(Slightly) Tall, Smart, and Charming

Thanks to Swedish military conscription tests that measure every eighteen year-old male's height, cognitive ability, and non-cognitive ability, Sweden has a great resource for tracking the correlation of these test scores with later life outcomes. Steve Hsu looks at a study which which does the math for corporate CEO's. It turns out that they are just a bit above average in each category (0.5, 1.0, and 1.5 SD respectively).

Evidently, if you want to be a CEO, it might help to be a couple of inches taller than average, have an IQ of about 115, and a NCQ of around 122.5.

About that Non Cognitive Ability (Steve's quote):

[Non-cognitive ability:] Psychologists use test results and family characteristics in combination with one-on-one semi-structured interviews to assess conscripts’ psychological fitness for the military. Psychologists evaluate each conscript’s social maturity, intensity, psychological energy, and emotional stability and assign a final aptitude score following the stanine scale. Conscripts obtain a higher score in the interview when they demonstrate that they have the willingness to assume responsibility, are independent, have an outgoing character, demonstrate persistence and emotional stability, and display initiative. Importantly, a strong desire for doing military service is not considered a positive attribute for military aptitude (and may even lead to a negative assessment), which means that the aptitude score can be considered a more general measure of non-cognitive ability.

HTH you more than it did me.

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