Childhood general cognitive ability predicts leadership role occupancy across life: Evidence from 17,000 cohort study participants

Non-Cognitive Specificities of Intellectually Gifted Children and Adolescents: A Systematic Review of the Literature

For several years, there was a growing interest in intellectual giftedness and in particular in the non-cognitive specificities of gifted individuals. This topic attracted much public attention and sometimes led to contradictions with the scientific literature. The current review synthesizes a broad set of results related to non-cognitive specificities of intellectual gifted in children and adolescents. This synthesis of scientific research on giftedness and its associated non-cognitive features does not support the conclusion that there is a stable profile across gifted individuals that would consistently separate them from non-gifted individuals. A few specificities in some areas are noted, but they are not necessarily being systematic. These specificities often turn out to be in favor of gifted youth, contrary to the view sometimes defended in the general public that gifted individuals suffer from major everyday difficulties. Finally, methodological issues are listed regarding the designs of existing studies, with recommendations for future research in the field.

How to avoid others and influence people: Attachment orientations predict leader prototypicality in ad hoc teams

The existing literature has explored the role and importance of personality traits in leader prototypicality. However, limited research exists concerning the link between personality traits and leader emergence or prototypicality in ad hoc teams. Based on the relational leadership and attachment literature, we examine whether leader attachment orientations can serve as antecedents of leader prototypicality in ad hoc teams. Utilizing an ad hoc problem-solving task featuring a round-robin design in a sample of 197 participants, we find that individuals with a dominant avoidant attachment orientation were more likely to be perceived as leader-like or leader prototypical. In comparison, individuals with a dominant anxious attachment orientation were much less likely to emerge as leader prototypical. We interpret these findings in alignment with attachment theory and relational leadership and discuss the role of relational personality traits in ad hoc teams with no formally appointed leader.

Musical Activity During Life Is Associated With Multi-Domain Cognitive and Brain Benefits in Older Adults

Regular musical activity as a complex multimodal lifestyle activity is proposed to be protective against age-related cognitive decline and Alzheimer’s disease. This cross-sectional study investigated the association and interplay between musical instrument playing during life, multi-domain cognitive abilities and brain morphology in older adults (OA) from the DZNE-Longitudinal Cognitive Impairment and Dementia Study (DELCODE) study. Participants reporting having played a musical instrument across three life periods (n = 70) were compared to controls without a history of musical instrument playing (n = 70), well-matched for reserve proxies of education, intelligence, socioeconomic status and physical activity. Participants with musical activity outperformed controls in global cognition, working memory, executive functions, language, and visuospatial abilities, with no effects seen for learning and memory. The musically active group had greater gray matter volume in the somatosensory area, but did not differ from controls in higher-order frontal, temporal, or hippocampal volumes. However, the association between gray matter volume in distributed frontal-to-temporal regions and cognitive abilities was enhanced in participants with musical activity compared to controls. We show that playing a musical instrument during life relates to better late-life cognitive abilities and greater brain capacities in OA. Musical activity may serve as a multimodal enrichment strategy that could help preserve cognitive and brain health in late life. Longitudinal and interventional studies are needed to support this notion.

Why do you treat me in such ways? An attachment examination on supervisors’ early family environment and subordinates’ responses

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to fill important gaps by using the attachment theory and examining the effects of supervisors’ early family environment on their behaviors toward subordinates and subordinates’ responses.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors used samples of 334 supervisor–subordinate pairs from a manufacturing company.

Findings

The study finds that supervisors’ harmonious family environment has a positive influence on subordinates’ responses (job satisfaction, work-to-family enrichment and task performance) through the effect of supervisors’ positive working model and caregiving behavior. On the contrast, supervisors’ conflicting family environment has a negative influence on subordinates’ responses through the effect of supervisors’ negative working model and aggressive behavior.

Originality/value

Existing studies mainly explore the influence of organizational environment on supervisors’ treatment of their subordinates. However, few have examined the relationship between supervisors’ early family environment and their treatment of their subordinates.

Can You Ever Be Too Smart for Your Own Good? Comparing Linear and Nonlinear Effects of Cognitive Ability on Life Outcomes

Despite a long-standing expert consensus about the importance of cognitive ability for life outcomes, contrary views continue to proliferate in scholarly and popular literature. This divergence of beliefs presents an obstacle for evidence-based policymaking and decision-making in a variety of settings. One commonly held idea is that greater cognitive ability does not matter or is actually harmful beyond a certain point (sometimes stated as > 100 or 120 IQ points). We empirically tested these notions using data from four longitudinal, representative cohort studies comprising 48,558 participants in the United States and United Kingdom from 1957 to the present. We found that ability measured in youth has a positive association with most occupational, educational, health, and social outcomes later in life. Most effects were characterized by a moderate to strong linear trend or a practically null effect (mean R² range = .002-.256). Nearly all nonlinear effects were practically insignificant in magnitude (mean incremental R² = .001) or were not replicated across cohorts or survey waves. We found no support for any downside to higher ability and no evidence for a threshold beyond which greater scores cease to be beneficial. Thus, greater cognitive ability is generally advantageous-and virtually never detrimental.

