Why g is not an adaptation: A comment on Kanazawa (2004).
- 1 April 2006
- journal article
- editorial
- Published by American Psychological Association (APA) in Psychological Review
- Vol. 113 (2) , 433-437
- https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295x.113.2.433
Abstract
In S. Kanazawa's evolutionary theory of general intelligence (g), g is presented as a species-typical information-processing mechanism. This conceptualization of g departs radically from the accepted conceptualization of g as a source of individual differences that is manifest in the positive manifold. Kanazawa's theory is thus problematic in the sense that it concerns a purely hypothetical, and empirically unsupported, conceptualization of g. The authors argue that an evolutionary account of g should address it as a source of individual differences--that is, in a manner that is consistent with the empirical support for g.Keywords
Funding Information
- Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (451-03-068)
This publication has 11 references indexed in Scilit:
- General Intelligence as a Domain-Specific Adaptation.Psychological Review, 2004
- The theoretical status of latent variables.Psychological Review, 2003
- Understanding the nature of the general factor of intelligence: The role of individual differences in neural plasticity as an explanatory mechanism.Psychological Review, 2002
- Sexual Selection for Indicators of IntelligencePublished by Wiley ,2000
- Brain size and cognitive ability: Correlations with age, sex, social class, and racePsychonomic Bulletin & Review, 1996
- Adaptive genetic variation and human evolutionary psychologyEthology and Sociobiology, 1994
- On The Language InstinctPublished by American Psychological Association (APA) ,1994
- Human Cognitive AbilitiesPublished by Cambridge University Press (CUP) ,1993
- On the Universality of Human Nature and the Uniqueness of the Individual: The Role of Genetics and AdaptationJournal of Personality, 1990
- The logic of social exchange: Has natural selection shaped how humans reason? Studies with the Wason selection taskCognition, 1989