That actually makes sense. If you give that there are way more people in the genius category then in the mentally r-e-t-a-r-d-e-d (I am using the correct medical term, but it is banned) category, then the bias of an average IQ is actually going to be slightly north of where most people fall.
OK, but if I use Intellectually Disabled, then very few people would know what I meant. It isn't a universally recognized term yet. I understand the pain associated with the R-word, I don't like using it lightly.
and there seems to be some flaws in the study. they are equating "success" by how many awards entertainers won...but who says that should be the only criteria? the Beatles never won a grammy...are they "below average"? to me just that renders the study flawed!! just sayin!
I didn't read the full story. Rewards is a pretty stupid way to determine who is above average and who is not, especially Hollywood Awards, which are more political. After all, you don't win an Oscar for doing the best job on the movie that got you nominated, you get it for doing the best job years ago, when you were overlooked so someone else could get an Oscar for something else they really did years ago.
If their conclusion was true they could have had a simple IQ-test and show the results. (which would be easily visualized into a distorted kind of bell-curve). That would be direct evidence. But awards? Awards are by definition going to a minority and NOT to everyone above average. That most people aren't part of the intellectual, cultural or financial elite can hardly be news to anyone. There is no way they could have gotten any other conclusion from the test which means it's not scientific.
"We looked at researchers, we looked at entertainers, we looked at politicians and we looked at collegiate as well as professional athletes," Aguinis said in an interview. "In each of these kinds of industries, we found that a small minority of superstar performers contribute a disproportionate amount of the output."
Well duh. You have average basketball players and you have Michael Jordan basketball players, but you don't have players who can't hit a basket to save their life - because those people don't become collegiate or professional athletes. When you look at the average abilities of basketball players, that average will be very high because it is skewed by the Michael Jordan players. It doesn't have the ridiculously bad basketball players to balance out the average. So the majority of basketball players fall below that skewed average. In a skewed distribution, you're supposed to use the median instead of the average - Stats 101.
"Aguinis said that the bell curve may describe human performance in the presence of some external constraint — such as an assembly line that moved at a certain speed."
He's got it backwards. The bell curve works when there are no constraints. His study has constraints because he doesn't have a random sample - he chose entertainers, researchers, athletes, and politicians. All of them are probably better at their jobs than the average person would be, so they all have a skewed distribution.
Edit: I just looked at the comments after the article. Lots of smart people who noticed the same flaws in the research and are pointing them out.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/03/2012 09:09AM by sexismyreligion.
When I train trainers and managers, when the topic of staffing comes up, I have always taught the 80/20 rule.
This rule states that 80% of your production comes from 20% of your staff. I have seen it over and over again in real life situations, I am glad the research bears this out.
I had not extrapolated the idea to fields other than sales, but it makes sense.
The first time I encountered the 80/20 rule was the claim that 20% of beer drinkers accounted for 80% of beer consumption. But, yes, it applies to many situations, thought the distribution isn't always 80/20.
I think saying a person is average/ above/ or below isn't a good way to describe anyone.
I think most people have areas that they would rate above average in, and other areas they would rate below, and others would be somewhere in the middle.
A good example would be my son. He's way way above average in intelligence scores. He's above average in mechanical abilities, math and cooking. He can't hit or catch a ball to save his life. He's not good at organization unless it's in the areas he's interested in. He's terrible at putting words on paper.
His wife can't cook to save herself. She's very athletic. Super organized, and a gifted writer. I would say way above average when it comes to running a business and managing people.
So how would you rate them? Above, below or just average?