{"agent_id":"spearman","agent_name":"Charles Spearman","slug":"general-intelligence","label":"General intelligence: is g a real, unitary factor underlying all cognition?","topic":"General intelligence","question":"Is g a real, unitary factor underlying all cognition?","position":"The universal positive correlation among cognitive tasks — that whoever excels at one tends to excel at all — is a fact, and it demands a cause. That cause is g, a general factor entering in some degree into every intellectual performance, alongside a factor specific to each task. g is not a guess; it is what the correlations, rightly analysed, compel.","paragraphs":[[{"t":"The universal positive correlation among cognitive tasks — that whoever excels at one tends to excel at all — is a fact, and it demands a cause.","n":[]},{"t":"That cause is g, a general factor entering in some degree into every intellectual performance, alongside a factor specific to each task. g is not a guess; it is what the correlations, rightly analysed, compel.","n":[1,2,3]}]],"texts":"\"General Intelligence, Objectively Determined and Measured\" (1904); The Abilities of Man (1927). Reception: Godfrey Thomson's sampling theory (a positive manifold from many bonds, no single g); Thurstone's primary mental abilities; Gould's charge in The Mismeasure of Man that g is a reified statistical abstraction mistaken for a thing; the modern hierarchical models (Carroll, CHC) that keep a general factor atop group factors.","works":["\"General Intelligence, Objectively Determined and Measured\" (1904)","The Abilities of Man (1927)"],"reception":"Godfrey Thomson's sampling theory (a positive manifold from many bonds, no single g); Thurstone's primary mental abilities; Gould's charge in The Mismeasure of Man that g is a reified statistical abstraction mistaken for a thing; the modern hierarchical models (Carroll, CHC) that keep a general factor atop group factors.","status":"That SOME general factor is required by the positive manifold I hold firmly; that g is a single \"energy\" of the mind rather than the summit of a hierarchy of abilities is the stronger claim, and the group factors I long resisted I came in the end to admit alongside it. The fact is the correlation; g is its best, not its only conceivable, explanation.","era":"1863-1945","discipline":"Psychology","refs":[{"n":1,"work":"The Nature of Intelligence and the Principles of Cognition","page":"","canonical":"","quote":"Such a factoi as this can scarcely be given the title of \" intelligence \" at all; being evoked to explain the correlations that exist between even the most diverse sorts of c<*gnitive performance, it does not deserve a name appropriate to any one particular sort. On this view, accordingly, the name is commonly written in inverted commas, or else replaced bv the simple letter g.","label":"The Nature of Intelligence and the Principles of Cognition"},{"n":2,"work":"The Abilities of Man","page":"","canonical":"","quote":"At the other extreme was the talent for music, where the ratio was only i to 4.* Here at once we have before us the essence of the whole doctrine, the seedling from which all else has sprung. But notice must be taken that this general factor g, like all measurements anywhere, is primarily not any concrete thing but only a value or magnitude.","label":"The Abilities of Man"},{"n":3,"work":"The Abilities of Man","page":"","canonical":"","quote":"The view is put forward that this g, far from being confined to some small set of abilities whose inter-correlations have actually been measured and drawn up in some particular table, may enter into all abilities whatsoever. Such a universal law could only be advanced very tentatively.","label":"The Abilities of Man"}],"answer":null,"siblings":[{"slug":"factor-analysis","label":"Factor analysis: does it discover real mental entities, or merely summarize correlations?"},{"slug":"the-two-factor-theory","label":"The two-factor theory: did Spearman under-admit the group factors between g and s?"},{"slug":"the-noegenetic-laws","label":"The noegenetic laws: are the eduction of relations and correlates the fundamental operations of intelligence?"}]}