13. Individual differences

Question 1

What are psychometric tests

Answer 1

Tests of different aspects of an individual’s

intellectual performance

Question 2

What are intelligence tests?

Answer 2

Measure general factors that predict success

in school

Question 3

what are examples of intelligence tests?

Answer 3

• Stanford-Binet

* Wechsler

Question 4

What measures do intelligence tests typically include ?

Answer 4

– Digit span
– Vocabulary
– Analogical reasoning
– Spatial judgment
– Arithmetic

Question 5

What is the intelligence quotient?

Answer 5

– (Supposedly) a measure of general
intellectual performance
This, however was problematic especially when measuring adult intelligence

Question 6

What is the original equation for IQ?

Answer 6

I! = 100 x (mental age/chronological age)

e.g., an IQ of a 5-year-old child whose
intelligence is equivalent to that of a 6-
year-old is:
IQ = 100 x 6/5 = 120

Question 7

what is the current definition of IQ?

Answer 7

IQ = 100 + 15 x [(score - mean of age group) / standard deviation

Question 8

what is the mean and standard deviation of IQ?

Answer 8

mean = 100
SD = 15

Question 9

what are IQ tests potentially biased towards?

Answer 9

particular cultures

Question 10

What aspects of intelligence do IQ tests measure?

Answer 10

– Innate endowment?

– Acquired ability?

Question 11

what is the IQ of identical twins compared to non identical twins?

Answer 11

Identical twins raised apart tend to have IQs that
are more similar to each other than do nonidentical
twins raised together (Bouchard, 1983)

Question 12

what do IQ tests attempt to measure?

Answer 12

IQ tests attempt to measure general
intelligence that predicts scholastic
achievements

Question 13

what do IQ tests really measure?

Answer 13

– Is there a single intelligence factor?
– Are there multiple factors that are
independent of each other?

Question 14

what was spearman’s argument?

Answer 14

Spearman’s g
– Spearman (1904) argued that there is one
general intelligence factor

Question 15

what did Cattell (1963) propose in regards to IQ?

Answer 15

Cattell (1963) proposed a distinction
between:
– Crystallized intelligence
– Fluid intelligence

Question 16

what is crystallised intelligence?

Answer 16

• depends on acquired knowledge

Question 17

what is fluid intelligence?

Answer 17

• reflects the ability to reason or solve problems

Question 18

what is factor analysis?

Answer 18

A statistical method that tries to find a set
of factors that will account for performance
across a range of tests

Question 19

what are the factors that factor analysis tends to show?

Answer 19

– Reasoning
– Verbal
– Spatial

Question 20

what was Goldberg et al (1977) study on verbal ability?

Answer 20

– Participants performed three types of word
judgment tasks
– Identity judgment
bear bear
– Sound judgment
bear bare
– Meaning judgment
bear lion

Question 21

what is the major advantage for people who score high on psychometric tests of verbal ability?

Answer 21

A major advantage of people who score
high on psychometric tests of verbal
ability is the speed with which they
retrieve meanings of words

Question 22

What was Daneman and Carpenters (1980) study on verbal ability?

Answer 22

– Participants read or listened to a number of
unrelated sentences
– They were then asked to recall the last
word of each sentence
• Measuring their reading span or listening span
– These span measures strongly correlate
with performance on verbal ability tests

Question 23

what are people with high verbal ability able to do?

Answer 23

– Rapidly retrieve meanings of words
– Have large working memory for verbal
information

Question 24

what can people with high spatial ability do?

Answer 24

People with high spatial ability can
process spatial information rapidly
– e.g., mental rotation (Just & Carpenter, 1985)

Question 25

what will individual differences in reasoning, verbal and spatial abilities result from?

Answer 25

differences in:
– rates of processing
– working memory capacity