Success in today’s society is often contingent on one’s ability to navigate culturally complex situations. This ability, referred to as cultural intelligence (CQ), is actually a constellation of knowledge, skills, and abilities that enable individuals to perform effectively across a wide range of intercultural contexts (Earley & Ang, 2003). Many theorists posit CQ as a dynamic process that facilitates the acquisition and processing of cultural information (Thomas et al., 2008), much in the same way that g facilitates the acquisition and processing of information, in general. Despite its moniker, however, CQ has frequently been discussed as independent of and, in some cases, antithetical to g. For example, in an article discussing the development of the Cultural Intelligence Scale, Ang and colleagues wrote that CQ was distinct from g, as “general mental ability focuses on cognitive abilities, is not specific to particular types of contexts…such as culturally diverse situations, and does not include behavioural or motivational aspects of intelligence” (p. 339).
Although Ang and colleagues found support for their contention, it should be noted that this may have been due to the method by which CQ was assessed, that is, self-report. Self-report can be problematic, particularly when measuring performance-based constructs, as the method assumes individuals are aware of how well they perform and are both able and motivated to provide accurate evaluations of their performance (Dunning, Heath, & Suls, 2005). Given that CQ is a performance-based construct, self-report measures of CQ have been criticized for their lack of construct validity, with response variation more likely reflecting differences in self-efficacy than actual cross-cultural ability (Gabrenya et al., 2013). As such, the extent to which g is related to CQ remains an open question. The goal of this study was to reexamine this relationship by using a non-self-report method to measure CQ and explore the degree to which g was related to differences in cross-cultural performance.
The measure employed in this study was a game-based simulation designed to evaluate how people learn to interact with others in unfamiliar cultures. In this case, the culture was artificial (i.e., a culture without any real-world counterpart), developed as such to minimize the impact of players’ prior cultural experiences/biases on game performance. In the game, players must overcome several challenges, the completion of which is contingent upon players’ ability to learn about and effectively integrate abstract cultural cues. Players’ performance was evaluated via a post-game quiz that queried players’ understanding of the artificial culture (e.g., “How would you greet the following character?”). In addition to quiz performance, players’ g and personality were measured using a multi-dimensional assessment of cognitive ability (α = .92) and the Big Five Inventory (John & Srivastava, 1999), respectively. Data on players’ prior cultural experiences were also collected (α = .93). To explore the relationship between g and game performance, the simulation and corresponding measures were administered to 387 participants via MTurk. Findings showed that g exhibited the highest correlation with quiz performance (r = .39), with the next highest correlation being prior cultural experiences (r = .14). Subsequent multiple regression analyses revealed that, after controlling for personality and prior experiences, g significantly predicted quiz performance, F(7, 382) = 5.82, p < .001, R2 = .10. These findings suggest that g may play a more substantial role in cross-cultural performance than previously thought.
Measurement and Psychometrics , Reasoning and Rationality , Social and Life impacts
