Higher Levels Of Cognitive Ability Research Articles

Intelligence and Slave Exports from Africa

This article examines the role of cognitive ability or intelligence on slave exports from Africa. We test a hypothesis that countries which were endowed with higher levels of cognitive ability were more likely to experience lower levels of slave exports from Africa probably due to comparatively better capacities to organise, corporate, oversee and confront slave traders. The investigated hypothesis is valid from alternative specifications involving varying conditioning information sets. The findings are also robust to the control of outliers.

ANALISIS KEMAMPUAN PEMBUKTIAN MATEMATIS PADA MATAKULIAH TEORI BILANGAN

The number theory course focuses on the activities of reasoning, reviewing, analyzing, and proving, which is a high level of cognitive ability. Especially for of a lot of proof errors are done by students. The purpose of this research is to analyze the students' of ability in the number theory course. The research method used is qualitative deductive research with research subjects amounted to 30 students semester three academic year 2017/2018 . Data collection techniques use data triangulations. The results of mathematical proofing ability found that most of the students still have difficulty in solving the problem of proof. As many as 60% of the research sample has not understood how to solve the problem of proof. Based on these data, it can be concluded that the student has not be able to optimize all capabilities, especially the proof of mathematics in working on the number theory that tends to give up in working on problems when experiencing difficulties.

Noncognitive Attributes in Physician Assistant Education.

Physician assistant (PA) admissions processes have typically given more weight to cognitive attributes than to noncognitive ones, both because a high level of cognitive ability is needed for a career in medicine and because cognitive factors are easier to measure. However, there is a growing consensus across the health professions that noncognitive attributes such as emotional intelligence, empathy, and professionalism are important for success in clinical practice and optimal care of patients. There is also some evidence that a move toward more holistic admissions practices, including evaluation of noncognitive attributes, can have a positive effect on diversity. The need for these noncognitive attributes in clinicians is being reinforced by changes in the US health care system, including shifting patient demographics and a growing emphasis on team-based care and patient satisfaction, and the need for clinicians to help patients interpret complex medical information. The 2016 Physician Assistant Education Association Stakeholder Summit revealed certain behavioral and affective qualities that employers of PAs value and sometimes find lacking in new graduates. Although there are still gaps in the evidence base, some tools and technologies currently exist to more accurately measure noncognitive variables. We propose some possible strategies and tools that PA programs can use to formalize the way they select for noncognitive attributes. Since PA programs have, on average, only 27 months to educate students, programs may need to focus more resources on selecting for these attributes than teaching them.

Human Rights: Why Countries Differ

AbstractCountries differ with respect to human rights. Using the cross-countryciridata (Cingranelli & Richards), the authors tested two theories. The cognitive-moral enlightenment theory going back to Piaget and Socrates postulates that individuals and nations with higher levels of cognitive ability think and behave in a way more conducive to human rights. The culture-religion theory going back to Weber, Sombart and Voltaire postulates that different religious beliefs shape attitudes, and propel societies toward institutions that are more or less supportive of human rights. Cognitive ability had a positive impact on human rights but its effect varied depending on the country sample. More important was religion, both in cross-sectional and longitudinal models. Percentage of Christians had a positive impact (r= .62, total effectβ= .63), percentage of Muslims had a negative one (r= −.57, total effectβ= −.59). Political institutions are highly correlated with human rights, but religion is the decisive background factor.

‘Fake news’: Incorrect, but hard to correct. The role of cognitive ability on the impact of false information on social impressions

The present experiment (N=390) examined how people adjust their judgment after they learn that crucial information on which their initial evaluation was based is incorrect. In line with our expectations, the results showed that people generally do adjust their attitudes, but the degree to which they correct their assessment depends on their cognitive ability. In particular, individuals with lower levels of cognitive ability adjusted their attitudes to a lesser extent than individuals with higher levels of cognitive ability. Moreover, for those with lower levels of cognitive ability, even after the explicit disconfirmation of the false information, adjusted attitudes remained biased and significantly different from the attitudes of the control group who was never exposed to the incorrect information. In contrast, the adjusted attitudes of those with higher levels of cognitive ability were similar to those of the control group. Controlling for need for closure and right-wing authoritarianism did not influence the relationship between cognitive ability and attitude adjustment. The present results indicate that, even in optimal circumstances, the initial influence of incorrect information cannot simply be undone by pointing out that this information was incorrect, especially in people with relatively lower cognitive ability.

Does cognitive ability buffer the link between childhood disadvantage and adult health?

