2017 Personality 18: Biology & Traits: Openness/Intelligence/Creativity I

0:00[Music]

0:13well we're going to continue our

0:14discussion of the big five traits today

0:17and I'm going to talk to you about

0:19openness and

0:21intelligence um roughly speaking so the

0:25first thing I want to do is put them

0:26into context you need to understand

0:29where in Ence fits in the in the trait

0:32hierarchy structure and so we've we've

0:36looked at this before but you can break

0:38the big five into the big

0:40two plasticity and stability we'll start

0:43with stability here and stable people

0:46are conscientious high in stress

0:49tolerance or emotional stability or low

0:51in neuroticism depending on how you look

0:53at it and high in

0:55agreeableness and then conscientiousness

0:58breaks down into industrious and

1:01orderliness um neuroticism breaks down

1:03into volatility and withdrawal and

1:06agreeableness breaks down into

1:07politeness and

1:09compassion and then for the second major

1:12trait you have the the big two trait you

1:14have plasticity and plasticity is made

1:16up of extraversion and openness and

1:18those look like the reason they Clump

1:20together the reason the first three

1:22Clump together we think is because

1:24they're roughly associated with

1:26serotonergic function um and the reason

1:29that latter two Clump together is

1:31because they're roughly associated with

1:33dopaminergic function and the dopamine

1:35system mediates exploratory behavior in

1:38the face of the unknown but it also

1:40mediates positive emotion and and it's

1:43because in order to move forward into

1:45the

1:46unknown it isn't that you have to

1:48experience positive emotion it's that

1:49the emotion you experience when you're

1:51motivated to move forward into the

1:53unknown and explore is a positive

1:55emotion and positive emotion is very

1:57much also associated with interaction in

1:59the social environment and maybe that's

2:01because a tremendous amount of what

2:03you're doing in the social environment

2:05is essentially exploratory Behavior

2:07right because for example when you're

2:08communicating with people that's

2:11primarily exploratory behavior um so

2:15it's not surprising that the circuitry

2:17overlaps in in that manner um openness

2:21is the one we're going to concentrate on

2:23most particularly today and it it's

2:26openness to experience technically and

2:27it seems to break down into intellect

2:30and and openness proper which is it's

2:33it's intellect which is interest in

2:35ideas maybe facility with ideas and

2:37openness which is more like creativity

2:40that's that's now you can't divide them

2:43into interest and ideas and creativity

2:46so precisely because they they overlap

2:48to a to a great degree but there is

2:51there is reason for differentiating

2:53between them so for example women are

2:55about a third of a standard deviation

2:57higher than men in openness SL

3:00creativity and men are about a third of

3:01a standard deviation higher than women

3:03in interest and ideas and intellect and

3:05that's actually quite a substantial

3:07difference within a trait that's when

3:09the two traits are so highly correlated

3:12so there's reason to do the to do the

3:15fractionation so anyways so we're going

3:19to concentrate on openness today and the

3:22reason that I'm presenting the trait

3:24description first rather than moving

3:26immediately into say IQ and creativity

3:29is because it's reasonable to it's

3:31useful to know that you can take

3:33intelligence and put it in the big five

3:36taxonomy and you can actually measure

3:38intelligence a lot more accurately with

3:40an IQ test and perhaps also with a

3:42creativity test than you can with a

3:44self-report personality test that relies

3:46on adjectives you know because I could

3:48ask you guys well how smart are you on a

3:50scale of 1 to seven and that would be

3:52roughly correlated with your IQ but if I

3:54really wanted to know how smart you were

3:56roughly speaking it would be much better

3:57to give you an IQ test and if I was

4:00wanting to know how creative you are

4:01rather than asking you how creative you

4:03are and getting you to report even

4:05though there would be some accuracy in

4:07that it would be better actually to give

4:08you some of the different tests of

4:10creativity that we'll talk about today

4:12now the weird thing about the big five

4:14or one of the weird things about it is

4:16that we don't have great tests for the

4:19traits independently of self-report for

4:22almost all of the traits so for

4:24example one of the things that I've been

4:26trying to do in my lab for the last 5

4:29years is to find some sort of laboratory

4:31task that conscientious people do better

4:34on or unconscientious people do worse on

4:37and you think that would be simple

4:38because conscientiousness for example is

4:40a very good predictor of long-term life

4:42exess success it's also a very good

4:44predictor of University grades it's not

4:46as good as IQ but it's still a good

4:49predictor but we have had one insanely

4:54difficult time trying to find a

4:55non-self-report test that associate that

4:58that that actually predicts

5:00conscientiousness so much appreciated

5:05yesen

5:08sare no it's neuroticism neuroticism is

5:11associated with being more self-aware

5:13and it's actually it loads on negative

5:15emotion so being self-conscious is

5:17associated with being high in negative

5:19emotion I mean you can assess

5:20neuroticism using tests that that ask

5:24you about anxiety and emotional pain or

5:26depression but that's also not much

5:28different than than than self-report

5:31anyways we're going to concentrate on

5:32openness today and we're going to

5:34concentrate both on creativity and

5:35intelligence and there's actually almost

5:37nothing in Psychology that's more

5:39contentious generally speaking than the

5:42investigations into the the the

5:45technical or the what the the set of

5:47skills and abilities that falls under

5:49Trade openness and the reason for that

5:51and this is especially the case with

5:53intelligence is

5:54that intelligence is actually quite

5:57measurable we've been able to measure it

6:00since roughly the beginning of the of

6:02the of the 20th century um Benet

6:06originated the first I would say

6:09reliable and valid IQ tests and they've

6:12been used quite extensively for a long

6:14period of time and

6:16IQ I'll tell you what IQ is as we go

6:18through this but there isn't anything

6:21that social scientists have been able to

6:22measure more successfully than IQ and

6:25there's nothing that socialist or very

6:27little one there's one exception

6:30the relationship between income

6:32inequality and male homicide is a power

6:36more powerful relationship than the

6:38relationship between IQ say and General

6:40Life success or IQ and general school

6:42Success it's it's even a little stronger

6:44than the relationship between IQ and the

6:47rate at which you learn something new

6:50but other than that it's pretty slim

6:51pickings and so we're going to walk

6:53through very carefully how IQ is IQ

6:57tests are created and formulated and

6:59exactly what it is that they measure and

7:01why and we'll equate that to some degree

7:04to creativity and also differentiate it

7:05from creativity as well making the

7:07assumption that the aspects of openness

7:10intellect and and openness proper are

7:13the proper aspects and that they're

7:14usefully

7:16differentiated so the first thing that

7:18you might want to consider is that the

7:20world is a very complicated place now

7:22we've talked about this before and the

7:24way that you handle there's way too much

7:26complexity for you to handle in its in

7:29its entirety so for example in a room

7:31like this there's an endless number of

7:35phenomena that you could focus your

7:37attention on right from the sort of

7:39macro phenomena which would be the

7:41overall say color or appearance of the

7:43room to the micro phenomena which would

7:45be the details at the highest level of

7:47detail that you're able to perceive that

7:49litter the landscape anywhere and so one

7:51of the problems that you have to solve

7:53when you're operating in the world is

7:54how you perceive the world and we do

7:57that in part by making would say that we

8:00perceive low resolution representations

8:02of the world and we also confuse those

8:04with the world so when I'm looking at

8:05you I'm really looking at a low

8:07represent what I perceive consciously is

8:09a low represent low resolution

8:11representation of you right I only see

8:14the front of you to begin with I only

8:15see your surface

8:17and in some sense you know I even

8:20perceive you in some sense as a more or

8:22less uniform color it's hard to tell

8:24exactly what color skin is it's sort of

8:26a light pink roughly speaking but my my

8:29perception is fairly is fairly I don't

8:32know a better way of putting it than low

8:34resolution and I seem to perceive you at

8:36the level of resolution that's that's

8:38sufficient the the lowest resolution

8:43that's sufficient to facilitate our

8:45interactions because I don't want to

8:47clutter up my perceptions of you when

8:49we're just talking with excess detail so

8:51there's lots of things about you I don't

8:52need to see I certainly can't see any of

8:54your micro structures below the below

8:57the phenomenal level like I can't tell

8:59without tremendous further investigation

9:02What You're Made Of biologically for

9:03example and I certainly can't perceive

9:05the networks of society that you're

9:08engaged in your family or the other

9:10sorts of networks that you're embedded

9:11in I see you here now the front of you

9:14at low resolution and you can tell that

9:17to some degree and we've talked about

9:19this before because if you see say

9:21animated movies that use very low

9:24resolution representations of people

9:26like South Park is a really good example

9:28because the imitate or the animation in

9:30South Park's very iconic and and and and

9:34simple it actually makes almost no

9:36difference to following the story and so

9:38that shows you how iconic your

9:40perception really is can be replaced by

9:42very simple icons and you instantly

9:44adapt to that you know and so we can go

9:46and see The Lego Movie Batman Lego Movie

9:48for example and the fact that it's

9:50Batman which is an abstraction to begin

9:52with and then it's made out of Legos is

9:54almost irrelevant to following the plot

9:56so some people have compared our

9:58perceptions to the user interface on a

10:00computer you know when you're

10:01interacting with your computer you don't

10:03really interact so to speak with the

10:04computer there are iconic

10:06representations on the screen of the

10:08computer that you interact with and

10:10those represent obviously they share

10:12some functional relationship with what's

10:14going on in the computer but mostly

10:16they're there so that you using your

10:18perceptual structures can interact with

10:20the computer in a manner that's easy for

10:22extremely intelligent Apes roughly

10:24speaking now so one of the problems that

10:27you have to solve in the world because

10:28it's so full of detail and so complex is

10:31how do you actually see the world how do

10:33you actually perceive it and it isn't

10:36really self-evident that that's a

10:38problem because you think when you look

10:40at the world that it just presents

10:41itself to you but it's a tremendously

10:43complicated problem and that's partly

10:45why developing artificial intelligence

10:48systems that can actually see the world

10:50and act in it in any real way has proved

10:52to be a much more difficult problem than

10:54people had originally supposed because

10:56you know we were told maybe from the

10:59early 60s onwards that such things as

11:02speech to text or object Rec recognition

11:05or robots that could operate in the

11:07world we're only two or three years away

11:09and well I mean we're in we're in a

11:11situation now where there are some

11:13fairly complicated robots built but

11:14they're still really in their nent form

11:17and it's because perceiving the world

11:18and then figuring out how to act and it

11:19turns out to be a much more complicated

11:22problem than we originally thought

11:24because the borders between things are

11:26not self-evident and what level of

11:28resolution you should be perceiving

11:30things at for say maximal functional

11:32utility is also not self-evident it's

11:35also tied up very strangely and in ways

11:37we don't understand with the nature of

11:39your embodiment you know so for example

11:42we tend to see see things that are handy

11:45because we can pick them up and

11:46manipulate them and we can make use of

11:48them and so to some degree our brains

11:50are evolved to make the world manifest

11:53itself to us in a set of discret usable

11:56tools that's that's a reasonable way of

11:59thinking about it and they're discreet

12:00and usable because we have a certain

12:02kind of biological platform you know

12:04because we have hands and mouths and

12:06because we walk in a bipedal manner then

12:09it's logical for us to break up the

12:11world in a manner that makes operating

12:13in this body maximally useful but that

12:15doesn't mean that there's a

12:16straightforward one-to-one relationship

12:18between our perceptions of things and

12:20the things themselves quite the contrary

12:23and that's partly of course we know that

12:25because with any perceptable object like

12:28I could con cize you as one thing for

12:31all sorts of purposes but if I'm trying

12:35to solve a complex problem in

12:36relationship to you it's going to be

12:37very difficult to determine how to

12:39conceptualize you so if I'm if you come

12:41to me because you're suffering from a

12:44psychological problem of some sort then

12:47I have to figure out you know is it

12:48organic is it is it there's actually

