Lazar Stankov

Emotional intelligence: In search of an elusive construct.

The view that emotional intelligence should be included within the traditional cognitive abilities framework was explored in 3 studies (total N = 530) by investigating the relations among measures of emotional intelligence, traditional human cognitive abilities, and personality. The studies suggest that the status of the emotional intelligence construct is limited by measurement properties of its tests. Measures based on consensual scoring exhibited low reliability. Self-report measures had salient loadings on well-established personality factors, indicating a lack of divergent validity. These data provide controvertible evidence for the existence of a separate Emotion Perception factor that (perhaps) represents the ability to monitor another individuals emotions. This factor is narrower than that postulated within current models of emotional intelligence.

Complexity, Metacognition, and Fluid Intelligence.

Abstract From among five tests of fluid intelligence employed in this study, two (Swaps and Triplet Numbers) were designed to investigate increases in complexity and difficulty. This was accomplished by manipulating the number of steps needed to reach a solution. The increase in task difficulty is related to changes in the overall performance levels that are reflected in arithmetic means. The complexity of a task is related to the increase in correlation with measures of fluid intelligence or in the increase in factor loadings on a fluid intelligence factor. Both these tendencies are present in the results of this study. A metacognitive process of self-confidence was assessed by asking participants to indicate how confident they were that the item they have just answered was correctly solved. A metacognitive process of self-evaluation was assessed by estimating the number of correctly solved items at the end of each test. The analyses of the overall performance also indicate that an “easy/difficult” distinction provides a reasonable account of the calibration data that show over- and underconfidence. Exploratory and confirmatory analyses indicate the presence of a relatively strong self-confidence factor. Confirmatory analysis also indicates the presence of a self-evaluation factor.

The role of individual differences in the accuracy of confidence judgments.

Abstract Generally, self-assessment of accuracy in the cognitive domain produces overconfidence, whereas self-assessment of visual perceptual judgments results in under-confidence. Despite contrary empirical evidence, in models attempting to explain those phenomena, individual differences have often been disregarded. The authors report on 2 studies in which that shortcoming was addressed. In Experiment 1, participants (N = 520) completed a large number of cognitive-ability tests. Results indicated that individual differences provide a meaningful source of overconfidence and that a metacognitive trait might mediate that effect. In further analysis, there was only a relatively small correlation between test accuracy and confidence bias. In Experiment 2 (N = 107 participants), both perceptual and cognitive ability tests were included, along with measures of personality. Results again indicated the presence of a confidence factor that transcended the nature of the testing vehicle. Furthermore, a small relationship was found between that factor and some self-reported personality measures. Thus, personality traits and cognitive ability appeared to play only a small role in determining the accuracy of self-assessment. Collectively, the present results suggest that there are multiple causes of miscalibration, which current models of over- and underconfidence fail to encompass.

Aging, attention, and intelligence.

The aims of this study were (a) to find out if attentional ability factors that are separate from the well-established ability factors (e.g., fluid intelligence, crystallized intelligence, and short-term acquisition and retrieval function) can be identified, and (b) to establish, through the use of part correlations, whether attentional abilities play a role in the changes in fluid and crystallized intelligence that occur with increasing age. A battery of 36 tests (19 psychometric tests and 17 measures of attentional processes) were given to 100 people. 20 of whom were in each age decade between 20 and 70. Results indicated that three attentional factors--Search, Concentration, and Attentional Flexibility--exist at the primary-ability level and that all three define fluid intelligence at the second-order level. Results also indicate that the decline in fluid intelligence with increasing age disappears if attentional factors are parted-out. Similarly, the increase in crystallized intelligence with increasing age becomes even greater if one controls for attentional processes. I conclude that changes in attentional processes play an important part in changes in human intelligence with age.

Self-confidence and performance on tests of cognitive abilities.

Abstract This study investigates individual differences in confidence judgments made by subjects on the accuracy of their answers to psychological test items. A measure of reasoning ability (the Ravens Progressive Matrices, RPM), a vocabulary test, and a perceptual visual discrimination test, were administered to 271 subjects. For half of the subjects, feedback on the correctness of response was given after each item, while for the other half, no such information was provided. In addition, measures of English and Mathematics self-concept were obtained. Confidence ratings from the Vocabulary test showed overconfidence, while those from the perceptual task showed underconfidence. Confidence ratings from the perceptual task revealed poorer discrimination between correct and incorrect items than did those from the other two tasks. While feedback produced better discrimination, and slower responding for the RPM test, higher confidence rating and bias scores were obtained for the Vocabulary test. Correlations between the confidence judgment scores indicate that there is a separate self-confidence trait that is different from ability factors reflecting the speed and accuracy of performance on cognitive test items. English self-concept was found to share low correlation with Vocabulary accuracy and confidence rating measures, a result that was analogous to that obtained for Mathematics self-concept and RPM test score. The results of this and earlier studies are discussed in terms of the construct of self-confidence and in relationship to theories of intelligence and personality.

