What IQ Tests Test

Abstract

As we approach the centenary of the first practical intelligence test, there is still little scientific agreement about how human intelligence should be described, whether IQ tests actually measure it, and if they don't, what they actually do measure. The controversies and debates that result are well known. This paper brings together results and theory rarely considered (at least in conjunction with one another) in the IQ literature. It suggests that all of the population variance in IQ scores can be described in terms of a nexus of sociocognitive-affective factors that differentially prepares individuals for the cognitive, affective and performance demands of the test—in effect that the test is a measure of social class background, and not one of the ability for complex cognition as such. The rest of the paper shows how such factors can explain the correlational evidence usually thought to validate IQ tests, including associations with educational attainments, occupational performance and elementary cognitive tasks, as well as the intercorrelations among tests themselves.

Culture of Science: Strange History of the Methodological Thinking in Psychology

“…The possibility that human mind is whole and all its aspects may be reflected in test results is ignored. However, as demonstrated by Richardson (2002), variance in IQ scores can result from many non-cognitive factors such as the extent to which people of different social classes and cultures have acquired a specific form of intelligence, academic orientation and self-efficacy beliefs, test anxiety, self-confidence and other social-cognitiveaffective factors. Again, interpreting IQ as characteristic of cognitive ability alone can be very misleading; IQ may reflect many additional sides of mind in addition to problem-solving ability per se.…”

Does IQ Really Predict Job Performance?

“…It is always a possibility, of course, that different correlates, even though resolving as a statistical ''common factor,'' may well not be the same ''thing,'' or even the thing it is thought to be, so that mischaracterization can occur. In the case of mental test performances, the general factor may not even be cognitive in origin (Richardson, 2002; see the following sections).…”

Variables in Psychology: A Critique of Quantitative Psychology

“…But variability in IQ is also dependent on variability in socialcultural background related to a specific form of intelligence, academic orientation, self-efficacy beliefs, test anxiety, self-confidence, etc. (Richardson 2002). If in some sample variation is caused by one underlying mechanism and in another sample by another mechanism, then in the composite sample no dependencies may emerge even though both underlying mechanisms separately would reveal clear dependencies.…”