INTELLIGENCE AND JOB PERFORMANCE: Economic and Social Implications

General mental ability (intelligence) is the dominant determinant of the large individual differences in work output on the job revealed by research, but highly visible individual differences in citizenship behavior on the job make the intelligence-performance relationship harder to observe in everyday life. Over time, the validity of job experience for predicting performance declines, while that of ability remains constant or increases. Path analyses indicate that the major reason ability predicts performance so well is that higher ability individuals learn relevant job knowledge more quickly and learn more of it. The current social policy that strongly discourages use of mental ability in hiring is counterproductive and has produced severe performance decrements. This policy should be changed to encourage the use of ability measures. However, it should also encourage the use of personality measures that increase overall predictive validity while simultaneously reducing differences in minority-majority hiring rates.