Individual differences in childhood cognitive ability have been neglected in the study of how early life psychosocial factors may buffer the long-term health consequences of social disadvantage. In this study, we drew on rich data from two large British cohorts to test whether high levels of cognitive ability may protect children from experiencing the physical and mental health consequences of early life socioeconomic disadvantage. Participants from the 1970 British Cohort Study (BCS; N = 11,522) were followed from birth to age 42, and those from the 1958 National Child Development Study (NCDS; N = 13,213) were followed from birth to age 50. Childhood social disadvantage was indexed using 6 indicators gauging parental education, occupational prestige, and housing characteristics (i.e., housing tenure and home crowding). Standardized assessments of cognitive ability were completed at ages 10 (BCS) and 11 (NCDS) years. Psychological distress, self-rated health, and all-cause mortality were examined from early adulthood to midlife in both cohorts. Early social disadvantage predicted elevated levels of psychological distress and lower levels of self-rated health in both cohorts and higher mortality risk in the NCDS. Childhood cognitive ability moderated each of these relationships such that the link between early life social disadvantage and poor health in adulthood was markedly stronger at low (-1 SD) compared to high (+1 SD) levels of childhood cognitive ability. This study provides evidence that high childhood cognitive ability is associated with a decrease in the strength of socioeconomic status-driven health inequalities. (PsycINFO Database Record

THE COGNITIVE TRANSITION IN MEXICO: ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY AND LOCAL GOVERNANCE IMPACTS

This article shows that cognitive ability dynamics interact with both individual and local indicators of macroeconomic wellbeing, publicly provided goods and private goods, through 141 localities in Mexico. The link of these various goods with inequity is compared quantitatively using the concentration index decomposition. The set of individual characteristics including paternal and maternal cognitive ability, whether mother works, father’s schooling and household wealth, and the set of local characteristics including local economic activity, local public policy and local marginalization indicators, each have significant connections with the formation of cognitive ability. Living in a rural locality is associated with one fourth of inequities in cognitive ability. This is consistent with a model of human development and economic growth exhibiting aggregate macroeconomic channels through which economic geography and local governance can lead to stratification and divergence in welfare indicators. There is a long-term transition towards higher levels of cognitive ability that will take several generations to converge at the current rate.

Multiple-Choice Questions and Written Questions matched according to levels of cognitive ability in an applied course: Evidence and practical implications

ABSTRACTWhether or not the scores for multiple-choice questions (MCQs) and written questions (WQs) in formative assessments are the same, has been a subject of intense scrutiny. However, the evidence for their similarity at different levels of cognitive ability in applied courses has not been sufficiently documented. This study analysed the comparability of scores for equivalent MCQs and WQs at each level of cognitive ability, namely, ‘application’, ‘analysis’, ‘synthesis’ and ‘evaluation’, in an applied course. It was found that MCQ scores were higher than WQ scores at the levels of ‘application’ and ‘analysis’, while they were the same as WQ scores at the levels of ‘synthesis’ and ‘evaluation’. Furthermore, MCQ ranking of students’ scores at the level of ‘evaluation’ was inconsistent with its ranking at lower levels of cognitive ability. Thus, it is recommended that MCQs be pitched for sufficiently high levels of cognitive ability, albeit not the highest, to achieve similar scores to WQs.

Language and speech outcomes of children with hearing loss and additional disabilities: identifying the variables that influence performance at five years of age

Objective: This study examined language and speech outcomes in young children with hearing loss and additional disabilities. Design: Receptive and expressive language skills and speech output accuracy were evaluated using direct assessment and caregiver report. Results were analysed first for the entire participant cohort, and then to compare results for children with hearing aids (HAs) versus cochlear implants (CIs). Study sample: A population-based cohort of 146 five-year-old children with hearing loss and additional disabilities took part. Results: Across all participants, multiple regressions showed that better language outcomes were associated with milder hearing loss, use of oral communication, higher levels of cognitive ability and maternal education, and earlier device fitting. Speech output accuracy was associated with use of oral communication only. Average outcomes were similar for children with HAs versus CIs, but their associations with demographic variables differed. For HA users, results resembled those for the whole cohort. For CI users, only use of oral communication and higher cognitive ability levels were significantly associated with better language outcomes. Conclusions: The results underscore the importance of early device fitting for children with additional disabilities. Strong conclusions cannot be drawn for CI users given the small number of participants with complete data.