12:50something physiological wrong with you

12:52and I need to know what level of

12:53analysis I would probably conceptualize

12:55you at is it psychological is it and if

12:58it's psychological is it functional like

13:00do you lack the skills or do you lack

13:01the ability to apply the skills or is

13:03there something really gone wrong with

13:04your family or maybe it's even a

13:06reflection of an overarching

13:08sociological problem we know for example

13:10that when the unemployment rate goes up

13:131% psychiatric hospitalizations go up

13:165% and so then you might ask well you

13:18know if you're if there's a huge rise in

13:21depression and anxiety across the

13:23population and at the same time there's

13:24a huge increase in in unemployment you

13:27have to ask yourself what level of

13:29perception would best be suited to solve

13:32that problem because it isn't

13:33self-evident that it's psychological at

13:35the level of the individual anyways my

13:38point is is that perception is a very

13:40difficult problem and so now here's

13:43here's something interesting you can

13:45think about this for a minute I went and

13:47saw an autistic woman speak at one point

13:49her name was Temple grandon she's really

13:52worth looking up Temple grandon is a

13:53very interesting person she's very

13:55seriously autistic when she was a child

13:58but her mother and her worked her out of

14:01it so that she could be she's very

14:03functional she works as a professor I

14:05don't remember where it's in the midwest

14:07somewhere now she's famous not only be

14:11for being a highly functional autistic

14:12person who talks a fair bit about what

14:14it's like to be autistic but also for

14:17Designing slaughter houses across the

14:19United States and the reason she can do

14:21that as far as she's concerned is

14:23because she thinks she thinks like an

14:25animal thinks and so she doesn't and and

14:28she's identified maybe at least part of

14:30what the core problem is with autism so

14:33she the talk I heard her at was in

14:35Arizona and and it was a was a really uh

14:39entrancing talk she showed some showed

14:41some really interesting pictures of

14:43animals so what she's done is she's

14:44redesigned slaughter houses so that when

14:46the animals enter the slaughterous they

14:48go in a like a spiral basically they

14:50can't see what's around the corner and

14:52the walls are high so they're not

14:53distracted by anything outside so one of

14:56the things she showed for example was a

14:58bunch of cows was going through a

14:59standard uh sequence of of gates

15:02essentially and off to the side there

15:04was a windmill spinning and the cows

15:06would stop because the windmill they

15:08didn't understand what the windmill was

15:09and they'd stop or showed other pictures

15:11where cows were going down a pathway too

15:13and there was a Coke can sitting in the

15:15middle of the pathway and the cows would

15:17all stop because they didn't know what

15:18to do with it or she had another picture

15:21of cows out in the middle of the field

15:23all surrounding a briefcase and they

15:25were all looking at the briefcase and

15:26the cows didn't like anything that

15:28shouldn't be there and had a hard time

15:30mapping it now she said here here was a

15:33little exercise she did she said think

15:35of a

15:37church okay so maybe you think you

15:39imagine a child's drawing of a church

15:41it's like your standard house like a

15:43pentag pentagon right which is basically

15:46how children draw the front of a house

15:47with a steeple on top and maybe a cross

15:49on top of it or something like that

15:51which actually isn't at church it's an

15:53icon of a church and you think about how

15:55children draw houses too Pentagon

15:58rectangle

15:59what is it

16:00trapezoid chimney almost always with

16:03smoke which is quite interesting it's I

16:05don't know where kids get that exactly

16:06but they almost always draw a chimney

16:08with smoke even though chimneys with

16:10smoke aren't that common anymore but

16:11anyways you know you you can see what a

16:13child's picture of a house looks like in

16:16your imagination one of the things that

16:17you might want to think about is that is

16:19not a picture of a house at all right

16:21it's an iconic representation that's

16:23kind of like a heroglyph because no

16:25house looks like that and then you think

16:26about how a child will draw a person

16:28Circle stick stick stick stick stick and

16:31you show it to someone they go that's a

16:32person it's like really it looks nothing

16:35like a person right it I mean you you

16:38immediately recognize it as a person but

16:40it looks nothing like a person well what

16:42grandon said was that when she thinks of

16:44a church she has to think of a church

16:47she's seen she can't take the set of all

16:51churches and Abstract out an iconic

16:53representation and use that to represent

16:55the set of all churches she has she gets

16:57fixated on specific Exemplar and she

17:01thinks that one of the problems with

17:03autistic people and they have a very

17:05difficult time uh developing Language by

17:07the way is that they can't abstract out

17:10a generalized representation across a

17:12set of entities they can't abstract and

17:15then they and well and of course if you

17:17can't abstract then it's also very

17:18difficult to manipulate the abstractions

17:20and you see very strange Behavior with

17:22autistic children for example so they

17:23don't like people and that's because

17:26people don't stay in their perceptual

17:28boxes like a human being is a very

17:29difficult thing to perceive because

17:32we're always shifting around and moving

17:33and doing different things like we don't

17:35stay in our categorical box so autistic

17:38people have real trouble with other

17:40people but they also have trouble so for

17:42example if your autistic child gets

17:44accustomed to your kitchen let's say and

17:47you move a chair then then especially if

17:50they're severely autistic they'll have

17:51an absolute fit about it because you

17:54think kitchen with chair moved they

17:57think completely different place because

18:01they can't abstract the the the

18:03constancies across the different

18:05situations and represent them abstractly

18:07so I I made this little

18:11diagram I made this little diagram here

18:13to to kind of give you a sense of what

18:15you might be doing when you're

18:17abstracting perceptually and so you

18:18could say think about something that's

18:21that complicated it's sort of my model

18:23of how complex the world is but the

18:25world is a lot more complex than that

18:26but the world is made out of everything

18:29is made out of little things and those

18:31little things are made out of little

18:32things and so forth and those things are

18:34nested inside bigger things and so forth

18:37and where you perceive on that level of

18:39of abstraction is somewhat arbitrary it

18:41has to be bounded by your by your goals

18:44that's the other thing is that your

18:45perceptual structures are determined by

18:48the goals that you have at hand I mean

18:50some of that's that's not completely

18:51true because your perceptual systems

18:53also have limitations right there's

18:55things you can't see or hear even if you

18:57need to so there limitations built in

18:59but within that set of limitations

19:01you're still trying to tune your

19:03perceptions to your motivated goals and

19:06that's also very useful to think about

19:08when you're trying to understand

19:09artificial intelligence because for

19:11human beings without goals there's no

19:14perception because there's no filtering

19:16mechanism that you can use to determine

19:18the level of resolution at which you

19:19perceive anyway so there's the there's a

19:23thing made of smaller things which are

19:24made out of smaller things and it's so

19:26it's kind of my iconic representation of

19:29the complexity of the world and then you

19:30could think well what is this how can

19:32you see this object and I think if you

19:35just look at it you can detect it's like

19:38a Necker Cube you know those cubes that

19:41that are line drawings that you can see

19:43the front of and then it'll flip to the

19:44back have you seen those so this is kind

19:47of Necker Cube like or at least it is

19:49for me in that when I look at it my

19:52perceptions play around with it

19:53sometimes I focus on the kind of

19:55cross-like shape in the middle and

19:58sometimes I can see these other lines

19:59and then sometimes I'll focus on that

20:01square and sometimes I can see the

20:03little dots there maybe one dot and my

20:06perceptions are going like this trying

20:08to fit a pattern to it and I you can

20:10kind of detect that when you're watching

20:12it and so I would say well you have the

20:14options of perceiving this in its full

20:17complexity or you can simplify it

20:20essentially there's lots of ways you can

20:22simplify it but some of them are laid

20:23out there so you take the comp complex

20:26thing you make a low resolution

20:28represent ation of it so that's its

20:31rough that's the rough area that all

20:32those dots occupy that's the rough area

20:36broken down to its four most fundamental

20:38quadrants that might be how you would

20:40look at it if if this was a map of an

20:41orchard and you were trying to walk from

20:43south to North that would be a useful

20:45representation this combines this and

20:47this that's

20:50the that's the highest level of

20:52resolution that you can perceive this

20:54object at that's lower resolution than

20:57the object itself so the first issue is

21:00how should you look at things well

21:02that's a problem that intelligence has

21:03to solve so that's one of the problems

21:05that intelligence goes after and then I

21:07think what happens is we have the thing

21:09in itself and then we simplify it with a

21:12perception and that's like a an iconic

21:15representation and then we we nail the

21:17iconic representation with a word and

21:19that's how we compress the world's

21:21complexity into something that we can

21:23manage we take the complex thing make it

21:25into an icon and represent the icon with

21:28a word

21:29and then when I throw you the word so to

21:31speak you decompose it into the icon and

21:33then decompose it even further into the

21:35thing if you can't if you know the icon

21:38and you know the thing and so then we

21:40can use shorthand right because you have

21:43representational structures and so do I

21:45and I'm just tossing you markers about

21:47your representational structures and you

21:48can unfold them that's what you do when

21:51you're reading a novel because the novel

21:53comes alive in your imagination in your

21:56own idiosyncratic way and it would

21:59if you didn't understand the references

22:00of the novel right the novelist has to

22:03assume that your basic perceptual

22:05structures and your intuitions and your

22:07instincts are basically the same as his

22:09or hers because otherwise they have to

22:11assume that because otherwise they would

22:13be lost in an infinite regressive

22:15explanation so and it's problematic

22:19often for example if you start reading

22:21Victorian novels you may find that it

22:23takes a while to get into them because

22:25the presuppositions the expectations are

22:27slightly different and so is the

22:29language you have to update the

22:31representations but anyway so that's

22:33roughly as far as I'm concerned that's

22:35roughly a representation of what

22:37intelligence is doing in the world it's

22:39or a big part of it it's how in the

22:40world do you look at things so that you

22:42can use them for the purposes that you

22:44need to use them for and then the next

22:47problem that intelligence has to solve

22:50which is related is once you've got the

22:52perceptual landscape sorted out how do

22:55you abstractly represent the action

22:58pattern p s that you're going to

22:59implement in the world so it's how do

23:02you perceive where you are

23:04now how do you perceive where you're

23:07going and how do you construct up and

23:10then Implement strategies that enable

23:12you to move from where you are to where

23:13you're going so it's a continual process

23:17of mapping and movement and so it's it's

23:20it's navigation that's what we're doing

23:21in the world all the time is navigating

23:23through it because we're mobile

23:24creatures we're navigating through it

23:27attempting to make the world manifest

23:29itself in accordance with our wishes and

23:31that's the fundamental problem that

23:33intelligence has to solve and animals

23:37have their perceptions to rely on but we

23:39have our perceptions and our ability to

23:42abstract from those perceptions multiple

23:45times and then to abstract finally into

23:48into language so we live in a very

23:50abstracted world and it also means that

23:53we can learn a lesson in one place and

23:55generalize it across many other places

23:57which is also something something that

23:58animals have a hard time doing because

24:00they they don't know how to do that

24:03perceptual initial perceptual

24:05generalization

24:10so okay so then the question might be

24:13well if intelligence has to solve the

24:15problem of how to perceive in and

24:18perceive and navigate within the world

24:21towards ends towards in order to fulfill

24:25uh in in order to uh to make the world

24:29manifest what it needs to manifest so

24:30that you can maintain yourself and stay

24:32alive what ends is it orienting itself

24:35towards and I think that's a good way of

24:36thinking about the traits the traits the

24:39traits motivate the perceptual frame and

24:41so you might think that well extroverted

24:43people are after social success and you

24:47can understand why that would be because

24:49social success brings with it all sorts

24:50of

24:51rewards social failure brings costs and

24:54you could also understand why that would