Pathfinder: a gamified measure to integrate general cognitive ability into the biological, medical, and behavioural sciences

Genome-wide association (GWA) studies have uncovered DNA variants associated with individual differences in general cognitive ability (g), but these are far from capturing heritability estimates obtained from twin studies. A major barrier to finding more of this 'missing heritability' is assessment--the use of diverse measures across GWA studies as well as time and the cost of assessment. In a series of four studies, we created a 15-min (40-item), online, gamified measure of g that is highly reliable (alpha = 0.78; two-week test-retest reliability = 0.88), psychometrically valid and scalable; we called this new measure Pathfinder. In a fifth study, we administered this measure to 4,751 young adults from the Twins Early Development Study. This novel g measure, which also yields reliable verbal and nonverbal scores, correlated substantially with standard measures of g collected at previous ages (r ranging from 0.42 at age 7 to 0.57 at age 16). Pathfinder showed substantial twin heritability (0.57, 95% CIs = 0.43, 0.68) and SNP heritability (0.37, 95% CIs = 0.04, 0.70). A polygenic score computed from GWA studies of five cognitive and educational traits accounted for 12% of the variation in g, the strongest DNA-based prediction of g to date. Widespread use of this engaging new measure will advance research not only in genomics but throughout the biological, medical, and behavioural sciences.

A Meta-Analysis of Stressors from the Total Environment Associated with Children's General Cognitive Ability

General cognitive ability, often referred to as ‘general intelligence’, comprises a variety of correlated abilities. Childhood general cognitive ability is a well-studied area of research and can be used to predict social outcomes and perceived success. Early life stage (e.g., prenatal, postnatal, toddler) exposures to stressors (i.e., chemical and non-chemical stressors from the total (built, natural, social) environment) can impact the development of childhood cognitive ability. Building from our systematic scoping review (Ruiz et al., 2016), we conducted a meta-analysis to evaluate more than 100 stressors related to cognitive development. Our meta-analysis identified 23 stressors with a significant increase in their likelihood to influence childhood cognitive ability by 10% or more, and 80 stressors were observed to have a statistically significant effect on cognitive ability. Stressors most impactful to cognition during the prenatal period were related to maternal health and the mother’s ability to access information relevant to a healthy pregnancy (e.g., diet, lifestyle). Stressors most impactful to cognition during the early childhood period were dietary nutrients (infancy), quality of social interaction (toddler), and exposure to toxic substances (throughout early childhood). In conducting this analysis, we examined the relative impact of real-world exposures on cognitive development to attempt to understand the inter-relationships between exposures to both chemical and non-chemical stressors and early developmental life stages. Our findings suggest that the stressors observed to be the most influential to childhood cognitive ability are not permanent and can be broadly categorized as activities/behaviors which can be modified to improve childhood cognition. This meta-analysis supports the idea that there are complex relationships between a child’s total environment and early cognitive development.

Cognitive ability and education: How behavioural genetic research has advanced our knowledge and understanding of their association

Cognitive ability and educational success predict positive outcomes across the lifespan, from higher earnings to better health and longevity. The shared positive outcomes associated with cognitive ability and education are emblematic of the strong interconnections between them. Part of the observed associations between cognitive ability and education, as well as their links with wealth, morbidity and mortality, are rooted in genetic variation. The current review evaluates the contribution of decades of behavioural genetic research to our knowledge and understanding of the biological and environmental basis of the association between cognitive ability and education. The evidence reviewed points to a strong genetic basis in their association, observed from middle childhood to old age, which is amplified by environmental experiences. In addition, the strong stability and heritability of educational success are not driven entirely by cognitive ability. This highlights the contribution of other educationally relevant noncognitive characteristics. Considering both cognitive and noncognitive skills as well as their biological and environmental underpinnings will be fundamental in moving towards a comprehensive, evidence-based model of education.

Childhood cognitive ability and smoking initiation, relapse and cessation throughout adulthood: evidence from two British cohort studies

AIMS

To test the relationship between early cognitive ability and major changes in smoking habits across adulthood, and test whether educational attainment mediates these associations.

DESIGN

Prospective observational study to examine the link between cognitive ability and smoking initiation, relapse and cessation at multiple time-points throughout adulthood in a pooled analysis of two cohorts.

SETTING

Great Britain 1981-2013.

PARTICIPANTS

A total of 16 653 participants from two British cohorts; 7191 from the 1970 British Cohort Study (BCS) and 9462 from the 1958 National Child Development Study (NCDS). Participants were 52.9% female and 27.3% were smokers, 24.8% were ex-smokers and 47.9% reported never smoking.

MEASUREMENTS

Cognitive ability was assessed at age 10 years in the BCS and 11 years in the NCDS. Outcomes were smoking initiation, relapse and cessation derived from changes in smoking status observed across five time-points between ages 26-42 in the BCS and six time-points between ages 23-55 in the NCDS. Educational attainment was examined as a mediating variable. Controls were age, gender, social class, self-control, psychological distress, parental smoking and a study indicator (BCS/NCDS).

FINDINGS

In adjusted regression models, a 1 standard deviation increase in cognitive ability predicted a 0.5 percentage point (95% CI = -0.9 to -0.1) reduced probability of smoking and a 2.9 percentage point (95% CI = 2.1-3.7) higher probability of smoking cessation throughout adulthood, but did not change the likelihood of smoking relapse significantly. Differences in educational attainment explained approximately half the association between childhood cognitive ability and smoking initiation/cessation.

CONCLUSIONS

Lower cognitive ability, measured in childhood before smoking is initiated, appears to predict a higher likelihood of taking up smoking and a lower likelihood of quitting in adulthood. Educational attainment appears to mediate this effect: children with higher cognitive ability tend to become more highly educated adults which, in turn, predicts lower rates of smoking initiation and increased rates of smoking cessation.