Chapter 10 - Intelligence Flashcards
What is the origin of intelligence testing?
In the late 1800s Parisian schools needed to objectively identify children in need of special classes. To solve this problem, Alfred Binet devised tests to determine if kids needed special education. The goal was to measure each child’s mental age.
How was the test modified for American students?
Lewis Terman, a Stanford professor, modified Binet’s tests for American schoolchildren, calling it the Stanford Binet intelligence test.
William Stern’s scoring of this test resulted in the idea of the intelligence quotient (IQ) - a comparison of mental to chronological age as a ratio or quotient.
How did William Stern find one’s IQ?
IQ = (mental age / chronological age) x 100 with a mean score of 100.
What do IQ scores mean?
Terman originally thought that intelligence was inherited, but later saw how scores could be affected by a person’s level of education and their familiarity of the language and culture used in the test.
According the Binet, a low score meant that one should study and develop through self-discipline. Terman originally thought that a low test score meant that one shouldn’t reproduce to pass on low intelligence genes to children.
What is the difference between an achievement test and an aptitude test?
An achievement test measures what you have already learning - school exams and driving tests.
Aptitude tests measure your ability to learn new skills.
The ACT, SAT, and GRE are supposed to predict the ability to do well in future academic work and has a correlation of +0.82.
What are the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) and the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC)?
They measure IQ and have sub-scores for verbal comprehension, processing speed, perceptual organization, and working memory.
What are the principles for test construction?
In order for intelligence and other psychological tests to generate results that are considered valid, they must be standardized and both reliable and valid.
What is standardization?
To evaluate performance, we need to compare an individual’s scores to others’ scores - defining the meaning of scores based on comparison with pretested scores.
In a graph, this will look like a normal curve.
What is reliability and validity?
A test or other measuring tool is reliable when it generates consistent results - split half reliability and test / retest reliability.
A test or measure has validity if it accurately measures what it is supposed to measure - content validity and predictive validity.
What are the genetic influences on intelligence?
Even if we agree that success in life is caused in part by some kind of intelligence, there is still a debate over the origin of that success - inborn intelligence vs. learned.
Twin studies - identical twins raised apart have a lower correlation in IQs than identical twins raised together - environmental effect. Fraternal twins raised together have a lower correlation than both - nature.
With age, the intelligence tests cores of adoptees look more and more like those of their biological parents- adopted children and their adopter parents are much less similar in verbal ability than other groups.
What are the environmental influences on intelligence?
The environment has more influence on intelligence under extreme conditions such as abuse, neglect, and extreme poverty. Malnutrition, sensory deprivation, and social isolation can depress cognitive development.
Notes about schooling and intelligence.
Schooling and intelligence interact and boost a child’s chance for success.
Study motivation and study skills and willingness to practice predict a college student’s academic achievement.
What is the fixed mindset regarding intelligence?
Intelligence is biologically set and unchanging.
What is the growth mindset regarding intelligence?
Intelligence is changeable - focus on human potential.
What accounts for group differences in test scores?
Gender differences, racial differences, and the impact of the environment.
Boys are more likely than girls to be at the high or low end of the intelligence test score spectrum.
Girls are generally better at locating objects, detecting emotions, and they tend to be more verbally fluent.
Boys tend to perform better on spatial ability tests (mentally manipulate 2D / 3D objects), reading maps, and geometry.
In overall math performance, boys and girls are very similar.
Group differences, including intelligence test score differences between so called racial groups can be caused by environmental factors and may not be distinctly genetic.