24:56frighten you away from it and social

24:58success also requires the expenditure of

25:01effort and introverted people seem to be

25:03much more conservative in a sense in

25:06terms of expending social expending

25:09energy socially and I suppose they're

25:10protecting themselves to some degree

25:12against the possibility of social

25:13failure we don't really know we know

25:15more about how extroverts in some sense

25:18how and why extroverts Orient themselves

25:20the way they do in the world we're not

25:22so sure about introverts um what it is

25:26that what the what the proper landscape

25:29is for introverts I I can show you a

25:31word cloud I'll do that at some point

25:32that introverts that were generated from

25:35introverts on Facebook and they seem to

25:37be into fantasy and gaming a lot and and

25:41I don't know why that is exactly because

25:43the fantasy element should be more local

25:45localized in openness but the the the

25:48introverted types I mean I suppose

25:50they're the people that are on The Big

25:52Bang Theory roughly speaking you know

25:54they seem to be the introverted types

25:56and um but don't understand that much

25:59about them exactly how it is that

26:01they're orienting themselves in the

26:02world people are high neuroticism are

26:04oriented towards security and safety

26:06agreeable people versus disagreeable

26:08people are oriented say towards

26:10cooperation versus competition

26:12conscientious people are oriented

26:14towards order Duty obligation and

26:16implementation and open people are

26:19oriented towards abstraction in I both

26:21ideational and in representation and so

26:25those are also to some degree you might

26:27also think about those value systems

26:29right because what you value is

26:32definitely not only what you pursue

26:34that's too narrow a view value is also

26:37what you perceive and pursue and so

26:39thinking about these things as this

26:41entire frame of reference I think is a

26:43much better way of doing it we talked

26:45about this earlier this sort of

26:46structure earlier as a micr personality

26:49and I mentioned that determination of

26:52micr personalities by fundamental

26:54underlying biological systems like

26:56defensive aggression and sexual ual um

26:59sexual uh uh desire and hunger and

27:03thirst and so forth those are all

27:05systems that can grab your perceptions

27:08make you look at the world in a certain

27:10way make you pursue something else in a

27:12certain way and Prime action responses

27:15that are in keeping with all of that the

27:17the traits seem to be something like

27:19higher order agglomerations of those

27:22more fundamental biological motivations

27:24although we don't quite understand the

27:26relationship between the underlying

27:28biology and the traits we're starting to

27:30sort it out so we know for example if

27:32you look at the function of the

27:34hypothalamus the hypothalamus regulates

27:37the basic biological motivations that I

27:39just outlined but it's also the place

27:41where the exploratory systems find their

27:44ultimate physiological grounding and

27:46openness and extroversion seem to be

27:49variant manifestations of the

27:51exploratory impulse and that's grounded

27:53into in the hypothalamus so we're

27:55starting to be able to put the traits to

27:57sort of nail the traits down to their

27:59underlying biology with regards to

28:01neuroticism um well if you're high in

28:04neuroticism you're more sensitive to

28:06anxiety and that's regulated at least in

28:08part by the hippocampus and and

28:10generated in part by the amydala there's

28:12another part of the brain called the per

28:14aqueductal gray that seems to be

28:17associated with the experience of pain

28:19and pain is quite a complex phenomena

28:22depression is pain-like grief is

28:24pain-like social isolation is pain-like

28:27dis disappointment is pain-like there's

28:30anxiety components to that too and so

28:32neuroticism seems to be something like

28:34threshold for Activation in those

28:36negative emotion systems so if you're

28:39higher in neuroticism one unit of

28:41uncertainty might produce let's say

28:43three units of psychophysiological

28:45response whereas if you're lower in

28:47neuroticism one unit of uncertainty

28:49might produce one unit of

28:50psychophysiological response it's heart

28:53you know obviously that's a simplified

28:55schemata but there's variability because

28:57if something unexpected or threatening

29:00happens to you it isn't obvious how

29:02upset you should get one answer would

29:04might be brush it off it's nothing

29:07another answer might be it's a bloody

29:09catastrophe and often when something

29:11uncertain or threatening occurs you

29:13don't have enough information at your

29:14disposal to make a full determination of

29:18the potential import of this of the

29:19circumstance especially if it's

29:21uncertain and so then you have to guess

29:23at how upset you should be and where you

29:26are on the normal distribution with

29:28regards to trait neuroticism say that

29:30sort of determines what your guess on

29:33average is going to be so you know the

29:36other with conscientiousness say you

29:38might say well how hard should you work

29:41well that's a really difficult question

29:43if you're going to die tomorrow and then

29:46you probably shouldn't work very hard

29:47today at all so one one thing you might

29:50say is that the degree to which you

29:52should work hard is dependent on your

29:55assumptions about the stability of the

29:56future we actually know this to be true

29:58because if you put people in wildly

30:02uncertain circumstances they discount

30:04the future which is exactly what you

30:06should do right it's only makes sense to

30:08store up goods for future consumption if

30:12the future is likely to be very similar

30:14to the past and the present you need a

30:16stable Society for that and

30:18conscientiousness only works in in a

30:20stable Society because all you do

30:22otherwise if you're piling up Goods

30:24which is kind of what conscientious

30:25people do is leaving them there for the

30:27criminals to take or waiting for the

30:29next chaotic upheaval to wipe out

30:31everything that you've stored and so

30:33even conscientiousness is a kind of

30:35guess hardworking people say well you

30:37know M uh sacrifice the present for the

30:40future that's great as long as the

30:42future is going to be there and you can

30:43predict it but if it's not going to be

30:45there and it's unpredictable then the

30:46right response is take what you can take

30:49right now well the getting's good now

30:51you know obviously there are troubles

30:53with that too and I'm speaking you know

30:56I'm I'm offering rough rules of thumb

30:59but I'm trying to provide you with some

31:01indication of how and why these

31:03difference in value structures exist

31:05because they're applicable in different

31:07environments you know sometimes in a

31:09dangerous social environment it's not

31:11obvious that being an extroverted person

31:13is a good idea because extroverted

31:15people they stand out especially if

31:17they're extroverted and creative right

31:19because not only are they noisy and and

31:22dominant and assertive they're also

31:24colorful and and flamboyant and

31:26provocative well that's great if you're

31:29in a society that rewards that sort of

31:30thing but if you have you know if you're

31:33ruled by an authoritarian King who wants

31:36absolutely no threat whatsoever to his

31:38stability ever then dressing in Gray and

31:42shutting the hell up is a really good

31:44survival tactic so the utility of the

31:48trait depends on the structure of the

31:50environment that surrounds it and that's

31:52why there's variability in traits and so

31:54you you have to be careful when you're

31:57thinking about it from a strict

31:58scientific perspective to make the

32:00assumption that positioning at any place

32:03on the normal distribution is preferable

32:05preferable to positioning anywhere else

32:09now one exception to that maybe might be

32:13IQ because one of the things that you

32:15can see in I with IQ is that people with

32:17higher IQs seem to do better but that's

32:20also only true in complex societies and

32:22then there's another problem that seems

32:24to emerge with IQ and I don't know

32:26exactly what to make of this but we know

32:28that as women's IQ increases the

32:31probability that they're going to be to

32:33remain without a mate also increases

32:36because women tend to mate across or up

32:38dominance hierarchies and so if you're a

32:40woman with an IQ of 130 then you've

32:43already eliminated about 95% of the men

32:46and that's only using one criteria

32:47that's just straight intelligence and so

32:49there also might be limitations to the

32:52to the utility of intelligence with

32:54regards to reproduction that we don't

32:55really understand very well yet

32:58so anyway so you get the point so

33:01there's these underlying I kind of put

33:03down two value structures there

33:05capitalize on social groups that would

33:07be an extroverted value structure saying

33:09maintain order that would be a a

33:12conscientious strategy and conscientious

33:14people are going to want to maintain

33:15order because they don't want things to

33:17shift across time because if they shift

33:19too much across time then the things

33:21that have been stored up for the future

33:23start to become increasingly irrelevant

33:26there's lots of other reasons to

33:27maintain order as well but that's one of

33:29them

33:30so all right so that your cognitive

33:32ability get allows you to do modeling

33:35now this is where human beings have have

33:37leaped ahead of their competition so an

33:41animal animals can

33:43think but it isn't exactly obvious how

33:47they think they think strategically I

33:49think they think the same way that

33:51children think in some sense when

33:53they're playing with Legos when they're

33:54not thinking about the Legos you know

33:56when they're when they're just moving

33:57them around we know like if you watch a

33:59smart Predator group like lions go after

34:02a you know their target or watch

34:04chimpanzees hunt down a monkey you can

34:06see intelligence at work because hunting

34:08behavior is very very complicated

34:10obviously you know especially if you're

34:12chasing something intelligent but there

34:14isn't that level of abstract

34:16representation so where is so let's look

34:21at this so here's here's a here's a a

34:24picture of the of the human brain um

34:28with someone facing this way right so

34:31here's the here's the primary motor

34:33cortex okay so you're using that to

34:35voluntarily move your body okay now then

34:38I might say to you close your eyes and

34:40imagine doing something so just close

34:42your eyes and imagine picking up the cup

34:44that's in front of you and just

34:45visualize it okay so then you might say

34:47well what part of your brain are you

34:49using then and the answer is use part of

34:51this part this part because it that's

34:53where you have your body represented but

34:55use this part here the premotor cortex

34:59to Envision potential actions now what's

35:02happened is that this part of the brain

35:04evolved out of this part and that makes

35:07sense because the first part is just how

35:10you would move but the second part is

35:11how you would think about how you would

35:12move and then the next part which is

35:15this part huge in human beings is how

35:17you would think about how you would

35:19think about how you would move so be

35:22because that enables you to start to do

35:23extraordinary extraordinarily abstract

35:25planning so I I could say well Envision

35:28how you would pick up the cup and

35:30obviously that's something that you've

35:32separated out as a as a potential

35:35simulation from the actual action but we

35:37can talk about extraordinarily high

35:40level abstractions that have effects

35:42across multiple specific domains way

35:44into the future and the more abstract

35:47that your manipulations become the more

35:50they seem to be moved away say from the

35:52primary motor cortex out into the

35:54prefrontal cortex hierarchies of

35:56abstraction and the the reason for that

35:58as this was Carl poer this is really

36:01really worth thinking about why think

36:05let's say you're an animal and you act

36:08and it doesn't go very well then you die

36:10well you've learned that acting that way

36:12didn't work but now you're dead so

36:14that's not that helpful and then you

36:17might think well maybe you should

36:18represent how you're going to act so you

36:20know here's a box with a snake in it and

36:23your coffee cup is inside the box with

36:25the snake in it and I say to you imagine

36:27picking up the coffee cup and you

36:29imagine it you think oh I'll pick up

36:30that coffee cup and then the snake will

36:32bite me and I'll die and so then you do

36:34you decide that implementing the

36:35strategy of picking up the coffee cup is

36:38probably not a very good idea and so

36:40that stupid idea has to die and not you

36:44and so Popper's idea was that the reason

36:46that we developed the capacity to

36:48abstract was so that our stupid ideas

36:50could die instead of us and that's

36:53really it's almost impossible to

36:56overstate how brilliant an observation

36:58that is because what mean what it means

37:00is that like as a standard animal you

37:03would have to produce variants of

37:05yourself reproductively to go out into

37:07the world and try their hand at survival

37:10and that's pretty costly because you

37:11have to produce all the

37:13biological replications of you so you

37:16could only probably manage that maybe 13

37:18times if you really really worked at it

37:20and then then the cost of their failure

37:23is extraordinarily High because they die

37:25while you can just sit there and produce

37:27like 20 different ver versions of

