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Spearman's two-factor theory proposes that intelligence has two components: general intelligence ("g") and specific ability ("s"). [7] To explain the differences in performance on different tasks, Spearman hypothesized that the "s" component was specific to a certain aspect of intelligence.
When a more appropriate method of analysis, multigroup confirmatory factor analysis, is applied, it has been found that Spearman's hypothesis (i.e., that the difference is due to differences in general intelligence) is only one of several models that could give rise to the observed distributions in test scores (Dolan, 2000).
Charles Spearman, bearing in mind the influential theory that he originated—that intelligence comprises both a "general factor" and "special factors" more specific to particular mental tasks—wrote in 1927, "Every normal man, woman, and child is, then, a genius at something, as well as an idiot at something."
Illustration of Spearman's two-factor intelligence theory. I, Schaefer, made this image in Photoshop, based on a similar illustration appearing on page 214 of Arthur Jensen's Bias in Mental Testing. The small ovals represent tests of cognitive ability, while the red circle represents psychometric g.
Despite Spearman arguing that g was what emerged from a large battery of tests, i.e., that it was not measured perfectly by any single test, the fact that g-theory suggested that much of ability could be captured in a single factor, and his suggestion that "the eduction of relations and correlates" underlay this general factor led to the quest ...
The two-factor model of personality is a widely used psychological factor analysis measurement of personality, behavior and temperament. It most often consists of a matrix measuring the factor of introversion and extroversion with some form of people versus task orientation.
The g Factor: The Science of Mental Ability (1998) is a book on the general intelligence factor (g). The book deals with the intellectual history of g and various models of how to conceptualize intelligence, and with the biological correlates of g, its heritability, and its practical predictive power.
The triarchic theory does not argue against the validity of a general intelligence factor; instead, the theory posits that general intelligence is part of analytic intelligence, and only by considering all three aspects of intelligence can the full range of intellectual functioning be understood.