Role of Mental Abilities and Conscientiousness in Explaining College Grades

IQ Research
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A new study in the ICA Journal investigates the utility of general cognitive ability (g), specific cognitive abilities (s), individual tests, and personality traits for predicting college GPA in college graduates. The findings:

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:white_check_mark: g is the best single predictor of college GPA.
:white_check_mark: The only personality trait with predictive power was conscientiousness.
:white_check_mark: After controlling for g, almost all individual tests had little predictive power. This means that when the individual test scores did predict college grades, it was because the test was measuring general intelligence.
:white_check_mark: There was a conscientiousness x g interaction, but it had no practical significance. This means that the effects of being smart and being conscientious are additive. You don’t get an extra academic boost from being both smart and conscientious.

From the authors: “Those looking to predict college performance would do well to use a g-loaded predictor, instead of predictors in sub-areas or domain-specific abilities” (p. 14).

The general findings support previous work and supports the mainstream view that (1) IQ is a powerful and (2) personality covers important non-cognitive behaviors that IQ tests don’t measure. That can give researchers and the public more confidence in using these tests when making predictions.

Link to original post: https://x.com/RiotIQ/status/2011821174079037494?s=20
Link to full article: https:/​/​doi.org/​10.65550/​001c.154598

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This makes intuitive sense. Being smart helps you learn the material, being conscientious helps you actually do the work. But they’re separate things that just add together. I’m a bit surprised there wasn’t more of an interaction effect though. You’d think being both smart AND hardworking would create some kind of synergy, but apparently not according to this data.

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The fact that specific cognitive abilities didn’t add much predictive power beyond g is really interesting. So it doesn’t matter if you’re specifically good at verbal vs math vs spatial reasoning, what matters is your overall intelligence level? That’s kind of reassuring actually. Means you don’t need some perfect cognitive profile to succeed in college, just decent general ability and willingness to put in effort.