Scientific and Social Significance of Assessing Individual Differences: “Sinking Shafts at a Few Critical Points”

Abstract

This chapter reviews empirical findings on the importance of assessing individual differences in human behavior. Traditional dimensions of human abilities, personality, and vocational interests play critical roles in structuring a variety of important behaviors and outcomes (e.g. achieved socioeconomic status, educational choices, work performance, delinquency, health risk behaviors, and income). In the review of their importance, the construct of general intelligence is featured, but attributes that routinely add incremental validity to cognitive assessments are also discussed. Recent experimental and methodological advances for better understanding how these dimensions may contribute to other psychological frameworks are reviewed, as are ways for determining their scientific significance within domains where they are not routinely assessed. Finally, some noteworthy models are outlined that highlight the importance of assessing relatively distinct classes of individual-differences attributes simultaneously. For understanding fully complex human phenomena such as crime, eminence, and educational-vocational development, such a multifaceted approach is likely to be the most productive.