This article by Faye Flam at Bloomberg touches on a subject we discussed last week:
How much is a child’s future success determined by innate intelligence? Economist James Heckman says it’s not what people think. He likes to ask educated non-scientists — especially politicians and policy makers — how much of the difference between people’s incomes can be tied to IQ. Most guess around 25 percent, even 50 percent, he says. But the data suggest a much smaller influence: about 1 or 2 percent.
So if IQ is only a minor factor in success, what is it that separates the low earners from the high ones? Or, as the saying goes: If you’re so smart, why aren’t you rich?
Science doesn’t have a definitive answer, although luck certainly plays a role. But another key factor is personality, according to a paper Heckman co-authored in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences last month. He found financial success was correlated with conscientiousness, a personality trait marked by diligence, perseverance and self-discipline.
There are other sorts of development that play a role in success as well. I’ve read other studies finding that social-emotional development is more closely correlated with success than intellectual development is.
But I think all of these analyses are a bit simplistic. The world is not linear. There are probably diminishing returns not only to intelligence, social-emotional development, perseverance, hard work, but even to luck.
And to the moral lessons that can be derived from events.
Luck is the keenest.
Full many a gem of purest ray serene,
The dark unfathom’d caves of ocean bear:
Full many a flow’r is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.
Heckman is wrong – not exactly an unusual thing for an economist.
This is a list of the 25 highest-paid occupations in the US: https://www.careerinfonet.org/oview5.asp?level=overall Show me all the ones that can be held by a person with a blow average IQ. The answer is none. If the set of all people who have below IQ 100 is excluded from the most lucrative positions, it is absurd to pretend the IQ correlation is insignificant.
Looking beyond that it’s nice to see an actual American admit that luck is important. DNA, environment, free will and random chance play their parts but Americans just hate the idea that anything matters other than free will. Emphasizing free will is part of a world view that conflates morality and financial success, which in turn justifies swinish behavior.
Intelligence definitely gives one aptitude and the innate ability to see levels and dimensions others simply can’t see, let alone comprehend. However, the engine to these special cognitive senses is motivation and yes, drive. If those are missing, many talents and capabilities simply remain untapped and/or dormant.
One wonders how this would apply in a fatalist society where free will is frowned upon and acceptance of one’s place pending fates’ whims is.
michael-Has been a long time since I read over Heckman’s work, but IIRC, I think he looked at variance within groups. What separated the richest anesthesiologist (first on your list) from the ones earning average salaries? (I can answer that if you want, but it doesn’t involve intelligence.)
Steve
Steve: Variance within anesthesiologists’ income would of course not be correlated to IQ, but that’s not the point given that the set of all anesthesiologists excludes a priori everyone further down the IQ slope. It would be intellectual sleight of hand to assert that IQ is only minimally correlated with income if we are limiting ourselves to looking at relatively minor variations within a set already defined by IQ.
It’s like saying that an Ivy League degree is not about IQ because within the set of Ivy League grads there are variations in income that are not strictly correlated with IQ – ignoring the fact that the set of all Ivy graduates excludes 100% of those with low IQs and yet clearly conveys huge economic advantages.
To put it another way, in any given occupation, will IQ 131 outperform IQ 130? Of course not, the differences are irrelevant – we’ve already excluded anyone beyond a standard deviation. But will anesthesiologists out-earn garbage men? Yes. And is IQ a huge factor when determining whether you’ll be spending your life passing gas or picking up trash? Obviously. Within a given IQ range will other factors play a part? Again, obviously. Lies, damn lies and statistics.
So success is defined narrowly as income ?
There are, I believe probably better ways to define success, but if you want an objective, easily quantified metric, what would you suggest instead?
Steve
It’s what’s called a “first order approximation”.
Then I’m the most successful person here.
Personally, off the top of my head, I’d throw in a good parent, spouse, friend, mentor and role model. An all round contributor to the community. Someone personally satisfied with their lives and and relationships. Need I go on?
One of my former partners made more money than me, but did not achieve success in any of the other facets I cited. A tragic figure, really. Miley Cyrus? Hillary Clinton? Bernie Madoff? The Enron crew? Mike Tyson?
I respectfully submit that you guys might want to give that one more consideration.