37:29you extending out over the next week or

37:32the next month and you can run them

37:34through a simulation and kill off all

37:36the ones that you don't regard as

37:38suitable and then only implement the

37:40successful ones now you know you could

37:43debate about how accurate you might be

37:46at doing that because it would depend on

37:47your knowledge but we do know that

37:50intelligent people tend to do better

37:52across the course of their life and so

37:55it does seem that there is some

37:58utility with regards to survival or at

38:01least with regards to positioning in the

38:03dominance hierarchy which is somewhat of

38:05a proxy for survival and for

38:06Reproductive success there's some

38:08association between that and the ability

38:10to abstract so we could say that part of

38:14the reason that people got smarter was

38:16because smarter people were more likely

38:17to stay alive now I think it's more

38:19complicated than that too because I

38:21believe that human males and females are

38:23in an evolutionary cognitive arms race

38:26roughly speaking and so as men get

38:29trickier women get trickier to

38:32understand them and then as women get

38:33trickier to understand men get trickier

38:35to understand them and so we've been

38:36chasing each other around this cortical

38:40expansion Loop pretty much since we

38:42parted ways with our common with the

38:45ancestor that we had in common with

38:47chimpanzees and so that's roughly about

38:487 million years ago we've undergone a

38:51tremendous cortical expansion since then

38:53and there's there's lots of reasons that

38:55that have been propelling that

38:58so so what do you have to do when you're

39:01thinking well you have to figure out

39:02where you are and how to see that you

39:04have to figure out where you're going

39:05and what that should be and then you

39:07have to you have to um generate and

39:12represent appropriate action strategies

39:15and simulate those in time and space and

39:18then one of the things that's worth

39:20noting is that's what you do when you

39:21read a story or when you tell a story

39:24and so part of the reason that you like

39:26to read stories is because that's

39:27exactly what story stories are telling

39:29you how someone is going about doing

39:31that and so then you can see how if you

39:34think about preference for fiction which

39:37is actually part of openness preference

39:39for fiction the utility in fiction is

39:42that allows you to experience a plethora

39:45of simulated worlds and to embody the

39:48consequences in abstraction without

39:50having to go through the trouble of

39:52doing that for yourself and we do know

39:54there's good empirical literature now

39:56showing some of it done by ex students

39:58from my lab showing that reading fiction

40:01does improve your interpersonal

40:03intelligence for example your ability to

40:05understand the position of other people

40:07logically enough because that's what

40:08you're doing when you're reading so okay

40:12so I'm trying to give you some

40:15background so that you can understand

40:18what it means to abstract and also why

40:20it's useful because we need that in

40:22order to move forward with the idea of

40:24intelligence so here we go okay so

40:27that's how you act voluntarily and then

40:29that's how you represent how you act

40:31voluntarily and then that's how you

40:33think about how you represent acting

40:35voluntarily and the reason I'm telling

40:37you this is because it's useful to think

40:40about intelligence as abstract action

40:42because we tend to think about

40:44intelligence as abstract representation

40:46right intelligence is the manipulation

40:48of facts or the understanding of facts

40:50but if you look at it neurologically I

40:53would say that's a misapprehension

40:55because the part of the brain that does

40:56the highest level of abstract thinking

40:58is actually something that's emerged

41:00from the motor cortex now you can that

41:02doesn't mean you don't use your

41:03intelligence to represent you do but the

41:07purpose of intelligence is to represent

41:09potential action patterns and we're

41:11embodied creatures and we need to move

41:12in the world and so that's the proper as

41:14far as I'm concerned that's the proper

41:16way to conceptualize intelligence

41:19so and here's a here's a a study I'll

41:22read you the study imagery in the premot

41:25cortex well studies on healthy subjects

41:27have shown a partial overlap between the

41:30motor execution and motor imagery neural

41:33circuits few have investigated brain

41:36activity during motor imagery and stroke

41:38patients with hemiparesis so a partial

41:40overlap between the motor execution and

41:42motor imagery neural circuits well

41:44here's an interesting side consequence

41:46of

41:46that so let's say I'm thirsty and I look

41:51at that glass of water and part of what

41:54happens when I look at the glass of

41:56water is that my eyes activate this

41:59directly so you know I've already talked

42:01to you to some degree about how your

42:02eyes work right there's patterns there

42:04out there in the world the patterns are

42:06mapped onto the the retina so it's a

42:09pattern display uh Matrix and then that

42:14pattern is propagated along the optic

42:15nerve and then that pattern manifests

42:17itself in the visual cortex and then

42:19that pattern manifests itself in the

42:21motor cortex and it manifests itself in

42:23bodily movement or preparation for

42:25bodily movement technically you don't

42:28need conscious imagery for that to

42:30happen now that's something really

42:32useful to know is that your eyes can

42:34activate your body without you being

42:35aware of the image because you think

42:38there's the world I see it then I

42:40determine how to act it's like yes but

42:42also no there's the world and seeing It

42:45prepares me to act forget about the damn

42:47imagery so when I look at that cup part

42:50of

42:51the part of the act of looking at it is

42:55preparing that gesture and that's a

42:57especially the case if I also happen to

42:58be thirsty because if I'm thirsty the

43:01cup signifies something that I can use

43:03to quench my thirst which makes it a

43:06very different thing than what it is

43:08when it's empty or when I'm not thirsty

43:10so I'm not even going to use the same

43:11part of my brain to perceive it because

43:13it's not the same thing in relationship

43:15to me so I look at it and then just just

43:18even just understanding the size of it

43:21there's not much difference between

43:22understanding the size of it and doing

43:24this so you let's see how I got that so

43:27that's pretty

43:28good so that's my under when you ask

43:31well what does it mean to understand

43:33something well that's what it means in

43:36so far as this is a cup because it could

43:38be Tinder for lighting a fire for

43:40example or something to stomp on to make

43:42a noise in so far as it's a cup then

43:46understanding it means pattern mapping

43:48it onto exactly

43:51this and if I do that

43:54successfully then I get a little reward

43:56a little hint a little kick of dopamine

43:59and that dopamine makes me feel a little

44:00bit better but it also bathes the neural

44:04tissue that I use to make that

44:07perceptual that to to to structure that

44:11perception and also to undertake that

44:13act and it makes it just a little bit

44:16more likely that I'll see it that way

44:17and act that way in its presence again

44:20and that's how you learn right you lay

44:21out a perceptual scheme it's got a goal

44:25if the perceptual scheme and it's

44:26associated action patterns make the goal

44:28manifest itself then you get a little

44:30burst of positive emotion click then

44:33that makes it those little the neural

44:35circuits that instantiated that thrive a

44:38little bit and get a little bit more

44:40predominant and that's also why you got

44:42to watch yourself if you're taking

44:43psychomotor stimulants like cocaine or

44:45alcohol even for that matter because

44:47they produce

44:48hyperlearning and so you know I'll

44:51glance at that and maybe it'll trigger

44:52off a bit of thirst but if that was if I

44:55was a cocaine addict and that was

44:56cocaine par parhelia and I glanced at it

44:58was like w that thing that I've built in

45:01my head out of repeated you know massive

45:04hits of dopamine is going to grab my

45:06perceptual structures and my actions and

45:08bring me that'll be that craving which

45:10is an Impulse to move forward towards it

45:12you'll feel that instantiated in your

45:14body that's the craving it's very very

45:17difficult to get rid of that even if

45:19you're if you're a cocaine

45:21abuser and you've gone to a treatment

45:23center for several weeks and got over

45:25the worst of the least initial parts of

45:28of the relearning not to abuse the

45:30second you go back into your natural

45:31environment and take a look at the

45:34cues bang that thing will be right back

45:36there directing your action and what

45:38happens is when one of those perceptual

45:39systems comes up you can see this when

45:41you're hungry it supresses all the other

45:44potential perceptual systems you can see

45:46this when you're angry too right you get

45:47angry and you're angry with your partner

45:50and all you can think of is all the

45:51stupid things they've done for the last

45:5210 years you don't even remember that

45:54you like them it's like you could remind

45:56them I know you're but remember you like

45:58me well not right now you know so so it

46:02just it shows you how those micro

46:04personalities cond Dominate and suppress

46:06that's that's what happens because if

46:08they didn't suppress the other micr

46:09personalities they wouldn't be able to

46:12run themselves to

46:15conclusion and then you'd never get what

46:17you want okay so anyways

46:21um Studies have shown a partial overlap

46:24between the motor execution and motor

46:27imagery neural circuits so what happens

46:30is you see something and it primes you

46:31for the appropriate

46:33action few have investigated brain

46:36activity during motor imagery in stroke

46:38patients with hemiparesis hemiparesis is

46:41is uh motor impairment from from uh from

46:45the stroke this work is exam aimed at

46:47examining similarities between motor

46:49imagery and execution in a group of

46:51stroke patients 11 patients were asked

46:53to perform a visal motor tracking task

46:56by either physically or mentally

46:57tracking a sine wave Force Target using

46:59their thumb and index finger so they're

47:01doing

47:02this during fmri

47:05scanning results whole brain analysis

47:08confirmed shared neural substrates

47:11between motor imagery and motor

47:12execution in bilateral premotor cortex

47:15so that's the part that I was talking

47:16about I won't tell you about the rest of

47:17the brain in parial lulle is is partly

47:21associated with body recognition

47:28so so basically I I I showed you that

47:30study because it it it's one it's one of

47:32the studies that lend Credence to what I

47:34was just describing is that imagery is

47:35the precursor to action and that it's

47:38Associated you get the imagery going

47:40here and the action there think about

47:43think about thinking think act that's

47:46roughly how it

47:49works okay now now down to cognitive

47:53ability

47:54well how can you conceptualize

47:59intelligence well this is a major

48:01problem because your initial

48:03conceptualization determines in part the

48:05strategies that you're going to use to

48:08investigate intelligence and when you

48:10say when you when you pair a sentence

48:12down to what is intelligence the

48:15sentence is problematic because part of

48:17it is a question

48:19about H if and how such a thing might

48:22manifest itself in the world

48:25so there's a fact out there that or set

48:27of facts that corresponds to

48:29intelligence but the other problem is

48:30well what do you mean when you say

48:32intelligence and you kind of have to

48:34nail that down if you're going to have

48:36a conversation about intelligence that

48:39doesn't go entirely astray and so you've

48:41got a you've got a definitional problem

48:43as well as an empirical problem and

48:46so there have been and this was

48:48especially true in the

48:511990s people have been studying

48:53intelligence IQ intelligence since the

48:551920s and and is a very wellestablished

48:58branch of psychology one of the things I

49:00have to tell you about IQ research is

49:03that if you don't buy IQ research you

49:06might as well throw away all the rest of

49:08psychology and the reason for that is

49:11that the psychologists first of all who

49:14developed intelligence testing were

49:16among the early psychologists who

49:17instantiated the statistical techniques

49:20that all psychologists use to verify and

49:22test all of their hypotheses so you end

49:25up throwing the baby out with the bathat

49:27and the IQ people have defined

49:30intelligence in a more stringent

49:33stringent and accurate way than we've

49:35been able to Define almost any other

49:38psychological construct and so if you

49:40toss out the one that's most well

49:42defined then you're kind of stuck with

49:43the problem of what are you going to do

49:44with all the ones that you have left

49:46over that are nowhere near as well

49:48defined or as well measured or as or as

49:51uh or or whose predictive validity is

49:54much less and has been demonstrated with

49:57much less Vigor and Clarity anyways

50:00despite all that people have posited a

50:02number of different intelligences and

50:04reasonably so because there's if you

50:07think of intelligence

50:09as that which might move you forward

50:11successfully in the world obviously

50:13there's a fair number of phenomena that

50:16are associated with individuals that

50:17might fit into that category so we

50:23have people have made these distinctions

50:28Bob Sternberg for example is

