Chapter 10: Intelligence Flashcards
Average IQ score?
100
Flynn effect
on average, IQ scores were rising even on tests which are supposed to be immune to cultural influences; controversial since it implies that on average, most people several generations back were quite unintelligent
Who created a lot of controversy when they published the results of a series of studies that seem to indicate that average scores on IQ tests were increasing over time?
James Flynn
The three main explanations to identify the precise cause(s) of the apparent change in IQ scores over time:
- Better nutrition and health care.
- Better education, including more abstract thinking and knowledge of (and need for) science (in the post-industrial society,
- Increasing complexity of our environment due to changing technology
*FLYNN EFFECT IS DECLINING/REVERSING
Francis Galton is whose cousin?
Charles Darwin
Francis Galton used what kinds of measures and methods? And for what reason?
empirical; for precise measurement
Galton conceptualized that one’s general cognitive ability (g) was the product of what things (2)?
heredity/physiological measures (eye colour, hair colour) (g) and measures of one’s sensitivities to perceptual differences (reaction time, body proportions, muscular power, and sensory acuity, weight discrimination, pitch sensitivity)
Was Galton successful to support his hypothesis?
No.
Who plotted the normal distribution/bell curve?
Galton
Although many biological features are _____, it is poor logic to assume that they are necessarily _____ (Galton’s conclusion)
normally distributed; biologically innate
Galton: nature or nurture
nature (intelligence formed a normal distribution, it was biologically innate, like a person’s height)
Binet: nature or nurture?
nurture; mental exercises can improve performance
Galton: nature or nurture?
nature
Who suggested Lewis Terman to incorporate the intelligence quotient (IQ)?
William Stern
What did Terman find after testing 905 children?
- distribution of scores was approximately normal
- the scores matched the assessment by teachers of each student’s intelligence, which suggested some validity to the test
What were Wechsler’s three tests?
the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS-III), the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC-III0), and the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence (WPPSI)
WAIS contains several figural tests known as ____, and what are they?
performance tests; designed to assess an individual’s ability to detect non-obvious patterns and use them to answer a question; standardized way of seeing how well people can “read between the lines.”
Who is the founder of eugenics?
Sir Francis Galton
When did eugenics become popular in the US?
early 1900s, preventing “less-desirable” people from having children and passing on their perceivably inferior DNA
What does eugenics prevent?
“less-desirable” people (depending on class or race) from having children and passing on their perceivably inferior DNA
Eugenics is based on _____
social Darwinism
Why is social Darwinism is now largely discredited?
misunderstood Darwin’s theory as claiming that the strong survive while the weak perish; dramatic oversimplification of Darwin’s theory
Terman’s recommendations on eugenics (2):
- believed that these people should be steered into lower status and more menial jobs
- people of low IQ should be sterilized without their consent to prevent them from reproducing and thereby increasing the number of individuals with low intelligence
Did Terman believe in eugenics?
Yes (white people had the highest intelligence).
Terman’s test results on eugenics:
non-white ethnicities inevitably came up with lower scores for the individuals he tested
Why did Terman get the results that he did?
- many did not understand English well or at all
- many of them had little knowledge of American culture, which also reduced their score on the test
Terman’s assumptions
- because IQ scores fell on a normal distribution, the scores were valid measures of innate intelligence
- one’s place in society was determined solely by intelligence, but in times of widespread and overt prejudice and discrimination
(failure to look at confounding variables)
Scores on various portions of intelligence tests likely reflected the test taker’s ______ as opposed to their ______
socioeconomic status; innate intelligence
Measured differences in scores across groups may also be due to systematic differences between the environments of test takers… (3)
- adequate nutrition, quality of attachment between parent and caregiver, and even reliable access to books in the home all correlate with measures of intelligence
- questionable whether tests such as Raven’s Progressive Matrices are not driven to some degree by features specific to the test
- consensus of scholars in evolutionary biology and anthropology that racial distinctions fail because “they are not genetically distinct, are not reliably measured, and are not scientifically meaningful”
Researchers believe that several characteristics that correlate with modern measures of intelligence were shared by other species of Homo…
meaning some of these abilities are older than humans
stereotype threat
refers to the risk of confirming negative expectations about one’s social group
Two important intervening variables that are found between one’s intelligence and one’s performance on intelligence test:
- stereotype threat
- how we conceptualize intelligence
role of stereotype threat
- feel pressure to not provide evidence supporting negative stereotypes of the group to which they belong
- increases their anxiety while taking the test and divides their attention from the task at hand; consequently degrading performance
If you think your intelligence is fixed..
you would likely perceive personal failures as the result of your lower intelligence; trying seems pointless
If you think your intelligence is malleable…
failure is not so devastating because it simply indicates that more effort is needed or different strategies are needed
mental structure of representations, attitudes, and interpretations that affects how one evaluates information and thereby responds to situations
mindset
Can mindset have an impact on performance?
Yes.
Is it likely that your attitude and manner of identification with your intelligence actually changes your intelligence?
No; more likely that stereotype threat and mindset are intervening