ABSTRACT
Charles Spearman is one of psychology’s great success stories. Few theories have had the durability that his two-factor theory has had (Spearman, 1927) in influencing theory, research, and society. Although one could argue as to the continued importance of the notion of specific abilities in his theory, the notion that there is some g, or general intelligence, continues to permeate much thinking about intelligence, and the evidence in favor of some kind of g-factor for at least some aspects of intelligence is about as strong as any evidence we have for anything in psychology. I argue in this chapter, however, that g pertains not to all of intelligence but only to part of it, and that if societies overutilize the g concept, they do themselves and their members a disservice. Moreover, the bottom line is that the kind of intelligence to be described here—successful intelligence—is what Spearman had, even if it is not quite what he studied.