50:30distinguished between practical versus

50:32analytical intelligence and he kind of

50:34thinks of practical as like Street

50:36smarts and has attempted to dissociate

50:38that from the kind of analytical

50:40intelligence that um that characterizes

50:43more straight IQ research I I don't

50:45think he's done it successfully as well

50:47at all and since the 1990s interest in

50:51his practical intelligence has declined

50:52precipitously because when it is matched

50:55head-to-head with with standard IQ

50:57intelligence the IQ intelligence eats up

51:00all the variability what's really

51:02happened as far as I can tell so far is

51:04that when we're trying to predict

51:05people's course through

51:08life IQ does a very good job and then

51:10one of the traits does a very good job

51:12as well which is

51:14conscientiousness but it doesn't do as

51:16good a job as IQ now that partly might

51:19be because we can't measure

51:20conscientiousness very

51:22well we're stuck with self-reports or

51:25maybe I could gather peer reports about

51:27you or I could gather your parents

51:28reports about you or teachers reports

51:30and each of those seems to pick up a

51:33little bit more of the pattern because

51:35you know yourself but other people know

51:37you differently than you know yourself

51:39and there's still some accuracy in that

51:41you can get multiple rer reports of

51:43something like conscientiousness and

51:45that'll up its predictive validity but

51:47in the final analysis the best you seem

51:49to be able to do with conscientiousness

51:50is about a point4 correlation with

51:53long-term performance whereas with IQ in

51:55complex jobs you can probably get 0.5

51:57and maybe 6 and so 0.5 is 25% of the

52:01variance you got to square it 6 is 30%

52:0436% of the variance and 04 is 16% of the

52:08variance so even at the low end let's

52:11say high end for conscientiousness is 04

52:14or 16% low end for IQ is 0.5 or 25%

52:19low-end estimates of IQ make it one and

52:21a half times more powerful than the

52:22high-end estimates of conscientiousness

52:25and I think that's about right you'd

52:26think why do we even have to debate this

52:28and because it's so bloody obvious to me

52:30that intelligence is a major predictor

52:32of Life success I mean you people I

52:34measured the IQ of University of Toronto

52:36people you know people in this room who

52:38have an IQ of less than 120 are rare

52:42well why well smart people go to

52:44university now is that actually a

52:46contentious statement well it shouldn't

52:48be a contentious statement it's

52:50self-evident universities were actually

52:51set up so that smart people could expand

52:54their abilities that's why they were

52:55there and you're selected on the basis

52:57of Assessments that are essentially

52:59there to assess something like

53:09intelligence yes but that that well

53:11that's that's well that is part of the

53:13controversy is it reasonable and this is

53:15a measurement issue and that's why we're

53:18that's why I've been instructing you to

53:19some degree in psychometrics because we

53:21actually know how to do this we know how

53:23to answer that question so let's take a

53:25look at how at how intelligence has been

53:28assessed and why and then you can make

53:30up your own mind anyways here's some of

53:32the examples of other forms of

53:36intelligence and so then the question is

53:38well what does it mean to have a

53:40different form of intelligence would

53:42would form a and Form B be completely

53:45uncorrelated like extroversion say in

53:47neuroticism or would they be slightly

53:48correlated or would they be highly

53:50correlated and then you might ask well

53:51how highly correlated do they have to be

53:54before they're the same thing or how

53:57uncorrelated do they have to be before

53:58they're different things and actually

54:00the answer to that comes down to

54:02something like practical utility it's

54:04like imagine I'm trying to figure out

54:06how well you'll do in University and I

54:08measure one thing and it's correlated at

54:117 with another thing I measure about you

54:13then I might say well are those two

54:14things the same or different they're

54:15pretty highly correlated you're high in

54:17one it means you're going to be high in

54:18the other well so what is there any

54:21utility in measuring both things and the

54:23way you figure that out actually is you

54:25do it statistically so we take the

54:27target which might be your performance

54:30across University then we say well can

54:32we predict your performance across

54:34University better by using one variable

54:37or two variables so we would enter them

54:39both into a regression equation all a

54:41regression equation does it's quite

54:43simple so you're trying to predict the

54:46Target and the regression AG the

54:48regression equation tells you how well

54:50you can predict that Target if you know

54:53another fact now then gets a little

54:56complicated because that's a correlation

54:58how well you can predict B with a well a

55:02regression will say how much you can

55:04predict C if you know a and b or a and b

55:08and c and d and e because you can use

55:10multiple predictors and you can waight

55:12them so it might be 2 * a + 1 * b equals

55:15c and that's all a regression equation

55:17does it's just multiplication and

55:19addition very very straightforward and

55:21so two variables are sufficiently

55:24different functionally if you can use

55:26both of them simultaneously to predict

55:28something of Interest so again it's a

55:30tool likee approach this is how the

55:32psychometricians do it is something real

55:34well it's real if you can measure

55:36measure it and it helps you predict

55:38that's that's how it's defined so then

55:40you might say well

55:42are are there these multiple

55:44intelligences well the first question

55:46would be well what do you mean by are

55:48there and the answer to that would be

55:51well let's specify the question since

55:53we're going to be scientific about it

55:55let's predict how well people do in

55:56University we'll start with the

55:57assumption that

56:00intelligence if intelligence isn't

56:03associated with University success then

56:05you're probably not talking about

56:07intelligence now you could argue that

56:09right because you could say well

56:10intelligence has nothing to do with

56:12University success but that's a

56:13definitional matter we'd have to agree

56:15to begin with is it reasonable to start

56:19with the presupposition that

56:20intelligence and University success

56:22share something in common well I think

56:24you have to be daed to

56:26to deny that initial proposition

56:29although you

56:31could because you could say it was

56:33privilege or socioeconomic status or or

56:35or or any number of sociological

56:38phenomena and some of those are

56:39obviously relevant social class for

56:41example because you know if you're in a

56:43higher social class and all things being

56:47equal intelligence included if you're in

56:49a higher social class you're more likely

56:51to go to university than you are if

56:52you're in a lower social class so

56:54there's other there's other factors that

56:56are going to influence whether or not

56:57you do well in University but we're

56:59going to assume that one of them might

57:00be

57:02intelligence well then you would ask

57:04well if you measured social

57:08intelligence so that's what do they call

57:10that social intelligence no emotional

57:12intelligence which does not exist by the

57:14way emotional intelligence moral

57:16intelligence linguistic musical logical

57:18mathematical spatial body kinesthetic

57:21interpersonal and interpersonal all

57:23different forms of intelligence okay so

57:25to answer the question question of

57:26whether they exist what you do first is

57:29pick a Target prediction of University

57:31performance then you make a measure for

57:33each of them then you test to see if the

57:36measure measured the same thing across

57:38multiple instances within the same

57:39person that's a reliability test because

57:41what the hell good is your ruler if it

57:43stretches when you use it it has to

57:45measure the same thing multiple times

57:47and then you would say okay we'll take

57:49all these different intelligences

57:51measured the way we've decided to

57:53measure them the first thing we'll do is

57:54see how highly correlated are CU if

57:57they're complete two of them are

57:58completely correlated then you have one

58:00you don't have two CU that's the

58:01virtually the definition of one instead

58:04of two you can Factor analyze them and

58:06see if you can pull out what's common

58:08across all of them that's another thing

58:10because then you might say well

58:11intelligence is what's common across all

58:13the measures of these intelligences it's

58:16it's a proposition it's not a fact you

58:18have to decide if you're going to agree

58:19with it but that if you were going to do

58:21that you'd use a factor analysis and

58:23you'd say well if someone was more

58:25likely to be musical if they were also

58:27high in linguistic ability and more

58:29likely to be logical and mathematically

58:31inclined if they had high spatial

58:32ability Etc then you'd be hypothesizing

58:35that there was one factor behind all of

58:37those manifestations that's somehow

58:40similar and maybe there wouldn't be and

58:42then you'd take all your measures and

58:43you'd put them in something like a

58:44multiple regression analysis and you'd

58:46predict your Target University

58:48performance and then maybe you'd say

58:50well wait a minute let's not just use

58:52University performance let's use Junior

58:56high performance high school performance

58:58University performance and job success

59:01and then let's say that only things that

59:03predict success across all of those

59:05categories and that are the same we're

59:07going to Define as intelligence well

59:09that's basically how you end up with

59:13IQ you could say that IQ is what's

59:16common across all possible sets of of

59:18intelligence tests now people are going

59:22to debate that because you still have to

59:25Define what constitutes a test but the

59:28way the psychometricians have managed it

59:30and have taken care of this at least to

59:31some degree is to say well we're going

59:35to we're not going to Define everything

59:36that we measure as intelligence so

59:38extroverted people are more socially

59:40fluent are we going to call that

59:41intelligence no we're going to call that

59:44personality we're going to call that

59:45extroversion and we're going to call

59:46stress tolerance you could say well if

59:49you can tolerate more stress you're more

59:51intelligent it's like well no that isn't

59:53how we've defined it we're going to

59:54Define that as being lower in aism if

59:57you're Cooperative you're more

59:58intelligent that's emotional

1:00:00intelligence well what you're less

1:00:02intelligent if you're competitive well

1:00:04no so we parsed that off to

1:00:05agreeableness so then the question might

1:00:07be is there anything left of these

1:00:09so-called intelligences once you control

1:00:12for personality and IQ and the answer is

1:00:16no nothing nothing left of them and the

1:00:20people who keep pushing these ideas keep

1:00:22trying to push them because they don't

1:00:23like the idea of real individual

1:00:25differences and to me that's just a

1:00:26matter of sticking your damn head in the

1:00:28sand because it's obvious here you're

1:00:31going to have a child you want the child

1:00:33to have an IQ of 65 or 145 decide okay

1:00:37so you're all going to vote okay you

1:00:39think any one of you is going to vote to

1:00:40have a child with an IQ of 65 that

1:00:42child's going to have a hard time

1:00:44developing even linguistic ability

1:00:46they're never going to learn to read

1:00:48right they're never going to leave home

1:00:50in all likelihood so which child are you

1:00:52going to pick well so do you believe in

1:00:54intelligence or not well obviously if

1:00:56you have any sense um so let's say we

1:00:59took off all the labels and we just for

1:01:01every time something statistically came

1:01:03out other we just gave it a

1:01:07lab so all these things just have their

1:01:10statistical validity and just names so

1:01:13then we're going to assign Nam to them

1:01:14after are we assigning the names based

1:01:16on what we consider to be reasonable

1:01:18okay that's a good question so look here

1:01:20here's one thing so let's say this is

1:01:22actually what happened when people

1:01:23developed the big five so I'm going to

1:01:25give a very large number of people every

1:01:28question every a huge set of questions

1:01:30that cover every element of their

1:01:32personality I can think of it's agnostic

1:01:35right what I'm really trying to do is

1:01:36come up with the biggest possible set of

1:01:38descriptors that someone could actually

1:01:41fill out that's a li you know I can't

1:01:42give you 10,000 questions that's just so

1:01:45maybe i' take a set of 10,000 questions

1:01:47and randomly select a few sets of a 100

1:01:50right because then I I would have

1:01:52represented the entire set then I give

1:01:54them to a th people agnos

1:01:56then I do the factor analysis bang five

1:01:58factors come out and then the factor

1:02:00analysis tells me which questions load

1:02:03on each factor and what the factor

1:02:04analysis is saying here's 20 questions

1:02:07and there's something about them that's

1:02:08the same so then I read the questions

1:02:10and I think well those questions are

1:02:12referring to something the same what is

1:02:15that well then maybe I talk to three

1:02:16colleagues and we think well that's

1:02:18something like sociability bang we have

1:02:20a name and then we could go see now that

1:02:23we have a measure of sociability we

1:02:25could go associate it with other

1:02:27measures of sociability like we might

