and further testing options, that can be applied, once certain items have been detected to function differently. Third, we discuss alternative modeling and invariance testing approaches to BSEM and outline future research avenues.

The rise of the machines and how they impact workers' psychological health: An empirical study

Artificial intelligence (AI) will fundamentally change the global labor market in the near future. While many papers have been published on related topics—such as algorithm development, human–robot communication, laws, and legislation surrounding AI—the psychological impacts of its implementation in workplaces are still largely unknown. Furthermore, existing theoretical models of AI effects do not incorporate psychological outcomes, which translates into a major gap in the scientific literature. Therefore, this study's purpose was to empirically verify a newly developed theoretical model that integrates one individual determinant (e.g., general mental ability [GMA]) and the psychological outcomes of AI in the workplace (e.g., the effects of AI perceived usefulness on the basic psychological needs and psychological health). To that end, five hundred forty-six employees (46.7% women and 53.3% men) working at least 20 hr per week in various Canadian organizations answered several online questionnaires. Collected data were analyzed using path analysis. First, the results of this study showed that the GMA-level influences AI perceived usefulness-level, which in turn determines its positive or negative perception. This perception differentially impacts employees' satisfaction or thwarting of basic psychological needs and also indirectly their psychological health. By combining three different theoretical approaches, this study contributes to connecting interdisciplinary knowledge of AI impacts on workers' psychological health and to reducing gaps between related research fields.

Emotion expression abilities and psychopathy.

The ability to express emotion is considered a core socioemotional skill; however, most research is focused on receptive abilities, with little investigation of productive abilities. We present an investigation of individual differences in facial expression of emotion using observational techniques. Given descriptions of highly psychopathic persons as successful liars and manipulators, we investigate the ability to intentionally pose emotional expressions when no emotion is elicited. A mixed sample of adult men (N = 316 community volunteers, prison inmates, and forensic-psychiatric patients) ranging along the psychopathy continuum were asked to facially express a nonfelt emotion, specifically anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise, through either written instructions or through imitation of a target's facial expression. Through structural equation modeling, we evaluate relations between this emotion expression ability and general mental ability, interpersonal abilities, and psychopathy. We find that psychopathy is moderately associated with poorer emotion expression ability, meaning highly psychopathic individuals are poorer at imitating the expressions of others and poorer at expressing all emotions. However, this deficit is largely attributable to deficits in general mental ability. These results challenge the view that highly psychopathic individuals have the cognitive skills to support a superior ability to deceive or manipulate others. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE OF ADOLESCENT STUDENTS HAVING M-LEARNING HABITS IN RELATION TO THEIR INTELLIGENCE

Mobile devices are widely used in the digital age. The educational use of mobile devices in and outside classrooms helps to develop positive attitude among students towards courses. The aim of this research is to find out the influence of M-learning habits on academic performance of adolescent students in relation to their intelligence. A sample of about 350 students of +1 and +2 grade both boys and girls from the private and government schools of Amritsar district was randomly selected for collecting data. Academic scores of final examinations of adolescent students were used to find out the academic performance of the students. M-learning Habits Scale constructed by the investigator was used to find out mobile learning habits of the students. General Mental Ability Test by Jalota was used to measure the intelligence of the students. The findings suggest that more than sixty percent of adolescent students are having M-learning habits. There is no significant relationship between academic performance of adolescent students having M-learning habits and their intelligence. There is no significant difference in the academic performance of adolescent students having M-learning habits in relation to their level of intelligence.

A conceptual model for achieving well-being in adults with mild cognitive impairment

ObjectiveLow well-being is common among people with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI). We propose a model to examine how different types of resources work together to maintain well-being in people with MCI. MethodsParticipants included 121 community dwelling adults over the age of 60 who were diagnosed with MCI. Structural equation modeling assessed suggested relationships between resources and well-being. ResultsEmotional intelligence, general mental ability, morbidity, economic status, basic activities of daily living, and age were correlated to well-being in a triple mediation process through cognitive function, instrumental activities of daily living, and social support. Model fit was excellent (RMSEA-0.04; IFI-.96; CFI-.96; CMIN/DF-1.23), ConclusionAchieving well-being when coping with MCI requires a combination of objective resources and subjective evaluation of the situation. Ultimately, social support determines an individual's level of well-being. Findings suggest the need to understand what kind of social support is required by those coping with MCI.