Applying EI in Marketing Exchanges:An Approach towards Optimizing Sales Performance

This research tries to highlight few insights about how sales experts employ emotions in marketing exchanges to facilitate optimistic result for their businesses, themselves, and their clientele. The authors conducted three field studies to observe the impact of emotional intelligence (EI) in marketing exchanges on sales performance and customer associations. EI was found to be absolutely related to performance of real estate and insurance agents, even when controlling for the effects of domain-general EI, self report EI, cognitive ability, and several control variables. Sales experts with higher EI are not only more profit producers but are also better at retaining customers. Additionally, the authors demonstrated that EI interacts with key marketing exchange variables - customer orientation and manifest influence - to heighten performance such that high EI salespeople more effectively employ customer-oriented selling and influence customer decisions. Finally, results indicate a balancing relationship between EI and cognitive ability. EI positively influences performance at higher levels of cognitive ability. These findings have implications for improving interactions between buyers and sellers and for employee selection and training.

Cognitive and partisan mobilization in new democracies

This study investigates the voting behavior of Korean the electorate using Dalton’s four concepts of contemporary voters. We demonstrate that cognitive partisans, who possess strong party identification and high levels of cognitive skills, respond to regional party cue and ideology when voting. Ritual partisans and cognitive partisans behave alike but, for ritual partisans, ideology plays a diminished role due to their low cognitive skills. Two independent groups—apartisans and apoliticals—are prone to swing votes from election to election. Unlike apoliticals, apartisans are influenced by ideology as they possess higher levels of cognitive abilities. Our findings suggest that Dalton’s framework can be useful to understand voting patterns of electorates in new democracies as well as advanced democracies.

A Historical Investigation into Item Formats of ACS Exams and Their Relationships to Science Practices

The release of the NRC Framework for K-12 Science Education and the Next Generation Science Standards has important implications for classroom teaching and assessment. Of particular interest is the implementation of science practices in the chemistry classroom, and the definitions established by the NRC makes these objectives much more tangible. However, this still may leave some wondering about how to begin making these changes. Mid-twentieth century chemical educators and pioneers of the first ACS exams advocated for testing science thinking and skills as early as the 1930s, and this necessitates a discussion about how early ACS exams measured these attributes. More recent debates have seen arguments that multiple-choice questions cannot measure high levels of cognitive ability in chemistry, which leaves questions about how ACS exams or instructors who write tests for large scale classrooms might try to measure science practices. The possibility that an analysis of the item formats used on ACS exams fro...

A Qualitative Analysis of the Leadership Style of a Vice-Chancellor in a Private University in Malaysia

This study used Bolman and Deal’s framework to examine the leadership frames of a vice-chancellor in a private university in Malaysia. Qualitative methods comprised interviews with the vice-chancellor and six of his staff reporting directly to him, document analysis, and observations. Atlas.ti was used to code the leadership frames. Content analysis revealed that the vice-chancellor exhibited three frames, showing a multi-frame leadership style. It reflects the vice-chancellor implements an effective leadership style and a high level of cognitive ability, which is important for the organizational effectiveness.

Evaluating the unique effects of cognitive ability and parental socioeconomic status on adult dietary behaviors and receipt of preventive health services

Some research has shown that both cognitive ability and parental socioeconomic status (parental SES) predict dietary behaviors and receipt of preventive health services later in life. However, previous research has not attempted to disentangle these effects while also examining important mediators such as education level and income. Based on a sample of 4078 individuals drawn from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979, we examined the unique effects of g and parental SES on adult dietary behaviors and receipt of preventive health services. Overall, the results suggest that there is essentially little direct unique effect of cognitive ability or parental SES on adult dietary behaviors and receipt of preventive health services. However, the total effects of cognitive ability and parental SES on adult dietary behaviors and receipt of preventive health services showed that higher levels of cognitive ability and parental SES were associated with healthier dietary habits and receipt of health services due to their effects on educational attainment and adult income. The findings may have implications for health education materials and access to healthcare.

The mating brain: early maturing sneaker males maintain investment into the brain also under fast body growth in Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar).

