Cognitive ability tilt refers to individual differences in the relative strength of specific cognitive abilities, such as mathematical, spatial, verbal, and so forth. This has potential implications for individuals’ educational and occupational success, but has only recently attracted attention after decades of focus on general intelligence and full scale IQ. The current research is fragmented due to inconsistent terminology in earlier publications. Here, I conduct a systematic review of cognitive ability tilt research, with the aim of gathering and synthesizing the existing body of publications. I found 36 relevant publications, half of which focused on math and verbal ability. Several other varieties of ability tilt were identified and categorized. The significance of this research was discussed.

This paper investigated the suggestion that situational judgment is a multidimensional evaluation methodology that assesses task and/or contextual job knowledge, and in any given situational judgment test (SJT), there may be items that better tap contextual knowledge while other items may better tap task knowledge. 233 undergraduate students completed questionnaires containing a situational judgment test, personality questionnaire, and cognitive ability test. Results supported the hypothesis that suggested personality significantly predicts contextual knowledge over and above cognitive ability, but did not support the prediction that cognitive ability significantly predicts task knowledge above and beyond personality. Preliminary results suggest that the lack of support for H2 may be due to the SJT utilized in this study, which appears to have tapped primarily contextual knowledge domains. Implications and directions for future research are suggested. / Master of Science

Although research has shown that the complex constructs of intelligence and personality are necessarily intertwined, studies exploring this issue in elderly individuals are rare. The importance attached to this interface in older adults becomes particularly clear in light of the debate over the cause and extent of age-related decrements in cognitive performance as well as whether such losses can be ameliorated or not, especially given societal shifts toward increased life expectancies. The present study explored the basis for shifts in personality-ability relationships in adulthood by comparing two samples of older adults, one of which was assessed in 1975 (N = 102, M age = 68.4), and the second of which was assessed in 1995 (N = 100, M age = 72.0), and a sample of younger adults (N = 100, M age = 21.8), also assessed in 1995. Each participant was administered the Holtzman Inkblot Technique and the Gf-Gc Sampler, a measure of crystallized (Gc) and fluid (Gf) abilities. LISREL analyses of both age-related and historical shifts in personality-ability relationships suggested that not only were such shifts associated with cohort differences as reflected in factor loading (lambda) differences between the older samples and the younger sample, as well as between each of the older samples, but also that such connections were weaker among younger adults. These findings are important in revealing that sociocultural shifts in opportunities for continued cognitive growth influence the impact of noncognitive (personality) factors on intellectual functioning in later life. Limitations of the current study, implications of the results, and suggestions for future research are discussed.

People who live in rural areas in low-income countries not only live in poverty, they also have to deal with an extremely variable income. In the absence of a well-functioning credit market, these fluctuations can be costly for households. This study aims to provide knowledge to the cost of these fluctuations, more precisely the study aims to answer how transitory weather shocks in Kenya affect children´s cognitive ability. Where weather shocks are assumed to be aggregated shocks that temporarily change the productivity in districts. The result from the study shows that drought, which can be seen as a negative shock, decrease the cognitive ability of children 11 to 16. The effect is marginally significant at the 10 percent level. No significant effect on cognitive ability is found for children aged 6 to 10. The result for older children is robust to alternative specifications. The study does not show any conclusive evidence on different effects on how boys and girls are affected by droughts.

I collect data on subjects' information acquisition during real and hypothetical risky choices using process-tracing software called Mouselab. I also measure subjects' cognitive ability using the cognitive reflective test (CRT). On average, measured risk preferences are not significantly different across real and hypothetical settings. However, cognitive ability is inversely related to risk aversion when choices are hypothetical, but it is unrelated when the choices are real. This interaction between cognitive ability and hypothetical setting is consistent with the notion that some individuals, specifically higher-ability individuals, treat hypothetical choices as "puzzles" and may help explain why some studies find that subjects indicate that they are more tolerant of risk when they make hypothetical choices than when they make real choices. On average, subjects demonstrate a similar degree of consistency across settings, and there are also no significant differences across settings in the amount of time subjects take to make a choice, the amount of information they acquire, or how they distribute their attention. I also find evidence to suggest that subjects acquire information in a manner consistent with the implicit calculation of expected utility. Specifically, individuals do not merely make choices "as if" they are integrating probabilities and outcomes, it appears that they actually are. Moreover, as they progress through a series of choices in a commonly used risk preference elicitation method, their information acquisition becomes progressively more consistent with integration models. Finally, on average, individuals appear to acquire information in real and hypothetical settings in similar ways.

