Academic performance, career potential, creativity, and job performance: Can one construct predict them all

This meta-analysis addresses the question of whether 1 general cognitive ability measure developed for predicting academic performance is valid for predicting performance in both educational and work domains. The validity of the Miller Analogies Test (MAT; W. S. Miller, 1960) for predicting 18 academic and work-related criteria was examined. MAT correlations with other cognitive tests (e.g., Raven’s Matrices [J. C. Raven, 1965]; Graduate Record Examinations) also were meta-analyzed. The results indicate that the abilities measured by the MAT are shared with other cognitive ability instruments and that these abilities are generalizably valid predictors of academic and vocational criteria, as well as evaluations of career potential and creativity. These findings contradict the notion that intelligence at work is wholly different from intelligence at school, extending the voluminous literature that supports the broad importance of general cognitive ability (g). Many laypeople, as well as social scientists, subscribe to the belief that the abilities required for success in the real world differ substantially from what is needed to achieve success in the classroom. Yet, this belief is not empirically or theoretically supported. A century of scientific research has shown that general cognitive ability, or g, predicts a broad spectrum of important life outcomes, behaviors, and performances. These include academic achievement, health-related behaviors, social outcomes, job performance, and creativity, among many others (see Brand, 1987; Gottfredson