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Executive functions and intelligent goal-directed behavior: A neuropsychological approach to understanding success using professional sales as a real-life measure

Abstract:

Executive functions are proposed to underpin intelligent goal-directed behavior. Such skills, linked through multiple neuropsychological studies to functioning of the frontal lobes, are theorized to pbkp_redict achievement in nonroutine activities. Furthermore, patients with frontal lobe damage often display disorganized behavior and real-life failures such as employment instability and bankruptcy despite normal or superior intelligence. These observations suggest that executive ability should pbkp_redict real-life successes within challenging, nonroutine environments, and that it is perhaps more important than intelligence. We used the context of professional sales as a test of these hypotheses. Ninety new-car sales personnel completed an intelligence test and 5 assessments previously identified as sensitive to neuropsychological impairment independently of impairments of general intelligence. The results revealed some sex differences; for example, saleswomen performing significantly worse than salesmen on general intelligence but significantly better on multitasking. As hypothesized, general intelligence did not pbkp_redict objective sales, nor did skills in abstraction, multitasking, or theory of mind. However, 2 tests of inhibition were significant pbkp_redictors of sales achieved. This was dependent on the sex of the personnel. Sales were pbkp_redicted by verbal response suppression for men and by motor response withholding for women. The results validate the role of executive functions in real-life achievement in challenging, nonroutine, environments. In particular, they suggest that response inhibition may be a cognitive skill that particularly contributes to real-life success, at least in the context of sales, and this depends on biological sex. Finally, some executive functions may be better pbkp_redictors of real-life success than general intelligence.