Specific Abilities in the Workplace: More Important Than g?

Abstract

A frequently reported finding is that general mental ability (GMA) is the best single psychological predictor of job performance. Furthermore, specific abilities often add little incremental validity beyond GMA, suggesting that they are not useful for predicting job performance criteria once general intelligence is accounted for. We review these findings and their historical background, along with different approaches to studying the relative influence of g and narrower abilities. Then, we discuss several recent studies that used relative importance analysis to study this relative influence and that found that specific abilities are equally good, and sometimes better, predictors of work performance than GMA. We conclude by discussing the implications of these findings and sketching future areas for research.

Keywords: bi-factor model; general mental ability; hierarchical factor model; higher-order factor model; intelligence; job performance; nested-factors model; relative importance analysis; specific abilities; specific aptitude theory.

Figure 1

Relative weights analysis of the relative importance of general mental ability and Thurstone’s [38] Primary Mental Abilities in job performance in the meta-analytic study by Lang et al. [60].

Figure 2

Incremental validity of Thurstone’s [38] Primary Mental Abilities over general mental ability in job performance in the meta-analytic study by Lang et al. [60].

Figure 3

Relative weights analysis of the relative importance of general mental ability and five narrower cognitive abilities in three job performance criteria using the published correlation matrix from Project A [7]. Results were originally published in Lang and Bliese [76].

Figure 4

Incremental validity analysis of the incremental validity of five narrower cognitive abilities over general mental ability in three job performance criteria using the published correlation matrix from Project A [7]. Results were originally published in Lang and Bliese [76].

Figure 5

Relative weights analysis of the relative importance of general mental ability and four narrower cognitive abilities in two training success criteria in the Stanhope and Surface [79] study.

Figure 6

Incremental validity analysis of the incremental validity of four narrower cognitive abilities over general mental ability in two training success criteria in the Stanhope and Surface [79] study.