Elsevier

Intelligence

Volume 37, Issue 6, November–December 2009, Pages 625-633
Intelligence

Cognitive epidemiology: With emphasis on untangling cognitive ability and socioeconomic status

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.intell.2009.09.001Get rights and content

Abstract

This commentary touches on practical, public policy, and social science domains informed by cognitive epidemiology while pulling together common themes running through this important special issue. As is made clear in the contributions assembled here, and others (Deary, Whalley, & Starr, 2009; Gottfredson, 2004; Lubinski & Humphreys, 1992, 1997), social scientists and practitioners cannot afford to neglect cognitive ability when modeling epidemiological and health care phenomena. However, given the dominant concern about the confounding of general cognitive ability (GCA) and socioeconomic status (SES), and the extent to which SES is frequently seen as the primary cause of health disparities (while GCA is neglected as a possible influence in epidemiology and health psychology), some methodological applications for untangling the relative influences of GCA and SES are reviewed. In addition, cognitive epidemiology is placed in a broader context: Just as cognitive epidemiology facilitates an understanding of pathology (“at risk” populations, and ways to attenuate undesirable personal and social conditions), it may also enrich our understanding of optimal functioning (“at promise” populations, and ways to identify and nurture the human and social capital needed to develop innovations for saving lives, economies, and perhaps even our planet). Finally, while GCA is likely the most important dimension in the study of individual differences for modeling healthy behaviors and outcomes, other relatively independent dimensions of psychological diversity do add value (Krueger, Caspi, & Moffitt, 2000). For example, compliance has at least two psychological components: a “can do” competency component (ability) and a “will do” motivational component (conscientiousness). Ultimately, developing and modeling healthy behaviors, interpersonal environments, and medical maladies are best accomplished by teaming multiple dimensions of human individuality.

Section snippets

Two dominant currents of research in cognitive epidemiology

Cognitive epidemiology research has two dominant themes: first, the indirect effect of cognitive ability on health through decision-making, and second, health and cognitive ability as two indicators of an individual's system integrity. The first theme addresses the judgment and decision-making required for developing a healthy lifestyle, avoiding health risks, and exercising preventive medicine. All of these tasks require cognitive competencies for acquiring and effectively using new

Untangling cognitive ability and socioeconomic status

In one of the earliest studies of cognitive epidemiology, Terman (1925) studied the health and medical histories of 1528 participants in the top 1% in GCA (or IQ). In arguably the most famous longitudinal study in psychology, Terman (1925) examined the relationship between intellectual talent and psychological and physical health. At the time, speculation held that the intellectually able were physically weak and sickly relative to their normative peers. A common saying back then was “early to

An epidemiology of differential psychology: a quantitative and qualitative expansion of cognitive epidemiology

Two topics will be touched upon in this section. First, cognitive epidemiology may be expanded to include an epidemiology of promise, and second, a qualitative expansion of cognitive epidemiology to other non-cognitive dimensions of human psychological diversity is possible as well. While this special issue is justifiably focused on negative health outcomes as a function of GCA, there is a flip side to cognitive epidemiology: the examination of the relationships between positive human outcomes

Cognitive epidemiology and normal science

A major portion of this commentary has been devoted to the importance of untangling GCA and SES. There are multiple reasons for this, and they extend beyond cognitive epidemiology and broadly cover the bio-behavioral sciences. In the neurosciences, for example, a neuroscience of poverty is emerging and multiple studies in this arena neglect the possibility that ability is a more important determinant of the neurological phenomena under analysis than SES is (Hackman and Farah, 2008, Lipina and

Acknowledgments

Support for this article was provided by a Research and Training Grant from the Templeton Foundation and National Institute of Child Health and Development Grant P30 HD to the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center for Research on Human Development. Earlier versions of this article benefited from comments from Avshalom Caspi, Kimberley Ferriman Robertson, Linda S. Gottfredson, Arthur R. Jensen, John C. Loehlin, Terrie E. Moffitt, Gregory Park, and Jonathan Wai.

References (59)

  • A. Castell

    A college logic: An introduction to the study of argument and proof

    (1935)
  • R.V. Dawis

    The individual differences tradition in counseling psychology

    Journal of Counseling Psychology

    (1992)
  • I.J. Deary et al.

    A lifetime of intelligence: Follow-up studies of the Scottish mental surveys of 1932 and 1947

    (2009)
  • D.A. DeWalt et al.

    Literacy and health outcomes: A systematic review of the literature

    Journal of General Internal Medicine

    (2004)
  • J.C. Flanagan et al.

    Design for a study of American youth

    (1962)
  • M.C. Frey et al.

    Scholastic assessment or g? The relationship between the scholastic assessment test and general cognitive ability

    Psychological Science

    (2004)
  • M. Gladwell

    Outliers: The story of success

    (2008)
  • I.I. Gottesman

    Schizophrenia genesis: The origins of madness

    (1991)
  • Gottfredson, L. S. (1997). Intelligence and social policy (special issue). Intelligence, 24, (#1 whole...
  • L.S. Gottfredson

    g: Highly general and highly practical

  • L.S. Gottfredson

    Intelligence: Is it the epidemiologists' elusive “fundamental cause” of social class inequalities in health

    Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

    (2004)
  • L.S. Gottfredson et al.

    Intelligence predicts health and longevity, but why?

    Current Directions in Psychological Science

    (2004)
  • D.A. Hackman et al.

    Socioeconomic status and the developing brain

    Trends in Cognitive Sciences

    (2008)
  • L.G. Humphreys

    A conceptualization of intellectual giftedness

  • L.G. Humphreys et al.

    Partialing out intelligence: A methodological and substantive contribution

    Journal of Educational Psychology

    (1977)
  • A.J. Jensen

    Educability and group differences

    (1973)
  • A.J. Jensen

    Uses of sibling data in educational and psychological research

    American Educational Research Journal

    (1980)
  • D. Kahneman

    Control of spurious association and the reliability of the controlled variable

    Psychological Bulletin

    (1965)
  • Cited by (0)

    View full text