Individual differences in speed of mental processing and human cognitive abilities: Toward a taxonomic model

Abstract Extensive research within the field of learning and individual differences focuses upon the relationship between general intelligence and process measures derived from elementary cognitive tasks (ECTs). This emphasis has ignored data indicating that cognitive abilities are best described by three levels (or strata). It has also been suggested that mental speed is a unitary construct, although it is more likely to have a complex structure. To address shortcomings evident in this literature, a multivariate investigation ( N = 179) was conducted. Factor analysis of 25 psychometric indices gave seven factors postulated under the theory of fluid (G f ) and crystallized (G c ) intelligence. Correlations between cognitive abilities and parameters derived from 11 ECTs indicated that G f (alone) was related to processing speed. This relationship is seemingly dependent upon experimental manipulations of task complexity. Regarding the factorial structure of mental speed, the results were unequivocal: Broad second-order factors may be derived from both ECTs and psychometric tests. These constructs are independent from abilities defined by accuracy scores and collectively define a general cognitive speed factor. Implications of these findings are discussed. It would appear that mental speed is more intricate than proposed, and that cognitive complexity (reflected in stimulus-response compatibility effects) plays a crucial role in its ontogenesis. In addition, several explanatory models linking intelligence to processing speed are untenable. It is likely that the search for a basic process of intelligence by means of mental speed frameworks (alone) is misguided. Recently, within the field of individual differences, there has been “an explosion of experimental studies into the speed of mental processes” (H.J. Eysenck 1995, p. 225). Various tasks, ranging from those paradigms assessing simple, psychomotor movements and on up through to measures of complex problem solving and psychometric test performance, have been employed (Stankov & Roberts 1997). The present study was designed to explore speed of processing constructs within a structural model of human cognitive abilities. Utilizing the evidence presented in Carrolls (1993) extensive reanalysis of the main data sets collected within the psychometric discipline this century, the structural model of cognitive abilities adopted is that known as the theory of fluid and crystallized intelligence (see Horn & Noll 1994; Stankov et al. 1995). In contrast, the mental speed measures selected for investigation in this study were chosen on the basis of both experimental and psychometric findings that rely on disparate accounts (e.g., information theory). Notably, mental speed constructs are not presently encapsulated within a single unifying model. Another major aim of the present study was to redress this imbalance by establishing a rapprochement between conceptual models of mental speed and human cognitive abilities.

Ultimate validity of psychological tests

Abstract This paper presents the outcome of a large-scale epidemiological study which shows that a test of general intelligence—The Australian Army General Classification test—is a good predictor of mid-life mortality. This conclusion was reached through a series of univariate and multivariate (i.e. multiple regression) analyses in which death rate was employed as the criterion and 57 psychological and demographic variables acted as predictors.

Primary aging, secondary aging, and intelligence.

The distinction between primary aging, representing innate maturational processes, and secondary aging, representing the effects of environment and disease (Busse, 1969), was used to develop a model for the assessment of factors that are associated with age-related individual differences in intelligence. Intelligence was measured by performance on a number of tests that measure cognitive abilities known to decline with age. In a hierarchical multiple regression analysis, primary aging and education but not health explained a significant portion of the variance in fluid intelligence. Chronological age had a residual effect over and above that of primary and secondary aging, indicating that there was remaining age-associated variance unaccounted for in the proposed model. The results suggest that the model of primary and secondary aging is a valid means of operationalizing chronological age.

Measurement and statistical models in the study of personality and intelligence.

Theorizing about personality and intelligence structure initially was limited to prescientific literary and philosophical “insights” (see Howard, 1993). Among these early psychological approaches. Freudian psychoanalytic theory almost certainly has had the major influence on thinking about human personality during the early 20th century, although psychoanalysis itself has now come under critical scrutiny (see H. J. Eysenck, 1985a; Masson, 1990). Another prominent theorist was Murray, who postulated such “needs” as abasement, achievement, aggression, change, cognitive structure, endurance, nurturance, order, sentience, and understanding. Likewise, Jung’s introversion-extraversion theory has been influential. The comparatively subjective models of theorists such as Freud, Adler, Jung, Fromm, Erikson, Homey, Maslow, and Sullivan, however, must now be rejected as scientifically unacceptable. Around 1920, the emphasis changed from clinical premetric speculations to more quantitative and overtly experimental approaches, along with recognition of the ability and personality sphere concepts. The inadequacy of socioenvironmental explanations of personality, though, has been amply demonstrated by Zuckerman (1991). Personality is not solely the outcome of family and social conditioning. H. J. Eysenck (1991) has pointed out that these theories are essentially untestable; they are based on speculative or falsified deductions, and they ignore virtually all the experimental and empirical research conducted this century.

The Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB): Little more than acculturated learning (Gc)!?☆

The Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) is administered to over 1 million participants in the USA each year, serving either as a screening test for military enlistees or as a guidance counseling device in high schools. In this paper, we examine the factorial composition of the ASVAB in relation to the theory of fluid and crystallized intelligence and Carrolls [1993. Human cognitive abilities: a survey of factor-analytic studies. New York: Cambridge Univ. Press.] three-stratum model. In two studies (N=349, N=6751), participants were administered both the ASVAB and tests designed to measure factors underlying these (largely) analogous models. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) of correlational data suggested that the ASVAB primarily measures acculturated learning [crystallized intelligence (Gc)]. This evidence does not support the frequent claim that this test measures psychometric g. Our conclusion is that the ASVAB should be revised to incorporate the assessment of additional broad cognitive ability factors, particularly fluid intelligence and learning and memory constructs, if it is to maintain its postulated function.