Can you crowdsource expertise? Comparing expert and crowd‐based scoring keys for three situational judgment tests

AbstractIt is common practice to rely on a convenience sample of subject matter experts (SMEs) when developing scoring keys for situational judgment tests (SJTs). However, the defining characteristics of what constitutes a SME are often ambiguous and inconsistent. Sampling SMEs can also impose considerable costs. Other research fields have adopted crowdsourcing methods to replace or reproduce judgments thought to require subject matter expertise. Therefore, we conducted the current study to compare crowdsourced scoring keys to SME‐based scoring keys for three SJTs designed for three different job domains: Medicine, Communication, and Military. Our results indicate that scoring keys derived from crowdsourced samples are likely to converge with keys based on SME judgment, regardless of test content (r = .88 to .94 between keys). We observed the weakest agreement among individual MTurk and SME ratings for the Medical SJT (classification consistency = 61%) relative to the Military and Communication SJTs (80% and 85%). Although general mental ability and conscientiousness were each related to greater expert similarity among MTurk raters, the average crowd rating outperformed nearly all individual MTurk raters. Using randomly‐drawn bootstrapped samples of MTurk ratings in each of the three samples, we found that as few as 30–40 raters may provide adequate estimates of SME judgments of most SJT items. These findings suggest the potential usefulness of crowdsourcing as an alternative or supplement to SME‐generated scoring keys.

Candidate Personality Traits Associated with Ratings in a Military Officer Selection Setting

While studies of the relationship between applicant personality and selection assessment ratings are widespread within personnel psychology, studies on military samples are scarcer. The current study aimed to investigate the associations between the Five-Factor Model of personality and ratings in (1) a military selection interview and (2) a field selection exercise simulating a war-like scenario. Research participants were candidates attending a selection program for military officer schools in the Norwegian Armed Forces (<em>N</em> = 901). The study used the NEO-PI-3 for measuring personality, and a shorter military personality measure (NMPI) was added for purposes of convergent test validation. Military selection officers rated candidates based on mission command leadership competencies. After controlling for sex, age, and general mental ability, results demonstrated small predictive effects of extraversion (+) and openness (–) toward mean competency ratings in both the interview and the field selection exercise. Furthermore, the selection officers used somewhat global evaluations of candidates in their ratings due to high correlations between competencies. Based on the findings, we suggest that personality testing may be useful in the selection process and contribute to a more nuanced rating of competencies.

Bias in Observed Validity Estimates When Using Multiple Valid Predictors

ABSTRACT Simulated data, validity reports and a firefighter predictive validation study are used to examine validity bias created by three common selection problems-range restriction, applicant and incumbent attrition, and nonlinearity created by compression of high selection test scores. Top 20% selection samples drawn from an applicant pool with known validity coefficients demonstrate that the sample validity estimates of the three predictors are differentially biased in both magnitude and direction, depending on the selection strategy used. Concurrent validity designs generally favor novel predictors. Corrections for direct range restriction across situations were mostly ineffectual. With proper scaling, corrections for indirect range restriction are accurate, but cross-variable biasing effects can occur when score distributions of the individual predictors differ. Many of the biases found in the simulation results are demonstrated in a firefighter predictive validation study where variations of Pearson-Thorndike range corrected validities and a full information maximum likelihood (FIML), approaches are all compared as validity assessments. With normalized predictors, both Pearson and FIML methods show that a test of general mental ability and physically demanding job tasks predicted firefighter performance throughout the 30-year study, with no evidence of interactions or a leveling of performance at high test scores.

The impact of international experience on individual-level outcomes: A meta-analysis

This meta-analysis aggregates the insights of 202 studies on the relationships between international experience (IE) and a range of individual-level outcomes including cultural intelligence, cross-cultural adjustment, and work-related satisfaction, performance, and turnover intentions. We provide a conceptual framework to organize the literature, review and integrate existing research on IE-outcome links, explore the impact that different types of IE operationalization and measurement have on the direction and magnitude of effects, and establish the incremental predictive validity of IE beyond commonly used predictors, such as personality traits, general mental ability, and language proficiency. We find that effect sizes are generally small; however, subgroup analyses of different types of IE operationalization and measurement yield substantially larger effect sizes. Additionally, we show incremental predictive validity of IE for more proximal outcomes beyond a set of established predictors. We discuss the implications of our findings for theory development and measurement of IE and offer avenues for future research.

Informational advantages in social networks: The core-periphery divide in peer performance ratings.

