Intelligence and the Other Traits which Define Success in the World
Do we need to return to the old methods of building IQ and character?
Throughout history it has been quite clear that the force that shapes our lives, and determines the roles we play within society, is not fate, luck, or a divine hand, it's something far more intimate. It’s both our character, and intellect. The sharpness of our reasoning and the subtle nuances of our temperament.
Tobias Wolfram’s recent work, “(Not just) Intelligence stratifies the occupational hierarchy,” reveals a core fact that society often sidesteps: our individual traits, both cognitive and non-cognitive, construct who we become and shape our professional world. We have forgotten how to nurture both!
Wolfram’s research, based on analysis of Understanding Society, an ongoing longitudinal survey of more than 40,000 UK households that started in 2009, takes a wide-angle lens to the occupational hierarchy, examining not just intelligence, but also the often-overlooked human qualities, risk tolerance, conscientiousness, and empathy.
Our sharp ability to solve problems, analyze, and think critically, collectively know as our ‘cognitive ability’, is essential, but not everything. Wolfram’s research explains that while intelligence is indeed a powerful determinant, as evidenced by the fact that occupations such as physical scientists, solicitors/lawyers, and air traffic controllers rank the highest in terms of average cognitive ability, and is strongly correlated with higher income as shown by the data, he reminds us that it's not the only key that opens doors.
Strikingly, his research shows that for cognitive ability, roughly a quarter of the total variance (24.1%) can be explained by differences between occupations.
As we all know by now, emotional intelligence and resilience often play critical roles in leadership positions, where managing people and coping with challenges are just as important as technical knowledge. In creative fields, openness to experience and the ability to take risks may determine success more than raw cognitive ability alone. These examples illustrate how non-cognitive traits complement cognitive skills in determining occupational success. Intelligence is, in his words, "a necessary but not sufficient condition" for success.
Wolfram's research outlines the significant impact of non-cognitive traits, the characteristics that define our behavior, our resilience, our ability to delay gratification, and our interpersonal skills.
For example, risk tolerance influences entrepreneurial success, as it enables individuals to face uncertainties confidently.
Conscientiousness, which Wolfram measures through structured personality assessments, shows a strong correlation with success in roles demanding precision and reliability, such as accounting and project management. These measurements highlight the importance of non-cognitive traits alongside cognitive ability, as they play a crucial role in occupational sorting.
In healthcare professions like nursing, empathy and resilience are crucial for dealing with patients under stressful conditions. In sales, interpersonal skills and the ability to handle rejection are often more important than sheer cognitive ability. Similarly, in entrepreneurial roles, risk tolerance and perseverance are key determinants of success. These traits do more than determine whether someone can do a job; they define whether someone can thrive in that job, whether they can find fulfillment, and ultimately, whether they will stay.
hand drawn sketch of different jobs
Moreover, while cognitive ability is a strong predictor of income and occupational status, non-cognitive traits such as perseverance and conscientiousness also show meaningful correlations with income and job success, particularly in roles that require extensive interpersonal interactions and stress management.
In some roles, the steadiness of character, the capacity to empathize, or even the willingness to take risks can weigh just as heavily as the highest IQ. For example, in social work, empathy and patience are far more critical than cognitive ability alone. In construction or emergency services, the ability to remain calm under pressure and take calculated risks is often more valuable than high IQ. Similarly, in caregiving roles, compassion and emotional resilience are essential traits that outweigh purely cognitive skills.
However, Wolfram’s research also faces certain limitations1, such as potential self-selection bias in survey participants and the inherent difficulty in accurately measuring non-cognitive traits, which rely on self-reporting and may be influenced by external factors. In roles such as entrepreneurship, caregiving, and sales, these non-cognitive traits can be just as, if not more, critical to achieving success.
How often do we glorify “genius” without acknowledging the crucial elements of character that enable that genius to flourish? Read any biography of John von Neumann and you will understand the crucial aspects of character and genius.
A lawyer might need raw cognitive prowess to handle the nuances of case law, but it's grit and empathy that turn her into an advocate whose arguments can sway juries. A statistician’s mental sharpness might be his bread and butter, but it’s his curiosity and patience that drive him to solve problems no one else can.
The research paper serves as a reminder that society runs not just on the brightest minds, but also on those who can persevere, collaborate, and find meaning.
But there’s a deeper question here, one that Wolfram’s study quietly asks but doesn’t answer: what happens to those whose traits don’t align with the grid of occupational expectations? We celebrate the clustering of intelligence, the neat mapping of conscientious individuals to fields like engineering, but what about those who resist categorization, who are smart but not patient, creative but prone to distraction?
The occupational hierarchy, Wolfram suggests, may work well for those who fit snugly into its compartments, but, from my own experience I know all too well, it may be less forgiving to those whose talents don’t lend themselves to straightforward measurement.
There’s a bittersweet quality to Wolfram’s findings. The occupational hierarchy, he reveals, is a product of the human condition, an arrangement driven not just by ability, but by human variability itself. We are sorted not only by what we can do but by who we are, in a system that rewards those whose traits meet its demands. It’s a reminder of both the fairness and the limitations of meritocracy: a system that rewards ability and effort can feel just, but it’s also a system that inherently favors some ways of being over others.
So, while IQ is not everything, it does make a major difference between occupations.
Just as we need to nurture IQ, the other character traits must be nurtured too; grit, conscientiousness, perseverance, temperance - I wonder - do we need to return to the old methods of building these foundational traits?
Our world is shaped by the interplay between intelligence and character, which together determine the opportunities we create as we try to meet our own and others societal expectations.
Stay curious
dr. Colin W.P. Lewis
Interviews are carried out face-to-face and a complex stratified sampling design is employed to ensure representativity for the population of the United Kingdom