Question

Personality has greater impact on success than IQ, new research suggests

Do you agree? Try to use the terms correlation and causation (use them correctly!) in your answer.

Answer 1

Success is determined by various factors. IQ and Personality are two of those.

Definitely, higher the IQ, higher are the chances of being successful as the mind is strong enough to understand the complexity of requirements.

And, Personality has various traits like confidence, self-esteem, anxiety, etc.

Now, lets first understand the difference between Causation and Correlation:

A correlation between variables, however, does not automatically mean that the change in one variable is the cause of the change in the values of the other variable. Causation indicates that one event is the result of the occurrence of the other event; i.e. there is a causal relationship between the two events.

E.g.,

When a person is exercising then the amount of calories burning goes up every minute. Former is causing latter to happen.

So, definitely when we calculate correlation between the two, it will be significant but it the causation of exercising on burning calories.

Now, for our case:

Personality will definitely influence success because the attitude determines more of it. We may or may not be able to find a good correlation in this case (correlation is just a mathematical measure and does not explain the logic or reason behind) but it is a case of causation.

And, IQ can be measured on scale and therefore we can have some scales to measure success like 'Income earned', 'CPI', etc and when we find correlation between them it will be significant to high extent but here again having good IQ is causing success and mere correlation does not define it.

Please rate my answer and comment for doubt.