What Intelligence Tests Miss

Critics of intelligence tests writers such as Robert Sternberg, Howard Gardner, and Daniel Goleman have argued in recent years that these tests neglect important qualities such as emotion, empathy, and interpersonal skills. However, such critiques imply that though intelligence tests may miss certain key noncognitive areas, they encompass most of what is important in the cognitive domain. In this book, Keith E. Stanovich challenges this widely held assumption.Stanovich shows that IQ tests (or their proxies, such as the SAT) are radically incomplete as measures of cognitive functioning. They fail to assess traits that most people associate with good thinking, skills such as judgment and decision making. Such cognitive skills are crucial to real-world behavior, affecting the way we plan, evaluate critical evidence, judge risks and probabilities, and make effective decisions. IQ tests fail to assess these skills of rational thought, even though they are measurable cognitive processes. Rational thought is just as important as intelligence, Stanovich argues, and it should be valued as highly as the abilities currently measured on intelligence tests.

How to assess critical aspects of cognitive functioning that are not measured by IQ tests: rational thinking skills. Why are we surprised when smart people act foolishly? Smart people do foolish things all the time. Misjudgments and bad decisions by highly educated bankers and money managers, for example, brought us the financial crisis of 2008. Smart people do foolish things because intelligence is not the same as the capacity for rational thinking. The Rationality Quotient explains that these two traits, often (and incorrectly) thought of as one, refer to different cognitive functions. The standard IQ test, the authors argue, doesn't measure any of the broad components of rationality—adaptive responding, good judgment, and good decision making. The authors show that rational thinking, like intelligence, is a measurable cognitive competence. Drawing on theoretical work and empirical research from the last two decades, they present the first prototype for an assessment of rational thinking analogous to the IQ test: the CART (Comprehensive Assessment of Rational Thinking). The authors describe the theoretical underpinnings of the CART, distinguishing the algorithmic mind from the reflective mind. They discuss the logic of the tasks used to measure cognitive biases, and they develop a unique typology of thinking errors. The Rationality Quotient explains the components of rational thought assessed by the CART, including probabilistic and scientific reasoning; the avoidance of “miserly” information processing; and the knowledge structures needed for rational thinking. Finally, the authors discuss studies of the CART and the social and practical implications of such a test. An appendix offers sample items from the test.

"In this book, Keith Stanovich attempts to resolve the Great Rationality Debate in cognitive science-the debate about how much irrationality to ascribe to human cognition. Stanovich shows how the insights of dual-process theory and evolutionary psychology can be combined to explain why humans are sometimes irrational even though they possess cognitive machinery of remarkable adaptiveness. Using a unique individual differences approach, Stanovich shows that to fully characterize differences in rational thinking, the traditional System 2 of dual-process theory must be partitioned into the reflective mind and the algorithmic mind. He posits that we need to supersede dual-process theories with tripartite models of cognition. The key operations of the algorithmic mind and the reflective mind that support human rationality are discussed in the book. The key function of the algorithmic mind is to sustain the processing of decoupled secondary representations in cognitive simulation. The key function of the reflective mind, in contrast, is to detect the need to interrupt autonomous processing and to begin simulation activities. Stanovich uses the algorithmic/reflective distinction to develop a taxonomy of cognitive errors that are made on tasks in the heuristics and biases literature. He presents empirical data to show that the tendency to make these thinking errors is only modestly related to intelligence. Using the new tripartite model of mind, Stanovich shows how rationality is a more encompassing construct than intelligence-when both are properly defined-and that IQ tests fail to assess individual differences in rational thought. Stanovich discusses the types of thinking processes that would be measured in an assessment of rational thinking"--Provided by publisher.