It has been suggested that mating behaviours require high levels of cognitive ability. However, since investment into mating and the brain both are costly features, their relationship is likely characterized by energetic trade-offs. Empirical data on the subject remains equivocal. We investigated if early sexual maturation was associated with brain development in Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar), in which males can either stay in the river and sexually mature at a small size (sneaker males) or migrate to the sea and delay sexual maturation until they have grown much larger (anadromous males). Specifically, we tested how sexual maturation may induce plastic changes in brain development by rearing juveniles on either natural or ad libitum feeding levels. After their first season we compared brain size and brain region volumes across both types of male mating tactics and females. Body growth increased greatly across both male mating tactics and females during ad libitum feeding as compared to natural feeding levels. However, despite similar relative increases in body size, early maturing sneaker males maintained larger relative brain size during ad libitum feeding levels as compared to anadromous males and females. We also detected several differences in the relative size of separate brain regions across feeding treatments, sexes and mating strategies. For instance, the relative size of the cognitive centre of the brain, the telencephalon, was largest in sneaker males. Our data support that a large relative brain size is maintained in individuals that start reproduction early also during fast body growth. We propose that the cognitive demands during complex mating behaviours maintain a high level of investment into brain development in reproducing individuals.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s10682-014-9715-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Cognitive Ability, Expectations, and Beliefs About the Future: Psychological Influences on Retirement Decisions

Recent advances in behavioral decision research, behavioral economics, and life-span development psychology provide leverage for expanding our understanding of the decision to retire earlier versus later. This report examines how cognitive abilities, perceptions about the future, and other psychological characteristics affect retirement decisions. We use existing and new data collected through the RAND-USC American Life Panel, including detailed assessments of fluid and crystallized intelligence, financial literacy, expectations for the future, future time perspective, and maximizing versus satisficing decision styles. We find those with high levels of cognitive ability are more likely to retire later, as are those with greater longevity expectations. We also find those with lower cognitive ability have less coherent expectations of retirement—suggesting a need for planning assistance. We also find expectation of lower Social Security benefits is associated with plans to retire later—contrary to our hypothesis that such expectation might spur early retirement in an effort to lock in benefits. Finally, we find that tendencies maximize (versus satisfice) had mixed effects on retirement decision making, with different aspects of maximizing tendencies showing different relationships with retirement decision making. Future work should expand these data in a targeted direction. Recent research notes that decision-making competence can be improved with training, and to the extent this trainability extends to older adults, decision skills may be a useful target for intervention. Stronger longitudinal design and analysis can also help demonstrate possible endogenities between retirement and psychological variables.

Performance in cognitive and problem-solving tasks in male spotted bowerbirds does not correlate with mating success

Individuals exhibiting a high level of cognitive ability may also exhibit more elaborate traits and so gain higher levels of mating success. This suggests that selection may act on cognitive performance through mate choice. Studies investigating this relationship have tended to focus on single cognitive tasks, or tasks that are closely related to existing natural behaviours, and individuals are frequently tested in captive conditions. This can introduce test artefacts and may tell us more about selection on specific display behaviours that we imagine being particularly cognitively complex, rather than a general cognitive ability. We tested free-living male spotted bowerbirds, Ptilonorhynchus maculatus, that exhibit elaborate sexual displays which appear to be cognitively demanding. We describe a method for testing individuals in the wild, without the need for constraint or captivity. We looked for evidence of a general cognitive ability in males by assaying their performance in a series of novel tasks reflecting their natural bower-building behaviour (bower maintenance) or capturing more abstract measures of cognitive ability (colour and shape discrimination, reversal learning, spatial memory and motor skills). We related performance in these tasks to their mating success. An individual's performance in one task was a relatively poor predictor of performance in any other task. However, an individual's performance across tasks could be summarized by a principal component which explained a level of total variance above which has previously been accepted as evidence of a general cognitive ability. We found no relationships between an individual's overall performance, or performance in any single task, and mating success. Our results highlight the need for further investigation of whether selection on cognition in bowerbirds is exerted through mate choice. We offer this as an example of how classic cognitive tasks can be transferred to the wild, thus overcoming some limitations of captive cognitive testing.

Who is attracted to an organisation using a forced distribution performance management system?

Arguments related to forced distribution systems (FDS) are often dogmatic, but typically do not consider for whom such systems might be most and least appealing. We examine the relationships between participants' individual differences (cognitive ability, collectivism and core self‐evaluations) and their attraction to an organisation utilising an FDS. From a sample of 143 advanced undergraduate students, we found that individuals were more likely to be attracted to an organisation using FDS when they possessed higher levels of cognitive ability and perceived FDS to be fairer. We also found a significant interaction between respondents' collectivism and fairness perceptions of FDS, indicating that individuals who are high in collectivism are particularly sensitive to perceptions of FDS fairness. Implications for organisational practice and future research are discussed.

