High IQ in early adolescence and career success in adulthood : Findings from a Swedish longitudinal study

• To what extent do intellectually talented adolescents pursue educational and vocational careers that match their intellectual resources? Career outcomes were compared between groups within different IQ ranges with a focus on comparing those with high IQ (top 10%, IQ > 119) to those with average IQ. Data were analyzed from the longitudinal Swedish IDA study (N = 1,326) with career outcomes measured in midlife (age 43–47). To obtain at least a master’s degree was almost 10 times more common for those of high IQ than for those of average IQ. Still, the proportion of high-IQ adolescents who did this was not high (13% of females, 34% of males) and as much as 20% of them did not even graduate from 3-year high school. For men only, there was a graded raise in income by IQ group.Within the high-IQ group there was no significant relationship between parents’ socioeconomic status and income. For men, high IQ predicted a strongly increased income/vocational level in midlife beyond what was predicted from a linear model of the IQ-outcome relationship.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Psykologi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Psychology (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

IQ

early adolescence

career success

longitudinal

Psychology

psykologi

Psychology

Publikations- och innehållstyp

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