1:02:28say well are people who score high on

1:02:31this measure of sociability more likely

1:02:33to go to parties and the answer would be

1:02:35yes because what happens if you take

1:02:3810,000 questions about personality and

1:02:40randomly select sets of a 100 and give

1:02:42each of them to a thousand people and do

1:02:44a factor analysis the first factor is

1:02:47extroversion and it's the it's the

1:02:49factor in human personality that seems

1:02:50to pick up the biggest amount of variant

1:02:53and so so then we say from a statistical

1:02:55perspective Ive extroversion is real but

1:02:57we Define real real means that if you

1:03:00use linguistic

1:03:02representation randomly applied across

1:03:05large sets of people and you factor

1:03:07analyze it these come out as Clump

1:03:08together because you have to Define what

1:03:11constitutes real if you're going to play

1:03:12that this is real game which is

1:03:14basically what you're doing in science

1:03:15and so that's what happened with the big

1:03:17five and then people started to look

1:03:18well okay is there a biological

1:03:20substrate for this bang turns out there

1:03:22is incentive reward that's the positive

1:03:24reward system so and then well

1:03:27neuroticism that's often but not always

1:03:29the second Factor well is there a

1:03:31biological basis for it yes threat

1:03:33sensitivity and pain sensitivity they

1:03:35seem to lock together agreeableness

1:03:38that's the care system that yak PP has

1:03:40identified so that's basically that's

1:03:42basically maternity it's something like

1:03:44that you had another question

1:03:57people intelligence well it's because we

1:04:00found out how to measure intelligence so

1:04:02and I'll get into that right now so then

1:04:04the question is well how do you measure

1:04:05intelligence okay well it's similar it's

1:04:08similar to this linguistic approach but

1:04:12here's how it

1:04:13differs generate 10,000 questions that

1:04:16require knowledge and you get get 50

1:04:18people to do it and have them and have

1:04:20them be of diverse opinions about what

1:04:23constitutes knowledge so much the better

1:04:25then you cover the you want to over

1:04:27sample the territory so you want to have

1:04:28some qu questions in there that only one

1:04:30person out of 50 would think that

1:04:32measures intelligence because you can

1:04:34oversample the statistics will take care

1:04:36of that so you want to answer ask more

1:04:38questions than you think are reasonable

1:04:40and that's part of the way that you get

1:04:42rid of bias in the sampling it's like

1:04:44you think go find out 10 questions that

1:04:47someone could answer if you think

1:04:48they're intelligent I don't care what

1:04:49they are and then 50 of you do that

1:04:51bring me the questions well let's say we

1:04:53get a nice set of 10,000 questions

1:04:56then we can take random sets of a 100

1:04:59and give them to a th people and then we

1:05:01can score their answers to the questions

1:05:04and then we can rank order we could say

1:05:06correlate their performance across

1:05:08different sets of questions so I give

1:05:10you one set of 100 questions you score

1:05:1290 I give you another set of questions

1:05:14you score so 90 out of 100 you score 10

1:05:17out of 100 well then we would think if a

1:05:19bunch of people did that those aren't

1:05:20measuring the same thing because if

1:05:22you're high on one you should be high on

1:05:24all of them well with IQ it's like if

1:05:26you do that the reliability is like 0. n

1:05:29it's

1:05:30unbelievable you take one set of 100

1:05:32questions you rank order people you take

1:05:35another set of 100 questions you rank

1:05:37order people you correlate the rank

1:05:39orders it's like this it's 0. n the

1:05:43people who did well on one do well on

1:05:44all of them the people who did bad on

1:05:46one do bad on all of them that's IQ or

1:05:49more technically this is what IQ is take

1:05:53a thousand people and give them 20 tests

1:05:56of 100 items and then Factor analyze the

1:05:5920 tests and extract out the central

1:06:01Factor that's

1:06:03G that's fluid intelligence so then what

1:06:06do you do with that well then you can

1:06:08try to use it then you can see well is

1:06:09there a biological basis for this is

1:06:11there something about if you're higher

1:06:13in the ability to operate across these

1:06:15sets of questions are there things about

1:06:17you that are physiologically different

1:06:18and the answer to that is yes your

1:06:21reaction time is faster just simple

1:06:23reaction time so light turn on you push

1:06:26a button light turns on you push a

1:06:27button okay there's a lag between the

1:06:29light going on and you pushing the

1:06:30button the shorter the lag the smarter

1:06:32you are well what is it and that's

1:06:35really interesting because you know if

1:06:37you're perceiving something

1:06:39complex it takes a lot of neural

1:06:42connections to generate the perception

1:06:44but simple reaction time is like two

1:06:46neurons whack there's no complexity in

1:06:48that at all and yet how fast you are at

1:06:51that is still correlated only at about

1:06:530.25 but that's not trivial if you're

1:06:56doing research in Psychology generally

1:06:58speaking and you come out with a 0.25

1:07:00correlation between whatever you're

1:07:01measuring and whatever you're interested

1:07:03in you're having a pretty good day 0.25

1:07:05is not bad at all and so it's not

1:07:08accounting for all of it but it's

1:07:09accounting for a fair bit of it how big

1:07:11your head is that's also correlated how

1:07:14how big your brain is physically and

1:07:16then even more accurately how big your

1:07:18brain is in relationship to your body

1:07:21now again these are small correlations

1:07:22but they're not they're not

1:07:24nonsignificant

1:07:26what else nerve peripheral nerve

1:07:28conduction velocity that's this study

1:07:31two studies with sample sizes of 90 and

1:07:3390 roughly speaking are reported that

1:07:35investigated relationships among

1:07:36measures of intelligence speed of

1:07:37information processing and peripheral

1:07:39nerve conduction velocity in both

1:07:41studies neural conduction velocity was

1:07:44significantly correlated with IQ scores

1:07:46042 and 048 man that's a whopping

1:07:49correlation how do I know that because a

1:07:51guy named hemp Hill where is he right

1:07:54there you might say well how big is a

1:07:57correlation coefficient before you call

1:07:59it Big and the answer to that is

1:08:01generally let's guess so if you talk to

1:08:04psychologists and they talk to you about

1:08:06how big effect sizes are they use

1:08:08guesses that were generated by

1:08:10statisticians in the 50s and so they

1:08:13radically underestimate the actual

1:08:15magnitude of correlation coefficients

1:08:17because they never studied it

1:08:18empirically well this guy hhal because

1:08:21how big is a correlation coefficient to

1:08:23be big how do you answer that take a

1:08:26thousand psychology studies rank order

1:08:28the effect sizes and break them into

1:08:31percentiles right that's an empirical

1:08:32way of doing it how big is the effect

1:08:34that the typical study generates then

1:08:36you can use that as a way of assessing

1:08:39how impressive the effect is that you

1:08:41generated okay so this is it here hemp

1:08:43Hill 2003 interpreting the magnitude of

1:08:46Co correlation coefficients now you

1:08:49could say that's a Dopey way to do it

1:08:50because wide defined size in accordance

1:08:53with the size that people have

1:08:55discovered and hemp Hill would say well

1:08:57that's because I'm doing it this way

1:08:59with this paper if you want to do it a

1:09:01different way go right ahead but there's

1:09:03utility in this you come up with an R of

1:09:06point2 How likely is it that your next

1:09:09paper is going to have an effect size of

1:09:10that magnitude how happy should you be

1:09:13well the answer is a lot happier than

1:09:14you think

1:09:16so to get an R of 05 that's 25% of the

1:09:20variance so you still have 75% of what's

1:09:22ever explaining your phenomena left to

1:09:24be explained

1:09:26R of5 90 to 90 97th percentile so 19 out

1:09:31of 20 psychology studies that are

1:09:33published and that's a hell of a lot

1:09:35more fewer psychology studies than exist

1:09:37right because this tiny fraction of them

1:09:39get published 95% of them show a a

1:09:42correlation coefficient of less than 0.5

1:09:45for for third. 35 to 050 it's that's

1:09:49greater than 75% of them 0.15 to35 is

1:09:53pretty typical and the typical

1:09:55correlation between a personality trait

1:09:57and the target of interest is usually

1:09:59something in the neighborhood of 0. 2 to

1:10:010.25 with IQ you get up to 0.5 the

1:10:04relationship between income inequality

1:10:06and male homicide is like 75 it just

1:10:09covers all of it which is to say

1:10:11that everywhere that everyone's poor

1:10:14there's no male homicide and everywhere

1:10:16that everyone's Rich there's no male

1:10:18homicide but places where there's poor

1:10:20people and rich people the male homicide

1:10:22rate goes way the hell up right

1:10:24especially if it's a steep distribution

1:10:27because the men at the bottom think

1:10:29somebody has a lot more than me and

1:10:30that's not very fair I'm going to do

1:10:32something about that and that usually

1:10:33means killing other men and so it's a

1:10:36it's unbelievably powerful relationship

1:10:38that's a useful thing to keep squired

1:10:39away in your imagination poverty does

1:10:42not cause

1:10:43crime relative poverty causes crime that

1:10:47is a completely different thing

1:10:51so and it's dominance hierarchy issue

1:10:53fundamentally it's man man are generally

1:10:55the criminals and as the dominance

1:10:57hierarchy gets harder to climb the young

1:10:58men especially the aggressive ones get

1:11:00more likely to turn to violence you

1:11:02really need to know that it's a

1:11:03incredibly important fact I'm going to

1:11:06interview the guy who figured that out

1:11:07Martin Dy I'm going to interview him for

1:11:09one of my podcasts in the next month or

1:11:10so so you might be interested in tuning

1:11:12in on that if you're interested in this

1:11:13sort of thing okay so back to these

1:11:16correlations look peripheral nerve

1:11:18conduction velocity is correlated with

1:11:20IQ at like Point let's say 045 it's a

1:11:23whopping effect man and that's that's a

1:11:26pretty straightforward thing speed of

1:11:28electrical propagation along your neural

1:11:30tissue determines how intelligent you

1:11:32are well is that really so surprising

1:11:34you'd expect if that's associated with

1:11:36neurological integrity at least to some

1:11:39degree it's exactly the sort of thing

1:11:40you'd expect but it shows you how

1:11:42biologically based it is too faster

1:11:45neural conductance velocity was

1:11:46associated with higher IQ scores and

1:11:48faster speed of processing

1:11:51why who knows here's a hypothesis

1:11:56um what if you're trying to remember a

1:11:59phone number just the seven digigit one

1:12:00what do you do when you're remembering

1:12:02the phone number you say it over and

1:12:03over again right or you or you if you

1:12:05don't say it you think it over and over

1:12:07again and if someone distracts you then

1:12:10you lose it that's working memory

1:12:12roughly speaking and your working memory

1:12:15capacity so imagine you could do four

1:12:18digits and remember them you could do

1:12:20six you could do eight you could do 12

1:12:23likely not 12 is really pushing it

1:12:25that's a great estimator of IQ working

1:12:27memory in fact there's almost no

1:12:30neuropsychologists like to think that

1:12:32working memory is something in and of

1:12:34itself but that's because they don't

1:12:35know a damn thing about psychometrics

1:12:36generally speaking there's almost no

1:12:38difference between fluid intelligence

1:12:40and working memory and the reason for

1:12:41that is that all measures of

1:12:44intellectual function collapse into G

1:12:48and so we can take a look at what that

1:12:49means this is from this character here

1:12:53Carol John Carrol if you want to know

1:12:56everything there is to know about IQ

1:12:58this is a book that everyone who's a

1:13:00psychologist should it should you

1:13:02shouldn't be able to be a psychologist

1:13:03unless you've read this book in my

1:13:04estimation there's a couple of key texts

1:13:06and this is one of them this guy Carol

1:13:08wrote this thick book you don't have to

1:13:10read the whole thing because a lot of

1:13:11it's just in some sense demonstrations

1:13:13and proof of what he's saying but what

1:13:15he did for IQ is the same thing that

1:13:17psychometricians did for the big five

1:13:20you've got the big two at the top

1:13:22they're not very highly correlated I

1:13:23think it's about 2 something like that

1:13:25so they're pretty independent then they

1:13:28fragment into the big five and then you

1:13:29can differentiate them further into the

1:13:31Big 10 and there really are five

1:13:34different traits because they're only

1:13:36correlated with each other at about 2

1:13:39to3 they're really quite

1:13:41distinct um the question is if you

1:13:45fractionate IQ how correlated are the

1:13:48things that you fractionated into and

1:13:50the answer to that is 08 or 0.9 there's

1:13:53one factor IQ roughly speaking you if

1:13:57you if you

1:13:59take imagine that you you took an IQ

1:14:02test and you

1:14:05took it was 100 items long and you took

1:14:07the 50 items that were the most

1:14:09correlated with each other and then the

1:14:1150 items that were the least correlated

1:14:14with those 50 items so you broke it into

1:14:16two as much as you could you maximally

1:14:18differentiated it you might ask well how

1:14:21correlated would the scores be on those

1:14:23two different subsets and the answer

1:14:24would be like 0.