Organizations frequently rely on peer performance ratings to capture employees' unique and difficult to observe contributions at work. Though useful, peers exhibit meaningful variance in the accuracy and informational utility they offer about ratees. In this research, we develop and test theory which suggests that raters' social network positions explains this variance in systematic ways. Drawing from information processing theory, we posit that members who occupy core (peripheral) positions in the network have greater (less) access to firsthand and secondhand performance information about ratees, which is in turn associated with more (less) accurate performance ratings. To overcome difficulties in obtaining a "true" performance score in interdependent field settings, we employ an external criterion comparison method to benchmark our arguments, such that larger validity coefficients between established predictors of performance (i.e., a ratee's general mental ability [GMA] and conscientiousness) and peer performance ratings should reflect more (less) accurate ratings for core (peripheral) members. In Study 1, we use an organization-wide network in a technology startup company to examine the validity coefficient of a ratee's GMA on performance as rated by central versus peripheral members. In Study 2, we attempt to replicate and extend Study 1's conclusions in team networks using ratee conscientiousness as a benchmark indicator. Findings from both studies generally support the hypotheses that core network members provide distinct, and presumably more accurate, peer performance ratings than peripheral network members. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Brain Functional Correlates of Intelligence Score in ADHD Based on EEG.

It has been shown that intelligence as a general mental ability is related to the structure and function of the brain regions. However, the specificity of these regional dependencies to the intelligence scores in the typical and atypical developed individuals needs to be well understood. In this study, we hypothesized that neural correlates of IQ should not have a fixed pattern rather they must follow a dynamic pattern to compensate for the functional deficits caused by a neurodevelopmental disorder. Therefore, electroencephalography (EEG) correlates of normal IQ in various subtypes of attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD) were compared with a group of healthy controls. Sixty-three ADHD subjects comprising combined, inattentive, and hyperactive individuals diagnosed by a psychiatrist using structural clinical interview for DSM-V, and 46 healthy controls with similar normal IQ scores were recruited in this study. The subjects' EEG data were then recorded during an eye-closed resting condition. The subjects' intelligence level was measured by Raven's standard progressive matrices. Then, the association between IQ and the power of the EEG signal was computed in the conventional frequency bands. Subsequently, topographical representations of these associations were compared between the groups. Our results demonstrated that the association between IQ score and EEG power is not the same in various ADHD subtypes and healthy controls. This finding suggests a compensatory mechanism in ADHD individuals for changing the regional oscillatory pattern to maintain the IQ within a normal range.

Exploring Individual Antecedents of Performance Error: False Starts in Collegiate Football

ABSTRACT We explored antecedents of performance errors, where such errors are defined as unintended deviations from specified standards. The context of our examination was collegiate football, with participants that were position players on the offensive line. Performance errors were operationalized as false starts. Using data from archival sources and primary data collection, we explored the potential effects of several individual attributes that have been previously theorized as antecedents of performance errors. These attributes included perceptual-cognitive skill, general mental ability, personality traits, self-regulatory foci, and regulation of emotion. Significant effects were revealed across the various individual attributes leading to incidents of performance error. Implications for future research and practice on performance errors are discussed.

12 Equipping Humans--Optimizing Performance: The Role of Technology in Human Capital

Abstract Human capital influences 100% of the production and business performance achieved in swine production. “Five years from now 35% of the of important workforce skills will have changed.” according to Digital Transformation 1. To meet the coming digital transformation in swine production, the need for innovative human capital strategies has never been greater. Boessen, Artz, and Schutlz 2 found labor is a critical issue for the industry. High performing swine farms achieve it because of their people. Swan 3 noted that “pigs do not achieve excellence; people achieve excellence through their pigs.” Agriculture has been slow to adapt soft skill strategies due to the ambiguity in the value proposition. Cost metrics of turnover, poor performance, and safety are traditionally buried within the P&amp;L under labor with labor impacting 100% of the value chain in pig and pork production. The need to analyze the human impact has never been more crucial, and this led to the 2019 Labor intel Study by sponsors and Summit SmartFarms. Schmidt and Hunter‍ 4 found that the use of general mental ability testing improves the predictability and utility of hiring the right person. The increased validity can be as high as 20% vs. traditional means of recruitment. Assessments have proven to provide intelligence on humans for many years through the principles of industrial psychology. Platforms like Cloverleaf and the Organizational Cultural Inventory have harnessed all the attributes of digital transformation to provide human intelligence for predictive and prescriptive human optimization. Pigmanship training has accelerated the value of assessments through precision training. The next step is to integrate these platforms into an analysis tool that combines production, human resource, and assessment data to quantify the value of organizational health.1. Digital Transformation by Thomas Siebel Rosetta Books 2 National Pork Board. Employee Compensation and HR Practices in Pork Production.3 Swan, M.K. Swine Human Resources: Managing Employees. 4 Schmidt FL, Hunter JE. The validity and utility of selection methods in personnel psychology

