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ShitPostGuy t1_itslzc6 wrote

Fluid intelligence is a term created in the 1950s in the field of psychometry which is a controversial branch of psychology focused an attaching quantifiable measurements to psychological characteristics. It’s controversial because it’s based entirely on correlation and there is no way to demonstrate that the characteristics are actually caused by the thing being measured.

Fluid intelligence is one half of a theory of intelligence put forward in the 60s which posited that general intelligence can be reduced into two subcategories: fluid intelligence which is the ability to solve novel problems and crystalized intelligence which is the capacity to store and execute known solutions to a problem.

Creativity is not a part of that model.

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BananaBananaBa t1_ituuqu1 wrote

Any references for the fact that psychometrics are only correlational and it is controversial because of that?

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ShitPostGuy t1_ituyrok wrote

It’s definitionally correlational since you cannot (ethically) make changes in someone’s brain and test the resulting changes in their personality/cognition to prove causation. One can only say things like “there is correlation between the trait of impulsivity, as measured by personality test xyz, and lower activity levels in the prefrontal cortex.”

As for it being controversial, a quick Google search will get you a host of articles.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2779444/

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0191886921008254

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.581448/full

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BananaBananaBa t1_itx7r6f wrote

psychometrics is a much larger concept than needing change in the brain for an interventional investigation of causation. Also, "correlational" is a very old concept. I went through the papers that you listed here, and you are right about exploratory factor analysis being as good as reading tea leaves. I mean, its as bad as p-values and the confidence intervals. But there is much more modern work. You should check out COSMIN consensus work.

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MinnieShoof t1_itta7f0 wrote

I'd never heard those two words put together in Term™ with a capital T terminology. But, like most things that involve reinventing the wheel - it (seems like)/is just something we already know, quantified under different adverbs so the speaker sounds like they're saying something different when they say the things we all already know.

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