Spearman's hypothesis

The English psychologist Charles Spearman, in his 1904 book, General Intelligence - Objectively Determined and Measured, described his two-factor theory of intelligence, using his strong background in statistics.

Related Topics:
Psychologist - Charles Spearman - Statistics

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According to his theory, the performance of any intellectual act requires a general intellectual ability ("g") as well as some specific factors ("s"). While the g factor is available to the same individual to the same degree for all intellectual acts, the "s" factors are specific to an act and vary in strength from one act to another. He showed that while one's performance at tasks requiring strong general intellectual ability will be highly predictable by establishing his "g" beforehand, tasks requiring strong specific abilities will result less predictable performance.

Related Topics:
General intellectual ability - G factor

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His thesis was that in general - at a wide variety of tasks - a person's general intellectual ability (his "g") is a statistically significant predictor of performance - that is, his performance can be predicted significantly better by his known "g" than by chance.

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