1:14:26n because there isn't two things that

1:14:29you're measuring even if you break it up

1:14:30that way post Haw and say well it's

1:14:32unfair but we're going to say because

1:14:34these are the 50 most highly correlated

1:14:37and these are the leftovers like we're

1:14:38really capitalizing on chance there

1:14:40you're still going to get an almost

1:14:42identical readout from both sections of

1:14:44the IQ test and it's just not the same

1:14:47with personality so and so this is this

1:14:49is Carol's model

1:14:51basically stratum 3 that's the highest

1:14:54level of abstraction that's fluid

1:14:55intelligence and then you can break it

1:14:57down into these subcategories of

1:14:59cognitive ability and you might say well

1:15:02how different are those subcategories

1:15:04and the answer is not very if you're

1:15:06high in one you're very likely to be

1:15:08high in all of them now there's a bit of

1:15:09a coda to that which is that the lower

1:15:13your

1:15:14IQ the higher the correlation between

1:15:17these sub aspects of intelligence the

1:15:20lower your IQ the higher the correlation

1:15:23between the sub aspects of intelligence

1:15:25as you get up into the higher strata of

1:15:27IQ your your intelligence differentiates

1:15:30more across the potential range of

1:15:32differentiation which is to say there's

1:15:34one way of not being very

1:15:36bright but there's multiple ways of

1:15:38being bright so but even even so if

1:15:42you're high on one you're still quite

1:15:43likely to be high on the rest of them so

1:15:45then the question is what's the

1:15:46correlation between G and each of these

1:15:49sub elements of G and then what's the

1:15:51correlation between the sub elements of

1:15:52G themselves so if this was PL itic it

1:15:55and we were looking at openness and

1:15:57extroversion the correlation here would

1:16:00be about point I think it's about 0.5

1:16:02something like that and the correlation

1:16:04between openness and extraversion would

1:16:05be about. 3 quite a bit of difference

1:16:08but with this there's G there's the sub

1:16:12elements there's the correlation

1:16:15coefficients 0. n almost

1:16:180.95 Point what is that 6 or 8 88 6889

1:16:25pretty much n pretty much well you can

1:16:27fractionate it the best you possibly can

1:16:30doesn't matter it's one thing it's one

1:16:33thing and it looks like it's the ability

1:16:35to abstractly represent and then to

1:16:37manipulate the abstractions I said with

1:16:39working memory you know you can get it

1:16:42that simply how many digits can you keep

1:16:45in your head simultaneously without

1:16:47dropping one that's it God it's

1:16:50unbelievable it's pretty straightforward

1:16:52and then it's this viciously powerful

1:16:54predictor long-term life success

1:16:56probably prediction of around 05 now

1:16:59psychologists okay psychologists hate

1:17:02this they won't admit that it exists

1:17:05and I think it's because there's

1:17:07something about intelligence that rubs

1:17:09against our intrinsic egalitarianism

1:17:11right there's two things that do it

1:17:13first let's say you're successful you

1:17:15like to think I'm successful you know

1:17:17and you like to attribute it to your own

1:17:19doing and fair enough you know I'm not

1:17:21saying that there isn't an element of it

1:17:23that's your own doing whatever means but

1:17:26if your nerve conductive velocity

1:17:28happens to be high there's a lot more

1:17:31probability that you're going to be

1:17:32successful and it's kind of hard to

1:17:34blame that on you or to attribute it to

1:17:35you for that matter so it it indicates a

1:17:39kind of statistical arbitrariness about

1:17:41the distribution of success and failure

1:17:43in our society okay so that's one thing

1:17:45people don't like that idea the second

1:17:47thing is is that it turns out to be very

1:17:51difficult to raise IQ now It's Tricky

1:17:54because it looks like you can raise IQ

1:17:56across whole populations because at

1:17:59least fluid intelligence looks like it's

1:18:01been rising quite substantially over the

1:18:03last 100 years maybe as people are

1:18:05better nourished and better educated but

1:18:08also more prone to continually

1:18:10manipulate abstractions in their life

1:18:12because I I mean kids start with

1:18:13computers when they're like two you know

1:18:15so but if you take a group of people and

1:18:19you try to if you take a group of low IQ

1:18:22people and you try to raise their IQ

1:18:24it's very very difficult to manage it

1:18:25without a tremendous amount of

1:18:27investment that doesn't necessarily mean

1:18:29the investment isn't worthwhile but it

1:18:30does mean that it's very

1:18:35difficult well the best thing to do as

1:18:37far as we can tell the best thing to do

1:18:39is get nourishment right that seems to

1:18:41be the most effective yeah yeah yeah so

1:18:44part of the reason part of the reason

1:18:46the theory is part of the reason that

1:18:48population IQs have been increasing over

1:18:50the last 100 years is because there's

1:18:52just no one left who's seriously enough

1:18:55malnourished so that it's going to

1:18:56profoundly impact their intellectual

1:18:58capabilities so breastfeeding seems to

1:19:01raise IQ so it's two two points three

1:19:03points with every year of breastfeeding

1:19:05it's something like that so it's it's

1:19:07it's and that's actually quite a lot two

1:19:08or three points actually makes a

1:19:09difference as it turns out

1:19:12so okay so so is IQ real depends what

1:19:17you mean by

1:19:18real IQ is averaged performance across

1:19:23averaged sets of questions that require

1:19:25abstraction to conceive of and and

1:19:28answer is it

1:19:29real well it's real statistically and

1:19:32you can use it to predict important

1:19:34outcomes that other things can't predict

1:19:38and from a scientific perspective and

1:19:40and it's also correlated with various

1:19:42physiological and biological phenomena

1:19:45well that's that's how you define real

1:19:47scientifically so yes it's real are

1:19:49there other factors that determine

1:19:52people's success and worth I keep isn't

1:19:54a measure of people's worth in any

1:19:56intrinsic sense it's a it's an estimate

1:19:59of their ability to succeed in AB in

1:20:02hierarchies that are dependent on the

1:20:04ability to manipulate complex sets of

1:20:06information there's lots of other things

1:20:08about people that differentiate them in

1:20:10terms of quality and quantity and all of

1:20:12those things and the the most evident of

1:20:15those are the big five traits now if

1:20:17you're a psychologist this is another

1:20:18thing every psychologist should be

1:20:21taught if you want

1:20:23to discover something about human beings

1:20:26that hasn't already been discovered the

1:20:28first thing you should do is make sure

1:20:29it isn't IQ and it isn't any of the big

1:20:32five traits and psychologists almost

1:20:35never do that because what happens is

1:20:36that if they control for IQ so in a

1:20:39regression you'd say okay here's the

1:20:40thing I'm interested in predicting the

1:20:42first thing we're going to do is add IQ

1:20:44and not a measure that you took in five

1:20:46minutes either like a real IQ test

1:20:48because you want to use a good measure

1:20:50to test your hypothesis against and not

1:20:52a 10 item measure of the big five either

1:20:55like a 100 item measure so you get a

1:20:56reliable measure you throw in IQ you

1:20:59throw in the big five and then you throw

1:21:01in your Dopey construct and then you see

1:21:03if it can predict anything and the

1:21:05answer is no and so psychologists don't

1:21:07do it because whenever they do it

1:21:09properly it destroys their construct and

1:21:11that makes them irritated because their

1:21:14claim to their position of authority in

1:21:16the educational dominance hierarchy is

1:21:19predicated on the validity of their

1:21:21construct now if you're a real scientist

1:21:23what you try to do is destroy destroy

1:21:24your construct you think okay it looks

1:21:28like this is real then you think it's

1:21:30probably not and I don't want to spend

1:21:32the next 10 years chasing a ghost and a

1:21:34chimera so I'm going to try to destroy

1:21:37the damn thing so you say well we'll

1:21:39match it up against a good measure of IQ

1:21:41and a comprehensive big five and it

1:21:43still survives we'll do a couple of

1:21:45replications to make sure that we can't

1:21:46kill it any other way and maybe we'll do

1:21:49the statistics three or four different

1:21:50ways to make sure that the thing just

1:21:52doesn't disappear when you use a diff

1:21:54different statistical procedure and

1:21:56people don't do that and that's why the

1:21:58replication rate even among

1:22:00wellestablished psychological findings

1:22:02so to speak ones that have been highly

1:22:04cited is extraordinarily low and if you

1:22:07talk to psychologists they'll wave their

1:22:09hands and they'll say well I don't

1:22:10really believe an IQ it's like okay you

1:22:12know we're not talking about uh what do

1:22:14you call those what did the Ghostbusters

1:22:17hunt down we're not talking about

1:22:19paranormal phenomena they're not things

1:22:21you get to believe in or not right

1:22:23they're rules TOS for defining what

1:22:25constitutes something that's real from a

1:22:27scientific perspective and a

1:22:28psychometric perspective so you don't

1:22:30get to say well I'll apply one

1:22:32definition of reality because I don't

1:22:33like IQ and then I'll use the same

1:22:36definition to justify my own constructs

1:22:38like sorry that isn't how it works not

1:22:40you can do that if you're a

1:22:42postmodernist you can do that but if

1:22:43you're a person who actually thinks

1:22:45scientifically you don't get to play

1:22:46that game so now you know part of the

1:22:50reason that we need to know about these

1:22:51sorts of

1:22:52things let's see how are we doing for

1:22:55time here oh yeah we're doing good I

1:22:59think we need to know these things

1:23:00partly because they have policy

1:23:01implications first of all you need to

1:23:03know them for your own life because you

1:23:06got to know that there are differences

1:23:07in intelligence it's really important if

1:23:09you go into a job and you're not smart

1:23:11enough for that job you're going to have

1:23:13one bloody miserable time and you're

1:23:15going to make life wretched for the

1:23:17people around you because you won't be

1:23:18able to handle the position and as you

1:23:20climb hierarchies of competence the

1:23:22demand on fluid intelligence increases

1:23:25and so unless you want to fail you don't

1:23:27put yourself in over your head well

1:23:29what's over your head well that's a

1:23:31tricky thing to figure out I mean you

1:23:32have to figure that out with

1:23:34intelligence you have to figure it out

1:23:35with conscientiousness you have to

1:23:36figure it out with creativity you have

1:23:38to figure out with stress tolerance with

1:23:40agreeableness because you want to go

1:23:42into a Cooperative environment and not a

1:23:43competitive one if you're agreeable and

1:23:46with neuroticism you want probably want

1:23:48to keep the stress level of your job

1:23:50relatively low because those are all

1:23:52places that you can break down and most

1:23:54people have at least one significant

1:23:57weakness in their intelligence

1:23:58personality makeup and you got to be

1:24:00careful not to place yourself in a

1:24:01position where that's going to be a

1:24:02fatal flaw but what you really want to

1:24:04do as far as I can tell if you want to

1:24:07maximize your chances for both success

1:24:09and and let's say well-being is you want

1:24:12to find a strata of occupation in which

1:24:15you would have an intelligence that

1:24:16would put you in the upper cortile

1:24:19that's perfect then you're a big fish in

1:24:20a small pond and you don't want to be

1:24:23this you don't want to be the stupidest

1:24:25guy in the room it's a bloody rough

1:24:27place to be so and you probably don't

1:24:29want to be the smartest guy in the room

1:24:31either because what that probably means

1:24:32is you should be in a different room

1:24:34right you should look at a place where

1:24:36if you're right at the top it's you've

1:24:38mastered it it's time to go somewhere

1:24:40where you're a little lower so that

1:24:41you've got something to climb up for so

1:24:44and I can if you're not hyper

1:24:45conscientious for example you're

1:24:47probably not going to want a job that

1:24:48you have to work 70 hours a week at

1:24:50because you're just not wired up that

1:24:51way you'd rather have some Leisure and

1:24:53like more power to you

1:24:54if that's how you're wired up there's

1:24:56nothing wrong with having some Leisure

1:24:58but if you're someone who can't stand

1:25:00sitting around doing nothing ever then

1:25:02maybe you can go into a job that's going

1:25:04to require you to work 75 hours a week

1:25:06and almost all jobs that are at the top

1:25:08of complex dominance hierarchies require

1:25:11very high intelligence and insane levels

1:25:13of conscientiousness as well generally

1:25:15speaking as pretty damn high levels of

1:25:17stress tolerance you know because that

1:25:18can knock you out too because there's

1:25:20going to be sharp fluctuations in your

1:25:23career generally speaking at the higher

1:25:25levels of a of a of a of a structure and

1:25:29you have to make very complicated

1:25:30decisions often with very short time

1:25:32Horizons so you have to decide if that's

1:25:34what you

1:25:35want okay so here's some IQ items so

1:25:39this is this is from a test roughly it

1:25:42isn't from the direct test but it's an

1:25:43analog of the Ravens Progressive

1:25:45matrices now here's how the Ravens was

1:25:47derived so imagine that you

1:25:50have you got your 100 questions and you

1:25:53can take out the sum of those and call

1:25:55that IQ okay so now you have a score

1:25:58then you can do a correlation between

1:26:00all of the items and that score and you

1:26:04can find out which single item is the

1:26:06best predictor of the total score

1:26:08because you might see that question 39

1:26:10has no correlation with with the with

1:26:13the mean with the average you say well

1:26:15that isn't a very good question you'd

1:26:16actually throw that out of the next test

1:26:18but you'd say well item number 15 is