Why we don't live in a post-truth society but rather a myside society: what science tells us about the bias that poisons our politics. In The Bias That Divides Us, psychologist Keith Stanovich argues provocatively that we don't live in a post-truth society, as has been claimed, but rather a myside society. Our problem is not that we are unable to value and respect truth and facts, but that we are unable to agree on commonly accepted truth and facts. We believe that our side knows the truth. Post-truth? That describes the other side. The inevitable result is political polarization. Stanovich shows what science can tell us about myside bias: how common it is, how to avoid it, and what purposes it serves. Stanovich explains that although myside bias is ubiquitous, it is an outlier among cognitive biases. It is unpredictable. Intelligence does not inoculate against it, and myside bias in one domain is not a good indicator of bias shown in any other domain. Stanovich argues that because of its outlier status, myside bias creates a true blind spot among the cognitive elite--those who are high in intelligence, executive functioning, or other valued psychological dispositions. They may consider themselves unbiased and purely rational in their thinking, but in fact they are just as biased as everyone else. Stanovich investigates how this bias blind spot contributes to our current ideologically polarized politics, connecting it to another recent trend: the decline of trust in university research as a disinterested arbiter.

IQ tests are routinely encountered in recruitment for various industries, including for jobs in the government, armed forces, and education as well as industry and commerce. Competition is fierce and employers are determined to cut the weak from the strong so it is essential for candidates to be prepared. Ultimate IQ Tests is the biggest book of IQ practice tests available. Written and compiled by experts in IQ testing and brain puzzles, it contains 1000 practice questions organized into 25 tests, with a simple guide to assessing individual performance. With a brand new test in this edition, designed to be more challenging than the others so you can track progress, this is the best one-stop resource to mind puzzles. Working through the questions will help you to improve your vocabulary and develop powers of calculation and logical reasoning. From the best-selling Ultimate series, Ultimate IQ Tests is an invaluable resource if you have to take an IQ test, but it's also great fun if you like to stretch your mind for your own entertainment - and boost your brain power. About the Ultimate series... The Ultimate series contains practical advice on essential job search skills to give you the best chance of getting the job you want. Taking you from your job search to completing an interview, it includes guidance on CV or résumé and cover letter writing, practice questions for passing aptitude, psychometric and other employment tests, and reliable advice for interviewing.

Integrating a decade-long program of empirical research with current cognitive theory, this book demonstrates that psychological research has profound implications for current debates about what it means to be rational. The author brings new evidence to bear on these issues by demonstrating that patterns of individual differences--largely ignored in disputes about human rationality--have strong implications for explanations of the gap between normative and descriptive models of human behavior. Separate chapters show how patterns of individual differences have implications for all of the major critiques of purported demonstrations of human irrationality in the heuristics and biases literature. In these critiques, it has been posited that experimenters have observed performance errors rather than systematically irrational responses; the tasks have required computational operations that exceed human cognitive capacity; experimenters have applied the wrong normative model to the task; and participants have misinterpreted the tasks. In a comprehensive set of studies, Stanovich demonstrates that gaps between normative and descriptive models of performance on some tasks can be accounted for by positing these alternative explanations, but that not all discrepancies from normative models can be so explained. Individual differences in rational thought can in part be predicted by psychological dispositions that are interpreted as characteristic biases in people's intentional-level psychologies. Presenting the most comprehensive examination of individual differences in the heuristics and biases literature that has yet been published, experiments and theoretical insights in this volume contextualize the heuristics and biases literature exemplified in the work of various investigators.

Advanced IQ Tests is for those who want to be the best. If you want to move on from the standard level of IQ practice tests and test yourself on more challenging questions, then this book is for you. It contains 360 difficult practice questions designed to measure an advanced level of numerical, verbal and spatial ability, as well as your logical analysis, lateral thinking and problem solving skills.Advanced IQ Tests is particularly useful if you are facing graduate or managerial selection tests but is also for those who just want to pit their skills against some of the toughest questions available. It can help you to increase your brain power by taking on greater mental tasks and challenges, and of course by tackling the more advanced questions you will automatically improve your performance on the standard IQ tests.

This title focuses on applying critical thinking techniques to standard concepts in psychology and teaches students to recognise and critically appraise pseudoscience.