USE OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES IN THE SPIRITUAL FORMATION OF THE YOUNG GENERATION

The article considers the problem of formation of spiritual needs of preschool children and the influence of modern information technologies on this process in particular. It gives a retrospective analysis of the views of scientists on the problem of the impact of information technology on the spiritual development of preschool children. It reveals the terminological concepts “spiritual education”, “Internet addiction”, “information technology”, “cyber threat”. Psychological regularities and features of spiritual formation of preschool children are described. The article describes the signs of “Internet addiction” of preschool children: elevated state of being on the Internet; impaired memory and attention; irritability from not being allowed to use the computer; constant browsing of various sites; unwillingness to communicate with family and friends for the sake of being on the Internet; sitting at the computer for hours, which leads to sleep and food deprivation. The main aspects of the spiritual qualities of children, which are formed under the influence of information technology, are revealed. It is determined that computer games are cultural forms of childrenʼs spirituality in the process of upbringing and education, along with childrenʼs games. The article reveals the functions of computer games. They are educational (promotes mastering of letters, develops reading skills, elementary mathematical concepts, etc.); educational (forms spiritual values, installs moral and ethical rules of conduct); developmental (aimed at the formation of general mental abilities, memory, thinking, attention); communicative (ensures the development of the dialectic of communication); entertaining (aimed at getting pleasure, enjoyment, getting the desired result). The article finds that the use of computer games in the classroom develops children’s curiosity, stimulates them to achieve their goals, helps children better master the material, identifies gaps in knowledge and eliminates them.&#x0D; Keywords: information technology, Internet, Internet addiction, preschool child, computer games, spiritual education, children’s spirituality, spiritual needs.

Incremental Validity of Character Strengths as Predictors of Job Performance Beyond General Mental Ability and the Big Five.

Over the last decades, various predictors have proven relevant for job performance [e.g., general mental ability (GMA), broad personality traits, such as the Big Five]. However, prediction of job performance is far from perfect, and further potentially relevant predictors need to be investigated. Narrower personality traits, such as individuals' character strengths, have emerged as meaningfully related to different aspects of job performance. However, it is still unclear whether character strengths can explain additional variance in job performance over and above already known powerful predictors. Consequently, the present study aimed at (1) examining the incremental validity of character strengths as predictors of job performance beyond GMA and/or the Big Five traits and (2) identifying the most important predictors of job performance out of the 24 character strengths, GMA, and the Big Five. Job performance was operationalized with multidimensional measures of both productive and counterproductive work behavior. A sample of 169 employees from different occupations completed web-based self-assessments on character strengths, GMA, and the Big Five. Additionally, the employees' supervisors provided web-based ratings of their job performance. Results showed that character strengths incrementally predicted job performance beyond GMA, the Big Five, or GMA plus the Big Five; explained variance increased up to 54.8, 43.1, and 38.4%, respectively, depending on the dimension of job performance. Exploratory relative weight analyses revealed that for each of the dimensions of job performance, at least one character strength explained a numerically higher amount of variance than GMA and the Big Five, except for individual task proactivity, where GMA exhibited the numerically highest amount of explained variance. The present study shows that character strengths are relevant predictors of job performance in addition to GMA and other conceptualizations of personality (i.e., the Big Five). This also highlights the role of socio-emotional skills, such as character strengths, for the understanding of performance outcomes above and beyond cognitive ability.

The relations of reflective and intuitive thinking styles with task performance: A meta‐analysis

AbstractWe conducted a meta‐analysis to examine the relations of individual differences in reflective (or rational) and intuitive thinking styles with workplace task performance. We meta‐analyzed 113 effect sizes from 71 independent samples (N = 11,713). Results indicate that reflective thinking style has a positive and non‐zero meta‐analytic relation with task performance (ρ = .213). This positive relation is stronger in environments characterized by higher task complexity, greater importance of creativity and innovation for work tasks, and higher time pressure associated with work tasks. Intuitive thinking style, conversely, has a very small but positive meta‐analytic relation with task performance (ρ = .051), and this relation is stronger in environments characterized by higher task complexity. Finally, incremental validity analyses reveal that reflective thinking style explains unique variance in task performance, beyond conscientiousness and intelligence (general mental ability). Overall, this meta‐analysis demonstrates that reflective thinking style is an important antecedent to task performance.

