Psychology has more intelligence measurements than just IQ

Certainly worth reading.

If you think about the last time that you used the word “intelligent” to describe someone, you probably meant to say that the person knows a great deal of information and makes well-reasoned decisions. This everyday use of the term intelligence is somewhat at odds with how intelligence is actually measured. For the purpose of this paper, we are operationalizing intelligence as standardized assessments of intelligence that yield IQ scores.

Consider, for example, the test structure for the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS-IV). It includes vocabulary questions, visuospatial puzzles to solve, digits to recall in order both forward and backward, and a visual search for symbols (Wechsler, 1939). These subtests measure important components of intelligence, but individually or collectively, they do not capture the everyday meaning of intelligence, which includes making well-reasoned decisions, supporting conclusions with evidence, thinking in an unbiased manner, avoiding common well-documented biases in thinking such as not considering regression to the mean, weighting evidence that conforms to an existing belief more heavily than evidence that does not, and being misled by the way information is framed.

In one study, Stanovich and West (2008) tested the hypothesis that more intelligent people would be more likely to avoid “my-side bias” (the preference for conclusions and evidence that supports their world view) and more likely to prefer information that provided a balanced perspective on a controversial issue than less intelligent people. Contrary to expectations, they found that IQ measures did not predict thinking on these two types of reasoning tasks. More intelligent people were not more likely to avoid common cognitive biases or prefer balanced arguments than less intelligent people. Thus, intelligence does not appear to predict whether a person will use good reasoning or exercise good judgement.

The terms “critical thinking” and “wisdom” are labels given for the type of thinking that encompasses the skills that characterize good thinking. Grossmann, Na, Varnum, Kitayama, and Nisbett... cite many large scale
studies that have failed to find a relationship between IQ and well-being and articulate the belief that this failure was due to the fact that “standardized intelligence tests do not do a good job of capturing people’s ability to think about social relations or real-world decision-making”... they found that wise
reasoning predicted well-being, a marginally predicted longevity (assessed with death records for the older participants five years later), and better social relations; whereas, cognitive ability as measured with intelligence tests did not.

In this paper, we use the term “critical thinking” as our label for good or clear thinking. Critical thinking involves thinking rationally in a goal-oriented fashion... It is a collection of skills and strategies that a thinker can use when the situation calls for them. It is also a disposition towards thinking careful and thoughtfully. Sometimes critical thinking can be confused with pessimism and cynicism, but the word “critical” is to be used in a more positive way. To be a critical thinker means that you are an amiable skeptic who is willing to invest effort into your thinking process and that you are a flexible thinker.

I dunno, I think I prefer "wisdom". Wisdom is knowing which methods to use in order to form the correct conclusion; knowing when to apply the appropriate methods of critical thinking. Being critical and skeptical is important, but it's also open to abuse without wisdom. Interjection by Plato (Republic, 539b-d) :

I don’t suppose that it has escaped your notice that, when young people get their first taste of arguments, they misuse it by treating it as a kind of game of contradiction. They imitate those who’ve refuted them by refuting others themselves, and, like puppies, they enjoy dragging and tearing those around them with their arguments. Then, when they’ve refuted many and been refuted by them in turn, they forcefully and quickly fall into disbelieving what they believed before. And, as a result, they themselves and the whole of philosophy are discredited in the eyes of others. But an older person won’t want to take part in such madness. He’ll imitate someone who is willing to engage in discussion in order to look for the truth, rather than someone who plays at contradiction for sport.

And now to resume the current paper :

We examined the independent and combined effects of intelligence as assessed with IQ scores and critical thinking as assessed with scores on a popular critical thinking assessment (HCTA). We expected to replicate earlier research showing that IQ can modestly predict some life events, but also
expected to find that critical thinking is a better predictor of these events than IQ scores and that it would add significantly to predictive power when used in conjunction with IQ scores.

They do this by recruiting volunteers and asking them to complete forms designed to measure (separately) intelligence and critical thinking skills.

Our results support both of these hypotheses—critical thinking ability had a greater association with real life decisions, and it added significantly to explained variance, beyond what was accounted for by intelligence alone. These results leave us cautiously optimistic about the assessment of critical thinking ability and the validity of critical thinking scores to predict what people actually do (or say they do) in real life.

Although the methodology of this study (a correlational design) does not allow us to make casual statements (e.g., improving our critical thinking skills will prevent us from making bad decisions) or rule out alternative explanations of these results (e.g., critical thinkers are more selective about reporting certain life outcomes), we are optimistic that improving critical thinking and intelligence will have a positive impact on our everyday lives... Regardless of the cause for the rise in IQ scores, researchers agree that positive outcomes are associated with it.

There is considerable agreement that critical thinking skills can be enhanced, especially with specific instructional strategies designed for that purpose. The results of Huber and Kunkel’s metaanalysis indicated that both critical thinking skills and the disposition to use those skills improves substantially over a normal college experience. This is consistent with a growing body of literature from all parts of the world and at all grade-levels that indicates critical thinking skills can be enhanced. Interestingly, no specific program or courses in the meta-analysis were identified as having increased critical thinking skills. This is perhaps not surprising given that good thinkers need to employ an inventory of critical thinking skills that cut across disciplines, and also need disciplinary knowledge to use them effectively.

We are making a strong plea for more instruction in and attention to critical thinking skills. We can imagine a world where many more people think critically. Around the world, people are called upon to vote on a wide range of critical issues. The irrational (uncritical) voter is a threat to all of us, as are irrational politicians, business executives, and scientists. We believe that we can create a better future by enhancing critical thinking skills of citizens around the world. This optimism is tempered with the reality that so far, we only have data showing that individuals make fewer negative decisions in their personal lives when they are better thinkers, and can only imagine the impact of a world-wide increase in better thinking. We have nothing to lose by trying.

I dunno, years of arguing with pseudoscientists (as well as those who merely possess a few pseudoscientific beliefs) has convinced me that Plato had a point : critical thinking is not the same as wisdom. Undoubtedly there's a correlation, but being able to be critical does not mean that one actually is critical, or is genuinely interested in an unbiased search for the truth. Can you teach this sort of wisdom ? Buggered if I know. Perhaps curiosity is a better approach.
https://news.yale.edu/2017/01/26/antidote-partisanship-science-curiosity-seems-work


http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1871187116300384