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IQ is only a minor factor in success

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Re: IQ is only a minor factor in success

#211

Post by mcguire »

errantspark wrote: post #29

I'm probably decently smart, but I'm not rich at all. In fact I'm quite poor by most people's standards. I'm also really happy and work fewer hours per week than anyone I know. If there's one thing I worry about it's that I should be trying to be rich because I probably have the means to make that happen. I might be making 200k/yr if I worked full time. I might be able to start a successful company if I put my mind t…

I suggest you reconsider this. Not necessarily change your answer, but...

Earlier in my career, I chose jobs based on interest, challenge, excitement, and fun. As a result, I had a low salary history.

When I turned 45, I found myself in a position where, in absolute terms, I was making significantly less than the average for my experience and education in my area; relatively, I was making much less than coworkers who were significantly less competent (I make no claims as to my absolute competence) and receiving much less respect. To the extent that I was called in when the sky was falling but was ignored when pointing out that and obviously poor decision would result in the sky falling.

Fortunately, I had a habit of packing money into a brokerage account and a modest inheritance, so I am now happily unemployed and don't have to deal with the horseshit.

I just have to figure out what to do when I'm 75 and broke.

Re: IQ is only a minor factor in success

#212

Post by aisofteng »

hodder wrote: post #190
pc86 wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd put this up there with racism, sexism and other forms of discrimination. This is probably the most offensive thing in this thread. You are allowed to disagree with other people's choices. You are allowed to voice that disagreement, even publicly. People are allowed to think you're stupid for caring whether or not someone else has children. Nothing about any of that is even remotely "discrimination" and to imply…

I'd argue that being harsh to women for their reproductive choices is a key component of modern sexism. Discrimination has a variety of forms.

It takes a man and a woman to have a child. Stop trying to shoehorn cries of sexism into everything.

Re: IQ is only a minor factor in success

#213

Post by hsitz »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #164

The actual paper, available on sci-hub, does not agree with this innumerate journalist's interpretation of it. http://www.pnas.org.sci-hub.ac/content/113/47/13354.short?rs... In fact, the paper shows that IQ is a great predictor. Personality is a much worse predictor on highly g-loaded tasks, and a good predictor on some others (e.g. wages). But (IQ, personality) pairs are an even better predictor than IQ or personal…

After reading your comment, I was surprised to take a look at the paper and find that it does, indeed, appear to support conclusion that IQ is less important than many people think. Neither the paper nor the linked article argue that IQ is not a factor. But both say that other factors are more important, this is clear from both the abstract and the first paragraph of the article, where it says, "Personality is generally more predictive than IQ on a variety of important life outcomes."

Of course, personality+IQ will be more predictive than either alone. But the "innumerate" journalist seems to me to have done a better job of capturing the gist of the paper than you. (Whether the paper's methodology and analysis are sound is a different question from whether the journalist reported its findings correctly.)

Re: IQ is only a minor factor in success

#215

Post by whenwillitstop »

cyberjunkie wrote: post #66

There are many parts to this. We're talking about IQ and these same people may not necessarily be emotionally intelligent, for one. A lot of people with high IQs may also be very rational / logical in their approach towards life. They might think objectively, and that's the point. They're right - they don't need the excess wealth at all. They've accounted for everything they needed to - their life, their security, an…

This is a narrative, it's not what happens in reality.

Re: IQ is only a minor factor in success

#216

Post by hodder »

aisofteng wrote: post #212
hodder wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd argue that being harsh to women for their reproductive choices is a key component of modern sexism. Discrimination has a variety of forms.

It takes a man and a woman to have a child. Stop trying to shoehorn cries of sexism into everything.

Sure. And women and men can both obviously face discrimination over their reproductive choices. The discrimination just disproportionally falls on women. Ie. less likely to be hired because she may have children. Expected behaviours and judgements if she doesn't.

Re: IQ is only a minor factor in success

#217

Post by yummyfajitas »

mcguire wrote: post #194
yummyfajitas wrote: post #164

The actual paper, available on sci-hub, does not agree with this innumerate journalist's interpretation of it. http://www.pnas.org.sci-hub.ac/content/113/47/13354.short?rs... In fact, the paper shows that IQ is a great predictor. Personality is a much worse predictor on highly g-loaded tasks, and a good predictor on some others (e.g. wages). But (IQ, personality) pairs are an even better predictor than IQ or personal…

Check Fig. 4 and the discussion: " Column 1 in Fig. 4 in the first block of columns (corresponding to wages) shows that IQ predicts wages, but the predictive power is small (around 1% [Adj. R squared of 0.02 in Fig. 4). Column 2 in Fig. 4 shows that self-esteem, locus of control, antisocial behavior, and neuroticism, taken together, are more important determinants of wages [R sq. Of .05]. Both IQ and personality rema…

The problem is that achievement tests and grades are a measure of IQ.

