Personality and
IQ have traditionally been viewed as distinct domains of human functioning.
However, research over the past three decades suggests that IQ is a personality
trait. In an excellent book chapter, personality neuroscientist Colin
DeYoung points out
that many personality traits involve cognitive processes and abilities. It’s
just that IQ is primarily measured with ability tests, whereas personality
tests are primarily measured with questionnaires. But this is more a
reflection of a lack of ingenuity on the part of psychologists than a real
difference in domain of human functioning.
It’s theoretically possible
to measure personality traits through ability tests. For instance,
agreeableness could be measured through tests of perspective taking,
conscientiousness could be measured through tests of self-control, and
neuroticism could be measured through measures of emotional self-regulation.
Viewing IQ as a personality trait is helpful because it puts IQ in perspective.
We can take a birds eye view of all the many fascinating ways we differ from
one another in cognitive processing, emotion, and motivation, while seeing
where IQ fits into that bigger picture.
To help us see
that picture, I analyzed data from the Eugene-Springfield community sample, which consisted of
478 mostly White participants from Eugene and Springfield, Oregon. Participants
ranged in age from 20 to 85 years, and spanned all levels of educational
attainment. The sample consisted of 200 males and 281 females. While the sample
isn’t ethnically diverse, it does have a pretty good range of IQ and
personality, so we can get some sense of how IQ relates to personality in the
general population. The IQ test that
participants took consisted of 15 multiple-choice items that measured knowledge
and abstract reasoning. The personality
test measured 45
dimensions of human personality.
Consistent
with prior research, IQ was most strongly related
to openness to experience. Out of 9 dimensions of openness to experience,
8 out of 9 were positively related to IQ: intellectual engagement, intellectual
creativity, mental quickness, intellectual competence, introspection,
ingenuity, intellectual depth, and imagination. Interestingly, IQ was much more
strongly related to intellectual engagement and mental quickness than
imagination, ingenuity, or intellectual depth, and IQ was not related to
sensitivity to beauty.
Out of 45
dimensions of personality, 23 dimensions were not related to IQ. This included
gregariousness, friendliness, assertiveness, poise, talkativeness, social
understanding, warmth, pleasantness, empathy, cooperation, sympathy,
conscientiousness, efficiency, dutifulness, purposefulness, cautiousness,
rationality, perfectionism, calmness, impulse control,
imperturbability, cool-headedness, and tranquility. These qualities were
not directly relevant to IQ.
8
dimensions of personality outside the openness to experience domain were
positively related to IQ, including organization, toughness,
provocativeness, leadership, self-disclosure, emotional stability, moderation,
and happiness– although the correlations were much smaller than with
intellectual engagement and mental quickness. IQ was negatively related
to orderliness, morality, nurturance, tenderness, and sociability, but again,
the negative correlations were much smaller than the relationships among IQ,
intellectual engagement, and mental quickness.
Given this
data, where does IQ fit into the personality puzzle? While this is just a single
dataset, it is consistent with other studies suggesting that the most relevant
personality domain is openness to experience, particularly the dimensions that
reflect the ability and drive for conscious exploration of inner mental experience.
This is certainly an important slice of personality, but at the same time these
findings illustrate that there are many more ways we differ from each other in
cognition, emotion, and motivation that are not well measured by IQ tests.
© 2014 Scott Barry Kaufman, All Rights Reserved.
image credit: istockphoto
Note: Thanks to Colin DeYoung for providing me with the
Eugene-Springfield dataset. For more correlations between IQ and personality,
see the supplementary data [1, 2] for the paper “From madness to genius: The openness/intellect trait
domains as a paradoxical simplex“, authored by Colin DeYoung,
Rachael Grazioplene, and Jordan Peterson.
If you’re interested in the finer details of my analysis, see
below. Correlations with IQ in parentheses. * = p < .05; ** = p < .01.
Note that I changed some of the IPIP
AB5C facet names to better reflect
the content of the items.
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