The Good, the Bad, and the Clever: Faking Ability as a Socio-Emotional Ability?

Socio-emotional abilities have been proposed as an extension to models of intelligence, but earlier measurement approaches have either not fulfilled criteria of ability measurement or have covered only predominantly receptive abilities. We argue that faking ability—the ability to adjust responses on questionnaires to present oneself in a desired manner—is a socio-emotional ability that can broaden our understanding of these abilities and intelligence in general. To test this theory, we developed new instruments to measure the ability to fake bad (malingering) and administered them jointly with established tests of faking good ability in a general sample of n = 134. Participants also completed multiple tests of emotion perception along with tests of emotion expression posing, pain expression regulation, and working memory capacity. We found that individual differences in faking ability tests are best explained by a general factor that had a large correlation with receptive socio-emotional abilities and had a zero to medium-sized correlation with different productive socio-emotional abilities. All correlations were still small after controlling these effects for shared variance with general mental ability as indicated by tests of working memory capacity. We conclude that faking ability is indeed correlated meaningfully with other socio-emotional abilities and discuss the implications for intelligence research and applied ability assessment.

One step ahead in the game: Predicting negotiation outcomes with guessing‐games measures

AbstractLay intuition suggests that some people are better than others at strategic social interaction. Nonetheless, identifying reliable predictors of individual differences in negotiation performance has been difficult. In this investigation, we hypothesized that an individuals' skill in understanding the structure of socially interdependent situations, and in best responding to others' likely behavior in such situations, should predict their negotiation performance. We adapted existing and novel social guessing games to measure such skills. In a series of studies with students and business executives in Russia and Sweden, performance in the guessing games predicted better individual outcomes and better joint outcomes in dyadic negotiations. Guessing‐game performance remained predictive of both outcomes after proxies for general mental ability were controlled for. Potential applications to larger‐scale phenomena are discussed.

Investigating the Structure of Intelligence Using Latent Variable and Psychometric Network Modeling: A Commentary and Reanalysis.

In a recent publication in the Journal of Intelligence, Dennis McFarland mischaracterized previous research using latent variable and psychometric network modeling to investigate the structure of intelligence. Misconceptions presented by McFarland are identified and discussed. We reiterate and clarify the goal of our previous research on network models, which is to improve compatibility between psychological theories and statistical models of intelligence. WAIS-IV data provided by McFarland were reanalyzed using latent variable and psychometric network modeling. The results are consistent with our previous study and show that a latent variable model and a network model both provide an adequate fit to the WAIS-IV. We therefore argue that model preference should be determined by theory compatibility. Theories of intelligence that posit a general mental ability (general intelligence) are compatible with latent variable models. More recent approaches, such as mutualism and process overlap theory, reject the notion of general mental ability and are therefore more compatible with network models, which depict the structure of intelligence as an interconnected network of cognitive processes sampled by a battery of tests. We emphasize the importance of compatibility between theories and models in scientific research on intelligence.

RELATIONSHIP OF VERBAL IQ WITH PERFORMANCE IQ AND FULL SCALE IQ ALONG WITH ANATOMICAL CHARACTERISTICS

The connection between the complete brain size and general mental ability (GMA) was acknowledged universally. Connection between the performance intelligence quotient (PIQ) score and anatomical characteristics such as complete brain size, height, gender and weight are also narrated in many research papers. Very little study has been compiled to derive the relationship of verbal IQ (VIQ) with PIQ, full scale IQ (FSIQ) and anatomical characteristics. The current research report aims to develop the relationship of VIQ with the above mentioned variables. It is identified herein that VIQ is unequal variance random variable, and its mean is positively connected with FSIQ (P&lt;0.0001), PIQ (P=0.1903), height (P= 0.0002), brain size (P=0.0181) and gender (P=0.0002), while it is negatively interrelated with the joint interaction effects of PIQ and height (PIQ*Height) (P&lt;0.0001) and FSIQ*Gender (P&lt;0.0001). Variance of VIQ is negatively interrelated with gender (P=0.0017), brain size (P=0.0040), height (P=0.0970), FSIQ*Gender (P=0.0032), while it is positively interrelated with PIQ (P=0.0321), Gender* Height (P=0.0322) and Gender*Brain size (P=0.0441). It is concluded herein that VIQ is higher for females with higher FSIQ, PIQ, larger brain size, longer height, and lower interaction effects of FSIQ*Gender and PIQ*Height.