1:26:20correlated at 75 with the total score so

1:26:25that's a good single item so then

1:26:26imagine that you went across sets of IQ

1:26:28tests and you took out the best single

1:26:31item predictors of fullscale IQ what

1:26:34you'd end up with is something like

1:26:37this so the Ravens Progressive matrices

1:26:40is a very good test of fluid

1:26:41intelligence and it's relatively

1:26:44non-linguistic which is also an

1:26:45advantage right because imagine you

1:26:47wanted to assess the intelligence of a

1:26:49very diverse range of people and they

1:26:51all came from different linguistic

1:26:53backgrounds well as long as they can

1:26:55understand the instructions which are

1:26:56all almost self-evident then they're

1:26:58going to be able to do this okay so this

1:27:00is you see you have to guess in case you

1:27:04didn't already figure this out which you

1:27:06would have had you been using your

1:27:07intelligence and applying it you're

1:27:09trying to replace the question mark with

1:27:11one of these and so here's how you do it

1:27:14roughly speaking it's also a it's

1:27:16probably a working memory test because

1:27:18you have to hold a variety of variables

1:27:19in imagination at the same time okay so

1:27:21the first thing you say see is every row

1:27:24has a star a triangle and a square and

1:27:27each row has a DOT two dots and three

1:27:30dots and so every row has to have a

1:27:33triangle square and star and one two or

1:27:36three dots okay so this one first of all

1:27:38what's it missing in terms of

1:27:40shape triangle excellent see that's why

1:27:43you're at the UFT and then okay and then

1:27:46what's it missing for dots two dots

1:27:48excellent so we do a little scan here

1:27:50and we see oh look well it could be that

1:27:52one or it could be

1:27:54that's

1:27:56it it's that one and so is that right

1:27:59yes aren't we smart no that was easy so

1:28:02no you're not very smart if you figure

1:28:03that one out because pretty much

1:28:04everybody can figure that one out I

1:28:06think this next one is more

1:28:17difficult okay so in the first row you

1:28:19see that there's two objects each are

1:28:22different color and they move together

1:28:25right they join that one they're

1:28:28separate there they join they're

1:28:30together they're separate there and they

1:28:31join there so this one should be halfway

1:28:34in between those two and the other thing

1:28:37that happens

1:28:38is let's see oh this item actually might

1:28:42be incorrectly represented because the

1:28:44blue should be on the other side

1:28:45whatever

1:28:49um what's

1:28:51that three yeah

1:28:55yes did they

1:28:58flip okay well anyways you see that it's

1:29:00three see I'm not very bright because

1:29:01I've just lectured for an hour okay so

1:29:04so that was a more difficult item and

1:29:06then this one is more difficult if I

1:29:08remember correctly

1:29:10so let's see so they're all three

1:29:12different colors so that has to be color

1:29:15then what's the other thing the

1:29:17relationship between the colors change

1:29:19so what's the

1:29:22answer ha you're all you're you're all

1:29:24scared to answer aren't you cuz you

1:29:26might be wrong yeah and the the more

1:29:29anxious people are even less likely to

1:29:30answer number

1:29:32three okay so if you want to test

1:29:34someone's IQ then you put together a

1:29:36like nice batch of these at different

1:29:38levels of difficulty and then you sum

1:29:42them and then you rank order and then

1:29:43you correct for age and then you have IQ

1:29:45and that's that and then you can say

1:29:46well then you can sort people into the

1:29:48complexity of their occupations and

1:29:50isn't that dismal and wretched but it's

1:29:52true so here you you

1:29:54go this is from the wonderlick people

1:29:57they're a commercial company that makes

1:29:59General cognitive ability tests and it's

1:30:01often used by corporations even though

1:30:04it's actually illegal it's actually

1:30:06illegal to use IQ tests but the

1:30:08wonderlick

1:30:10doesn't promote themselves as testing IQ

1:30:12I think they I think it's General

1:30:14cognitive ability which is the same

1:30:15thing but whatever the SATs the Gres the

1:30:19lsats all of those are IQ tests so now

1:30:23they're more crystallized than fluid

1:30:24we'll get to that in a minute but

1:30:26crystallized knowledge is what you acre

1:30:27across time so you could say that fluid

1:30:30intelligence is what programs your brain

1:30:32it fills it with facts let's say it

1:30:34fills it with knowledge and then but you

1:30:36can get an estimate of your intelligence

1:30:38by sampling your domain of factual

1:30:40knowledge and the reason for that is

1:30:42that well obviously the better the

1:30:44programmer the better the content and so

1:30:46what that also means is that you can you

1:30:48could if you were prefrontal cortex was

1:30:51damaged later in life your fluid ey

1:30:54could plummet but your crystallized IQ

1:30:55remain more or less intact so even

1:30:57though they're not different one

1:31:01produces the other and then once the

1:31:02producer has produced then the producer

1:31:05can disappear and you still got the

1:31:06encoded knowledge so at that least

1:31:10that's how it looks to me so okay so how

1:31:12smart do you have to be to be different

1:31:14things in life well if you have an IQ of

1:31:18116 to

1:31:20130 which is 85th percentile and above

1:31:23so so it's one person in 8 up to one

1:31:26person in 130 I believe is 85 90 95 is

1:31:29it 95 I think it's 95 one person eight

1:31:32to one person in 20 then you can be a

1:31:35attorney a research analyst an editor an

1:31:37advertising manager a chemist an

1:31:39engineer an executive manager Etc that's

1:31:42that's the now that's not the high-end

1:31:45for IQ by the way you know that it can

1:31:48go up well it can go up indefinitely

1:31:50although there's fewer and fewer people

1:31:52as it goes up so if you want to be the

1:31:54best at what you're doing Bar None then

1:31:57having an IQ of above 145 is a necessity

1:32:00and maybe you're pushing 160 in some

1:32:02situations and maybe that's make making

1:32:04you one person in 10,000 or even one

1:32:06person in 100,000 and then also to

1:32:09really be good at it you probably have

1:32:10to be reasonably stress tolerant and

1:32:12also somewhat conscientious so you know

1:32:15people and you think well why is it that

1:32:18smart people are at the top of dominance

1:32:20hierarchies and the answer to that in

1:32:21part is because they get there first

1:32:23right I mean everything's a race roughly

1:32:26speaking and the faster you are the more

1:32:28likely you are to be at the Forefront of

1:32:29the pack and intelligence in large part

1:32:32is speed that's not all of it is so if

1:32:34you're moving towards something

1:32:36difficult rapidly the faster people are

1:32:38going to get there first so IQ of 115

1:32:42110 to 115 so that's 85th to 73rd to

1:32:4585th percentile copywriter accountant

1:32:48manager sales manager sales analyst

1:32:51general manager ping purchasing agent

1:32:54registered nurse sales account executive

1:32:56uh if you look at universities the

1:32:58smartest people are they're Above This

1:33:00who are the smartest people at

1:33:01University what do you think mati

1:33:05mathematicians physicists and

1:33:06mathematicians right right I could tell

1:33:09you who's on the other end but I

1:33:11[Laughter]

1:33:13won't yeah I'd like to though anyway

1:33:17anyways okay going down the now 103 to

1:33:20108 is slightly above average right 60th

1:33:23to 7 percentile store manager bookkeeper

1:33:26credit clerk lab tester general sales

1:33:28telephone sales accounting clerk

1:33:29computer operator customer service rep

1:33:31technician clerk typist so you see at

1:33:33this level people are people have some

1:33:36technical skill and some ability to deal

1:33:38with complex things okay that's dead

1:33:40average 100 is average dispatcher in a

1:33:44general office police patrol officer

1:33:47receptionist cashier General clerical

1:33:49inside sales clerk meter reader printer

1:33:51teller data entry electrical helper

1:33:5695th to 98 machinist food department

1:33:58manager quality control Checker security

1:34:01guard unskilled labor maintenance arc

1:34:03welder die Setter mechanic good good IQ

1:34:05range for relatively qualified trades

1:34:08people 87 to 93 messenger factory

1:34:12production worker assembler food service

1:34:14worker nurses aid warehouseman custodian

1:34:16janitor material handler Packer now what

1:34:19you're seeing what you're starting to

1:34:20see is that as you move down the

1:34:22hierarchy the jobs get simpler they're

1:34:24more likely to be assigned by other

1:34:26people or they're

1:34:27repetitive because what IQ predicts to

1:34:31some degree is how rapidly you can learn

1:34:32something but once you've learned it it

1:34:34doesn't predict how necessarily how well

1:34:36you do at it and so the more repetitive

1:34:39jobs tend people with lower IQs are more

1:34:41suited to more repetitive jobs under 87

1:34:44is there something well

1:34:48no right that's a big problem and it's

1:34:51something our society has not addressed

1:34:54at

1:34:54all jobs for people with IQs of less

1:34:57than 85 are very very rare so what the

1:35:00hell are those suppos people supposed to

1:35:02do it's like one it's 15% of the

1:35:05population what are they supposed to do

1:35:08well we better figure it out because one

1:35:10of the things that's happening too is

1:35:12that as the as the high IQ Tech Geeks

1:35:15get a hold of the world the demand for

1:35:17cognitive power is increasing not

1:35:19decreasing right you want to be a teller

1:35:21well you know those checkout machines

1:35:23they're not so simple you want to work

1:35:25at McDonald's you think that's a simple

1:35:27job you don't see robots working at

1:35:28McDonald's and the reason for that is

1:35:30that what McDonald's workers do is too

1:35:32complex for for robots to do

1:35:39so well so this is a discussion that no

1:35:41one wants to have but that's okay it's

1:35:43still a problem and it has to be dealt

1:35:46with so the US government I think I told

1:35:48you this at one point already it's

1:35:50illegal to induct anyone into the US

1:35:52Army if they have an IQ of less than 83

1:35:55right it's about 10% of the population

1:35:58because the US Army and they've been

1:36:00doing IQ testing since IQ testing began

1:36:02because they want everybody they can

1:36:04possibly get into the army because in

1:36:06peacetime they use it as a way of moving

1:36:08people up to socioeconomic ladder and in

1:36:10Wartime well obviously you need as many

1:36:13soldiers as you can get your hands on

1:36:15and so you're not going to be any

1:36:17pickier than you have to be so when the

1:36:20US Army says it's illegal to induct

1:36:22anybody into the Armed Forces if they

1:36:23have an IQ of less than 83 then you know

1:36:26that they've done it for absolute

1:36:28necessity right and when people have

1:36:30made a finding that contradicts what

1:36:32they want to hear and they're doing it

1:36:34out of absolute necessity you can be

1:36:36reasonably true that it's one of those

1:36:37facts that just won't bloody well go

1:36:39away and so you might think well if

1:36:41there's nothing for someone with an IQ

1:36:42of less than 83 to do in the Army what

1:36:45makes you think that there's something

1:36:46that they can do in the general

1:36:47population and then the issue is you

1:36:49know because the conservatives will say

1:36:51well they should just work harder like

1:36:53sorry that ain't going to fly and the

1:36:55Liberals will say well there's no

1:36:56difference between people anyhow and you

1:36:58can just train people to do everything

1:37:00and that's wrong so they're both wrong

1:37:02and they're seriously wrong and the fact

1:37:04that neither side of the political

1:37:06perspective will take a good cold hard

1:37:08look at this problem means that we're

1:37:10going to increasingly have a structural

1:37:12problem in our societies because we're

1:37:14complexifying everything so rapidly that

1:37:17you can't find employment unless

1:37:19increasingly unless you're intelligent

1:37:21you guys are really going to face this

1:37:22you know lawyers are disappearing like

1:37:25mad and the reason for that is you can

1:37:27look it up online increasingly you can

1:37:29do things yourself if you're smart and

1:37:32so like the workingclass people have

1:37:34been wiped out pretty nicely over the

1:37:35last 30 years by by Automation and

1:37:38various other things it's the low end of

1:37:40the white collar class that's coming up

1:37:41next so I'm not saying that low lawyers

1:37:44are in the low end but lowend lawyers

1:37:46are in the low end of the white color

1:37:48class so there's still going to be

1:37:50plenty of positions for people who are

1:37:51creative and fast on their feet and

1:37:53super smart in fact those people are

1:37:55going to have all the money that's

1:37:57already happening to a great degree you

1:37:59know cuz if you're smart and you can use

1:38:01a computer you're so smart it's just

1:38:03absolutely unbelievable right and if you

1:38:05can't use a computer and lots of people

1:38:08and I don't mean you know you can open

1:38:09word that isn't what I mean I mean maybe

1:38:12I mean you can program and if you can't

1:38:14program well you're right at the next

1:38:15end so if you haven't got that with you

1:38:19you're you're going to be left behind

1:38:21what's going happen when

1:38:26a lot of them will take

1:38:27demoll that's what's happening in the

1:38:29United States yeah it's a no it yeah so

1:38:33there's a massive drug problem emerging

1:38:38in3 yeah no I'm telling you that is

1:38:40what's happening

1:38:43there yes

1:38:45drugs yeah drugs of

1:38:49abuse

1:38:51fallet well that what H what is is

1:38:53happening to a large degree is people

1:38:55drop out of the employment race they get

1:38:57very depressed they develop chronic pain

1:38:58problems especially if they're men

1:39:00because chronic pain and depression are

1:39:02very much the same thing and then they

1:39:04subsist on opiates which are subsidized

1:39:06by Medicaid in the US I'm not kidding

1:39:08about this this is exactly what's

1:39:09happening what what else is going to

1:39:11happen to people for whom there's