General mental ability and two types of adaptation to unforeseen change: applying discontinuous growth models to the...

The present research provides new insights into the relationship between general mental ability (GMA) and adaptive performance by applying a discontinuous growth modeling framework to a study of unforeseen change on a complex decision-making task. The proposed framework provides a way to distinguish 2 types of adaptation (transition adaptation and reacquisition adaptation) from 2 common performance components (skill acquisition and basal task performance). Transition adaptation refers to an immediate loss of performance following a change, whereas reacquisition adaptation refers to the ability to relearn a changed task over time. Analyses revealed that GMA was negatively related to transition adaptation and found no evidence for a relationship between GMA and reacquisition adaptation. The results are integrated within the context of adaptability research, and implications of using the described discontinuous growth modeling framework to study adaptability are discussed.