Claims

Factual · Science and research methods

“So that’s an unresolved controversy in the cognitive psychology literature”

Steven Pinker, interviewee · 2023 · The Intelligence and Rationality of AI and Humans: A Conversation With Steven Pinker (Harvard Data Science Review)

Whether rationality and intelligence are dissociable in a human population is an unresolved controversy in the cognitive psychology literature.

Mixed Partly true and partly false in roughly equal measure.

The second judge would not resolve this claim; the verdict shown is the first judge's.

What would count as true or false

Judge as of 2023. TRUE: the cognitive psychology literature up to 2023 shows active, unresolved disagreement over whether rationality (e.g. performance on heuristics-and-biases tasks) and intelligence (IQ/g) are dissociable. Examples would be Stanovich and colleagues arguing for a dissociation while others argue that rationality largely reduces to intelligence, with no accepted consensus. MOSTLY TRUE: there is substantial debate, but one side clearly predominates while the other remains a live minority view. MIXED: the evidence leans clearly one way and only part of the question (e.g. some task types) remains contested. MOSTLY FALSE: reviews show a broad consensus and only marginal dissent. FALSE: authoritative reviews or meta-analyses before 2023 treat the question as settled.

Evidence

1. Understanding the relationship between rationality and intelligence: a latent-variable approach Thinking & Reasoning (Taylor & Francis), authors Burgoyne, Mashburn, Tsukahara, Hambrick & Engle · 26 November 2021

   “Latent variables representing general intelligence and rationality correlated strongly and significantly (r ¼ .54), but the correlation fell significantly short of unity, indicating that the two constructs were dissociable.”

2. Understanding the relationship between rationality and intelligence: a latent-variable approach Thinking & Reasoning (Taylor & Francis), authors Burgoyne, Mashburn, Tsukahara, Hambrick & Engle · 26 November 2021

   “suggesting that the reason rationality tests correlate positively with one another is because they mutually depend on fluid intelligence and these metacognitive factors.”

3. The Measurement of Individual Differences in Cognitive Biases: A Review and Improvement PubMed Central (NCBI) · 18 February 2021

   “The first one is that performance on CB tasks is only moderately correlated to cognitive ability, which suggests that a major part of the reliable variance of scores on CB tasks is unique”

4. Intelligence and Rationality (Chapter 46) - The Cambridge Handbook of Intelligence Cambridge University Press · 4 January 2020

   “There are individual differences in rational thinking that are less than perfectly correlated with individual differences in intelligence because intelligence and rationality occupy different conceptual locations in models of cognition.”

Reasoning

A 2021 latent-variable study found intelligence and rationality strongly correlated but dissociable [E1]. A 2021 review reports that bias-task performance is only moderately related to cognitive ability, with largely unique reliable variance [E3]. A Cambridge Handbook chapter argues on conceptual grounds that the constructs are separate [E4]. The same 2021 study links the correlations among rationality tests to shared dependence on fluid intelligence and metacognitive factors [E2], so part of the relationship remains open, but none of the evidence shows an active camp arguing that rationality reduces to intelligence. Overall the evidence leans toward dissociability, with only partial contestation.

Cite this claim

Steven Pinker, “Whether rationality and intelligence are dissociable in a human population is an unresolved controversy in the cognitive psychology literature.” (said 2023). Verdict: mixed. Reliability API, claim c_d152e4e3e296, method 0.1.0+28da144b. https://epistacklabs.com/claims/c_d152e4e3e296