The Influence of the College Environment on Honors Students' Outcomes

The Influence of the College Environment on Honors Students' Outcomes Matthew R. Wawrzynski (bio), Katherine Madden (bio), and Christopher Jensen (bio) Honors programs at colleges and universities are one way to provide additional learning opportunities to enhance the undergraduate experience for students. Honors programs provide students academically enriching activities through small classes, research, internships, and community service (National Collegiate Honors Council, n.d.). To further the knowledge surrounding the influence of the living environment in honors programs, particularly living-learning communities (LLCs), we examined the experiences of honors students at one university. Current literature shows that honors students experience academic, cognitive, and other gains (e.g., critical thinking measures for class assignments) from involvement in an honors program, even when higher levels of cognitive ability were controlled as input variables (Seifert, Pascarella, Colangelo, & Assouline, 2007; Soldner, McCarron, & Inkelas, 2007). Although honors program students in general reported benefits from higher levels of academic-related peer discussions or interactions (Inkelas & Weisman, 2003; Seifert et al., 2007; Shushok, 2006), they were less likely than other students to study in groups. When they did, they often formed narrow peer groups that were not well integrated into the rest of the campus (Rinn, 2004). Honors students in LLCs were more likely than other students in LLCs to interact with faculty members socially outside of class (Inkelas & Weisman, 2003) and in conversations about career goals (Shushok, 2006). Despite many gains, the literature findings are inconclusive as to whether honors students in LLCs developed a stronger sense of belonging amongst peers with whom they could talk about ideas and have discussions outside of class (Dallas & Marwitz, 2003; Soldner et al., 2007). Conceptual Framework In the current study, Bronfenbrenner's (1993) ecological paradigm was used to examine honors students' experiences and interactions within different residential settings. According to Brofenbrenner's ecological paradigm, "Development is an evolving function of person-environment interaction," which must take place in a face-to-face setting, or a microsystem (p. 10). Multiple microsystems for college students continually affect the development and experience of the individual and include residence halls, campus jobs, or student organizations (Renn & Arnold, 2003) [End Page 840] in addition to academic disciplines. When two or more microsystems or settings are linked together with the individual, a mesosystem results (Bronfenbrenner, 1993). Since limited research has been conducted to examine the influence of the environment on learning outcomes for honors program students (Rinn, 2004; Soldner et al., 2007), we examined the mesosystem of honors students' living experiences at a research-extensive university. Methods Research Questions The current study examined how self-reported experiences of honors college students are the same or different from those of students who live in each of the following four environments: (a) an honors college floor that is part of an academically based LLC, (b) an honors college floor that is not part of a LLC, (c) honors students on a traditional residence hall floor, and (d) students not in an honors program or a LLC and on a traditional residence hall floor. More specifically, we sought to answer the following: 1. Do honors residential students in various living environments report different outcomes? 2. Do honors residential students report different outcomes than students living in traditional learning environments in significant ways? Participants Our data were obtained from a larger study that explored students' perceptions of their residence hall environment at a research-extensive, Midwestern university (MWU). There were 272 honors students (132 were living on an honors floor, 88 were living in an academically based LLC, 52 were on a traditional residence hall floor) and 1,593 students not in an honors program who completed the surveys. Sixty-three percent (n = 1174) of the respondents were female. Eighty percent (n = 1,314) of the participants identified as White; 3.2% (n = 53) as African American; and 6.9% (n = 113) as Asian American. Although the sample had a slightly higher percentage of females, it was generally representative of MWU. We used a census approach to data collection (sending surveys to all students in the residence halls) to reduce the likelihood of coverage error (i.e., when someone has a 0% chance of being sampled) and sampling error (when...

Emotional Intelligence in Marketing Exchanges

This research examines how sales professionals use emotions in marketing exchanges to facilitate positive outcomes for their firms, themselves, and their customers. The authors conduct three field studies to examine the impact of emotional intelligence (EI) in marketing exchanges on sales performance and customer relationships. They find that EI is positively related to performance of real estate and insurance agents, even when controlling for the effects of domain-general EI, self-report EI, cognitive ability, and several control variables. Sales professionals with higher EI are not only superior revenue generators but also better at retaining customers. In addition, the authors demonstrate that EI interacts with key marketing exchange variables—customer orientation and manifest influence—to heighten performance such that high-EI salespeople more effectively employ customer-oriented selling and influence customer decisions. Finally, the results indicate a complementary relationship between EI and cognitive ability in that EI positively influences performance at higher levels of cognitive ability. These findings have implications for improving interactions between buyers and sellers and for employee selection and training.