Very little is known about the effects of paediatric traumatic brain injury (TBI) on prospective memory, the memory for future intentions such as remembering to post a letter in the morning or do homework. The main aim of this thesis was to redress that shortcoming in the literature. To investigate the effects of paediatric TBI on prospective memory as reliably and fully as possible, the study of children and adolescents with brain injuries was preceded by a developmental study. Given that the process of recovery from brain injury is imposed on the ongoing process of development, it is important to understand more about the normal developmental trajectory of prospective memory first of all. Study 1 compared the prospective-memory performance of 88 normally developing children, adolescents and young adults. The main task was computerised, and its design was influenced by a prefrontal-lobe model because prospective memory is believed to be mediated by the prefrontal regions of the brain. Variables associated with prefrontal-lobe capacity were manipulated: the cognitive demand of an ongoing task, and the importance of the prospective task. Results of Study 1 found that children remembered to respond to fewer prospective cues than adolescents or adults, but that adolescents and adults remembered similarly. Further, the differences between the children's performance and the adolescents' and adults' widened as the cognitive demand of the ongoing task increased. However, the effects of increasing the cognitive demand did not vary between the adolescents and adults. It made no difference to anyone's performance whether the importance of remembering the prospective cues was stressed or not. On the other hand, performance on executive functions, as measured by the Self-Ordered Pointing Task (SOPT), the Stroop Colour Word Interference Test (Stroop), and the Tower of London (TOL), which are also believed to be affected by prefrontal capacity, produced the same age effects as were produced on the computerised prospective-memory task. Further, performance on the SOPT and Stroop predicted performance on the high-demand level of the prospective-memory task. Study 2 compared 34 children and adolescents with TBI with the non-injured children and adolescents from Study 1 on the same tasks. Results revealed that overall those with TBI had poorer prospective-memory performance than their non-injured peers. However, a different pattern of impairment was evident in the children than in the adolescents. Specifically, the children with TBI performed similarly to their non-injured peers, but the adolescents with TBI were significantly worse than the non-injured adolescents. This trend was most noticeable as the cognitive demand of the ongoing task increased. Further, the age and injury effects were reflected in the performances on the executive-function tests, and the TOL predicted performance on the high-demand, prospective-memory task in those with TBI. Study 3 aimed to examine the ecological validity of Study 2, by investigating whether the impairments in prospective memory in young people with TBI measured quantitatively, were matched with qualitative data. Twelve parents of children and adolescents with mild to severe TBI were interviewed about whether or not their children's injuries impacted on their memory (retrospective and prospective) in everyday life. Results showed that in general most children suffered memory losses as a result of their brain injuries, and that prospective-memory loss caused particular hardships for the children and their families. Taken together, the results of the current research revealed that the development of prospective memory reaches a peak of maturity in adolescence, and that adolescents with TBI show greater decrements in prospective memory than adolescents without TBI, but that this pattern is not evident in children, where those with TBI were not significantly different from those without. These findings give support to the prefrontal-lobe model of prospective memory by showing that prefrontal maturity, which reaches a peak during adolescence, reflects the prospective-memory performance of healthy adolescents, and prefrontal injury, which is very common with TBI, shows the effects of deficits more during adolescence than in earlier years when the prefrontal regions are not yet fully developed. Study 3 showed that impairments in prospective memory that result from TBI translate into disabilities in the real world. As a follow up it is recommended that rehabilitation strategies be designed to assist young people with prospective-memory impairments adjust better to school and the demands of everyday living. The prefrontal-lobe model should guide the design of such strategies.

Research has shown that young adults treat older adults with less blame and more forgiveness when they commit a social transgression. This study sought to understand whether the stereotype of an assumed positive personality and/or a supposed lack of cognitive ability are potential driving forces behind the greater leniency that young adults display toward older transgressors. Seventy-five young adult participants were randomly assigned to one of five experimental conditions. Participants’ aging stereotypes were primed with one of four paragraphs that depicted older adults as (a) socially warm and cognitively competent, (b) socially cold but cognitively competent, (c) socially warm but cognitively incompetent, or (d) socially cold and cognitively incompetent. A fifth group of participants was assigned to a control condition in which aging stereotypes were not deliberately activated. Participants then read 16 vignettes that varied in terms of (1) the age of the transgressor, (2) how socially close the participant is to the transgressor, and (3) the severity of the transgression. After reading each individual vignette, participants indicated how much they blamed the transgressor for the outcome, and how likely they would be to forgive him or her despite the outcome. Relative to younger transgressors, older transgressors were blamed less, and had a higher likelihood of receiving forgiveness. Participants were also more likely to forgive and less likely to blame transgressors after having been primed with a stereotypical older adult who is socially warm but cognitively incompetent. Inconsistent with expectations, the effect was not unique to the rating of older adult transgressors; it also applied to young transgressors.

Research suggests there may be race, sex, and ability differences in score improvement on different selection tests and methods when retested (Schleicher, Van Iddekinge, Morgeson, & Campion, 2010). However, it is uncertain what individual differences moderate retest performance on GMA assessments, and why. In this study, 243 participants were retested on the Wonderlic Personnel Test (WPT). There was no evidence that race, sex, emotional stability, or conscientiousness moderate retest performance on the WPT, although SAT scores did positively predict retest performance. Individuals within the interquartile range of the initial WPT scores gained more when retested than those with more extreme scores. Establishing artificial cut-off levels demonstrated that those below the cut-off gained more when retested than those above the cut-off. Therefore, average-scorers and in some cases lower-scorers who may have failed to meet a predetermined cut-off are encouraged to re-test as they have little to lose and much to gain.

To better understand the cognitive processes associated with faking behaviors, Ajzen?s Theory of Planned Behavior was adapted to the study of faking on overt integrity tests. This decision-based model is then expanded through the inclusion of a key outcome (counterproductive work behavior) and basic individual differences (conscientious personality and cognitive ability). Results from two student samples (n = 233 and n = 160) demonstrate that conscientiousness negatively predicts attitudes toward faking on employment tests, while cognitive ability predicts the ability to fake. In turn, faking ability moderates the effect of self-reported faking motive on actual test scores, while self-reported faking decreases the validity of integrity tests for predicting counterproductive work behaviors. Implications are discussed.

Thesis (Ed. Spec.)--University of Wisconsin--Stout, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references.