13. Origins, Modification, and Stability of Intellectual Differences

Question 1

Behavioral genetics

Answer 1

The study of genetic effects on behavior and on complex psychological characteristics such as intelligence and personality

Question 2

Compensatory education programs

Answer 2

Programs designed to provide preschool children from low-income homes with the intellectual skills necessary to do well in school

Question 3

Continuity with stability

Answer 3

The expectation and research finding that there is stability of individual differences in cognitive performance over time when the developmental function underlying performance is continuous and quantitative in nature; see also stability; contrast with discontinuity with instability

Question 4

Cumulative deficit effect

Answer 4

The phenomenon by which multiple risks persisting over many years add up, resulting in children who display deficits in social, emotional, and cognitive functioning

Question 5

Discontinuity with instability

Answer 5

The expectation and research finding that there is instability of individual differences in cognitive performance over time when the developmental function underlying performance is discontinuous and qualitative in nature; contrast with continuity with stability

Question 6

Elementary cognitive tasks (ECTs)

Answer 6

Simple laboratory tests designed to measure subjects’ response times as they make presumably simple decisions; the low-level, or basic, processes measured by ECTs are presumed to be closely related to physiological functioning and thus primarily under the influence of endogenous (and inherited) factors

Question 7

Familial studies of intelligence

Answer 7

Studies in which some measure or measures of intelligence among people of a known genetic relationship are correlated; the extent to which performance varies as a function of genetic similarity is used as an indication of the heritability of that measure; see also heritability

Question 8

Heritability

Answer 8

The extent to which differences in any trait within a population can be attributed to inheritance

Question 9

HOME scale

Answer 9

The Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment scale, a scale developed by Bradley, Caldwell, and Elardo that provides a detailed analysis of parental behavior and characteristics of the home environment that are hypothesized to be associated with intelligence

Question 10

Nonshared environment

Answer 10

A home environment that is unique to an individual, not shared by a sibling, for instance

Question 11

Shared environment

Answer 11

A home environment shared by different family members

Question 12

Stability

Answer 12

In developmental psychology, the degree to which a person maintains over time the same rank order in comparison with peers for a particular characteristic

Question 13

Transactional model

Answer 13

A framework that views development as the continuous and bidirectional interchange between an active organism with a unique biological constitution and a changing environment

Question 14

Flynn effect

Answer 14

The systematic increase in IQ scores (from 5 to 9 points per decade) observed over the 20th century