Ethnic group differences in cognitive ability in employment and educational settings: A meta-analysis

The cognitive ability levels of different ethnic groups have interested psy chologists for over a century. Many narrative reviews of the empirical lite rature in the area focus on the Black-White differences, and the reviews co nclude that the mean difference in cognitive ability (g) is approximately 1 standard deviation; that is, the generally accepted effect size is about 1 .0. We conduct a meta-analytic review that suggests that the one standard d eviation effect size accurately summarizes Black-White differences for coll ege application tests (e.g., SAT) and overall analyses of tests of g for jo b applicants in corporate settings. However, the 1 standard deviation summa ry of group differences fails to capture many of the complexities in estima ting ethnic group differences in employment settings. For example, our resu lts indicate that job complexity, the use of within job versus across job s tudy design, focus on applicant versus incumbent samples, and the exact con struct of interest are important moderators of standardized group differenc es. In many instances, standardized group differences are less than 1 stand ard deviation. We conduct similar analyses for Hispanics, when possible, an d note that Hispanic-White differences are somewhat less than Black-White d ifferences.