Intelligence rather than parents' background determines success in Estonia

In Estonia, a person's success in life primarily depends on their intelligence and mental abilities, while the influence of parental background and environmental factors plays a significantly smaller role, according to a doctoral dissertation defended at the University of Tartu.
The age-old question remains: what has a greater influence on a person — genes or the environment they live in? Kätlin Anni's doctoral dissertation, which sought to answer this question, consisted of several parts. In the first part, she focused on studying the connections between intelligence and socioeconomic factors, using the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS). In the second part, she examined the applicability of this scale to the Estonian population. Finally, she explored data collected by the Estonian Biobank to investigate how specific personality traits correlate with various professions.
The Wechsler Intelligence Scale, developed by David Wechsler, is designed to measure intelligence in children and adults. It includes tasks of varying difficulty that progressively become more challenging, aiming to evaluate an individual's performance across different domains of mental ability. The subtests are categorized into two groups: verbal ability and performance-based tests. Completing the test typically takes two to three hours and it is mainly used by clinical psychologists in their work.
For her dissertation, Anni completed the Estonian adaptation of the Wechsler scale. She then examined the relationship between individuals' mental abilities, occupational status and educational attainment, while also assessing the influence of parental background. This research topic has been widely studied internationally, particularly in the United States and the United Kingdom, where larger datasets have been collected. As larger datasets generally yield more reliable conclusions, Anni analyzed data from individuals in Estonia who had completed the Wechsler test over the years. She ensured the sample reflected the structure of Estonia's population to allow broader generalizations. A short survey accompanying the test also gathered background information, such as parental education levels.
"Our findings were quite similar to those observed elsewhere. The strongest connection between a person's educational attainment and occupational status is with their own intelligence or mental abilities. While parental education or background does influence a child's success in life, its effect is significantly smaller than that of the individual's own intelligence," Anni explained. Additionally, the study revealed that verbal abilities had a stronger correlation with educational and occupational success than visual-spatial skills, working memory or processing speed.
Anni noted that the effect of parental background was partially mediated by the individual's intelligence. This could have a genetic basis, as people inherit certain genes from their parents that influence mental abilities, which are linked to educational and professional achievements. However, environmental aspects could also play a role. For instance, previous studies have shown that the number of books at home and the extent to which parents engage with their children can impact cognitive development.
Still, individual characteristics, shaped by both genetic and environmental factors, play the most significant role. "In Estonia, success in life is not determined solely by how successful a child's parents are. While parental influence matters, it is not the most critical factor here. In other societies, parental background may have a much greater impact," she added.
In the second part of her research, Anni delved deeper into the psychometric properties of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, examining how it functions within the Estonian population. She assessed whether the test measures mental abilities comparably across different groups, such as men and women, various age groups and individuals with different education levels.
"We found that gender and age did not affect the structure of mental abilities measured by the test, meaning that groups can be reliably compared," she said. However, education levels presented a different result. "For education, there are indications that certain narrower abilities group differently in lower education levels compared to higher ones. This should be considered in future studies when interpreting intelligence test results," Anni suggested. Education likely affects specific abilities, such as verbal reasoning or mathematical problem-solving.
In the third part of her dissertation, Anni leveraged personality data from the Estonian Biobank. "Having already examined how psychological traits influence socioeconomic decisions, education and occupational status, we decided to explore how personality traits relate to the professions people choose," she explained.
For this, she used data from a large personality study within the Biobank, which is based on the Five-Factor Model. Widely used in psychology, this model describes personality across five dimensions: openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism.
The findings showed that professions with higher average scores in traits like extraversion and conscientiousness tended to attract individuals with similar personalities. For example, sales roles often require high extraversion, whereas creative professions or research positions are associated with greater openness to experience. On the other hand, some professions did not depend as heavily on specific personality traits. For instance, writers varied widely in their levels of extraversion.
Anni also noted that some professions might shape individuals over time. "While earlier studies suggest this effect is relatively small, people are often chosen for jobs based on their personality traits or select professions that align with their interests. A job might slightly influence someone's personality, but not drastically," she said.
Anni mapped the personality profiles of 263 professions, with results generally aligning with expectations based on job requirements. For instance, creative roles and researchers scored higher in openness, while leadership roles and pilots showed lower levels of neuroticism. Her research team also developed a web application where people could test which professions their personalities most closely matched.
Public interest in the application was overwhelming. "We were surprised by the huge demand — it exceeded our expectations. The IT team had to significantly increase its capacity," she said. The language options for the test have also expanded, with Russian now among the available choices.
Kätlin Anni defended her doctoral dissertation in psychology, titled "Intelligence, Personality and Socioeconomic Outcomes in Estonia."
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Editor: Marcus Turovski