More than g-Factors: Second-stratum Factors should not be Ignored

• Main Authors: WEE, Serena, NEWMAN, Daniel A., SONG, Q. Chelsea
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2015
• Subjects: dominant general factors; cognitive ability; psychological measurement; Industrial and Organizational Psychology
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/1883
• Institution: Singapore Management University

Ree, Carretta, and Teachout (2015) outlined a compelling argument for the pervasiveness of dominant general factors (DGFs) in psychological measurement. We agree that DGFs are important and that they are found for various constructs (e.g., cognitive abilities, work withdrawal), especially when an “unrotated principal components” analysis is conducted (Ree et al., p. 8). When studying hierarchical constructs, however, a narrow emphasis on uncovering DGFs would be incomplete at best and detrimental at worst. This commentary largely echoes the arguments made by Wee, Newman, and Joseph (2014), and Schneider and Newman (2015), who provided reasons for considering second-stratum cognitive abilities. We believe these same arguments in favor of second-stratum factors in the ability domain can be applied to hierarchical constructs more generally.