Imagine I have a direct relationship, y = g. Now I measure compute a noisy data set, (x,y) with x = g + noise. Depending on the size of the noise I'll discover that y is correlated with g with some R^2. My regression coefficient will come out to be approximately y = 1x.

Now imagine I made a new noisy data set, (x1, x2, x3, y). Here x1 = g + noise, x2 = g + noise, x3 = g + noise. Here x1 might be IQ, x2 might be SAT or other such g-loaded test, x3 grades, etc. My new regression coefficients are y = (1/3)x1 + (1/3)x2 + (1/3)x3. Suddenly x1 has lost 2/3 of it's predictive power!

The problem is that my measurements are correlated, that's all. And as you note, table 2 shows a pretty solid correlation between IQ, personality, achievement and grades.

If you actually want to draw the conclusion that the article is trying to draw, you need to decouple IQ from the other measurements.

Re: IQ is only a minor factor in success

#218

Post by WhitneyLand »

How much of a factor is mental health in success?

Someone could be a 4th standard deviation IQ genius yet be debilitated by anxiety, depression, or some other condition.

On the flipside many successful people have credited drugs with some part of their success by boosting ambition, endurance, creativity, confidence, etc. If a Cocaine substitute was discovered that had no negative side effects, could this positively affect scientific progress?

Occasionally a mental "disability" can seemingly be related to success. So many great scientists have been on the Autistic spectrum, or suffered from severe OCD. Can the success of the person be separated from the disorder? Could "cures" for Autism and OCD actually negatively affect scientific progress?

Re: IQ is only a minor factor in success

#219

Post by yummyfajitas »

hsitz wrote: post #213
yummyfajitas wrote: post #164

The actual paper, available on sci-hub, does not agree with this innumerate journalist's interpretation of it. http://www.pnas.org.sci-hub.ac/content/113/47/13354.short?rs... In fact, the paper shows that IQ is a great predictor. Personality is a much worse predictor on highly g-loaded tasks, and a good predictor on some others (e.g. wages). But (IQ, personality) pairs are an even better predictor than IQ or personal…

After reading your comment, I was surprised to take a look at the paper and find that it does, indeed, appear to support conclusion that IQ is less important than many people think. Neither the paper nor the linked article argue that IQ is not a factor. But both say that other factors are more important, this is clear from both the abstract and the first paragraph of the article, where it says, "Personality is genera…

I don't know what "less important than many people think" means. It's true that the article suggests people think 50% of variance is explained by IQ, and it turns out that literally nothing in this paper explains even 25% of variance.

On log-wages, IQ explains 30-50% of the explained variance depending on whether you go by figure 4 or 5. It does a similar job for education and welfare usage.

So it seems that if people have any misconceptions, it's merely about how much of the variance in log wages at age 40 is explainable by early life measurements.

Re: IQ is only a minor factor in success

#220

Post by beachstartup »

Fnoord wrote: post #133
beachstartup wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

no, being rich is having. in order to get rich, you must do. many smart people overthink, constantly, and to a fault. it usually manifests in the form of 'what if something goes wrong???' and spirals from there. any rich person will tell you, things go wrong constantly, and at the worst possible time. the only important thing is your confidence in your ability to fix things when they break.

> it usually manifests in the form of 'what if something goes wrong???' and spirals from there. That is because we compare to the successful rich only, not all those who tried to become rich and utterly failed. This is just masculine vs feminine thinking. Or VC versus slow growth. Or the way we nurture children in the West vs cats, or in Africa. Or quality vs quantity. You never hear about all the times people prayed…

i swear all you trolls read from the same exact playbook. "nobody hears about the failures"?

really? i hear about plenty of failures all around me. i see restaurants shutting down left and right. i see people having mental breakdowns, public freakouts, people drop out of school. marriages fall apart, houses get repossessed, stock markets crash, people go bankrupt, even commit suicide.

startups failing and people not getting rich is honestly the least, most insignificant of all of life's failures.

but so what? so just do nothing with your life? never try anything? grow up.

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