Speakers
Cognitive, Affective, and Conative Individual Differences: Communalities, Uniquenesses, and Prospects for Integration. by Phillip L. Ackerman
 Modern psychologists traditionally separate individual differences into three major categories, namely: cognitive (abilities, skills), affective (personality, mood), and conative (interests, will, motivation). For much of the 20th century, with notable, exceptions, researchers typically were concerned with only a single category of traits, such as intellectual abilities, personality traits, or vocational interests. Until the last two decades, there were relatively few studies of the interrelations across and interactions between these different categories of traits. Recently, this kind of isolated research has been augmented by investigations of how different categories of traits and states relate to one another. Such integrated research has revealed areas of communality among different traits and families of traits, especially in the affect and conation domains, but also between cognitive and affective traits. I will briefly review these streams of integrative research, consider the major findings, and discuss a general framework for parsing the common and unique characteristics of cognitive, affective, and conative individual differences. |
Psychology and Economics: The Origins of Employability by Robert Hogan
 This keynote concerns a common paradox. On the one hand, research clearly indicates that gender, ethnicity, cognitive ability, and education predict occupational success defined in terms of job status and compensation level. Nonetheless, we all know many bright, well-educated white males who are unemployed, unable to keep a job, and probably unlikely to become re-employed at a level proportional to their qualifications. This phenomenon highlights a problem in the conventional wisdom concerning personnel selection. The standrad model tells employers what they should look for in employees - cognitive ability, integrity, and perhaps talent for customer service. In reality, however, employers' have very different ideas of what they want in employees. This talk concerns the contrast between what psychologists believe employers need and what employers actually want, and the implication of that contrast for selection and performance appraisal - both key components of employability. Some attention to employability will enhance the credibility of applied psychology in the real world. |
How Much Can We Boost IQ and Scholastic Achievement? An Updated Look at Arthur Jensen's (In)Famous 1969 Harvard Educational Review Paper by Wendy Johnson
 In 1969, Arthur Jensen published a paper entitled "How Much Can We Boost IQ and Scholastic Achievement?" in the Harvard Educational Review. The paper launched a storm of controversy that persists to this day. Just what did Jensen say? On what basis did he say it? How does this basis stack up today, over 40 years later? In this talk I will address these questions, focusing on our current ability to answer the question Jensen posed, and how our current answer might differ from the one he offered then. |
Quantitative Genetics in the Era of Molecular Genetics by Robert Plomin
 Research on individual differences in complex traits, especially behavioural traits, has been greatly advanced by genetic research, which is essentially the study of individual differences. Molecular genetic research has been revolutionised by genome-wide association (GWA) studies that scan the entire genome for associations with complex traits. GWA research provides even greater support for individual differences research because it shows that genetic influence on complex traits is caused by many genes of small effect, which means that a normal distribution of genetic effects underlies complex traits. However, because the effects are so small, it will be difficult to find and to replicate most of the genes responsible for the heritability of complex traits (the 'missing heritability' problem). With complete-genome sequencing on the way, molecular genetic GWA research continues to race ahead like the hare in Aesop's fable about the tortoise and the hare. Meanwhile, quantitative genetics (such as the classical twin design) is the tortoise, plodding along but in fact producing some of the most important and far-reaching findings about the genetic and environmental origins of individual differences in complex traits. |
Program
ISSID 2011
25-28 JULY
25-28 JULY